I am not sure then why are we sending those Asam rebels to India without any
extradition treaty. Are are subservient to India and their slaves?

http://www.bdnews24.com/details.php?cid=2&id=146560&hb=4

---
Kolkata, Nov 9 (bdnews24.com)--Indira Gandhi was voted out of power in 1977,
just when India's external intelligence organisation, R&AW, was preparing to
substantially step up its backing for the Shanti Bahini, says Subir Bhaumik in
his just-released book "Troubled Periphery:Crisis of India's Northeast".

Bhaumik, a journalist and academic researcher for three decades, has provided
graphic details of the R&AW's involvement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and
Burma's Kachin Hills in his latest book. But he makes it clear the "orders came
right from the top" and were not operations generated by the agency.

"The immediate provocation for the Indian sponsorship of the Shanti Bahini
guerrillas .. was the military coup that killed Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and many
members of his family. To Indira gandhi, this coup was a political defiance of
India .

My relative in North America when applied for government jobs had to indicate
whether he is involved in any group activities or so. He has never been, even
scared to become a blogger.  I am not contesting if he was an active blogger or
engaged in some kind of social or political activities, his selection gets
affected.  But so far he is confirmed as a successful candidate in at least 5 to
7 positions but many months passed no offer come through. He may or may not
receive the offer from the government offices, where, for one instance, 1200
people applied for 8 positions including Phd. Holders.
Like in his current office where he always find himself in difficulties getting 
promoted in comparison with the white new comers and ‘brown nosers’. Whole
world accepted the stark color discrimination in American society in silence and
as a norm, but we from the distressed communities always find ourselves in hot
soup for our bad records, when total frame work of our system is under severe
constraint of resources and wisdom, yet we have no respite from these
communities or their bosses.

We are living in a dysfunctional world where norms and rules dictated by few in
their own terms. Though it pains me most but learned to live with it.

Recently,  bit perplexed observing the attitude of the cyber warriors from BD
Diaspora.
As I have noticed that moment  Bangals land into their dream land, with no time
they become ‘heterosexual’, characterized themselves as democrat, humanist
or feminist and so on; and start attacking BD society or politics. If it was for
general good for the general mass that is fair enough with the new found wealth
and resources. But it is not, taking shelter under the same crony politics
bashing only the opponents or spreading a ghetto type of thinking.

When majority of them presenting as a proponent of free speech and human right
ideal, albeit deep inside a chemistry of little or no change at work. Strange!
Not being in BD for years, amassed all wealth in their dream land yet they
pretend that they belong there. Referring to  their claim of origin or root,
launch hate campaign against either our religion (that is the most common) our
values or our traditional culture, weaknesses and they perpetrate these only to
support their new saviors and bosses at their new home or those at ancestral
home that they left forever.

It appears all the actions only as retribution  and to repudiate our hard and
painful struggle against all odds that is being perpetrated by our politicians
on us, most of which in connivance with their new masters. Impeccably they never
could speak out against their bosses, even when they bomb and burn, bomb and
destroy or kill habitat after habitat, vegetation, natural or man made systems,
wedding parties, museums, schools, they are busy demanding punishment for crimes
committed by earlier generation or by parties they hate at their ancestral home.

All these only reflect nothing but their ill induced hate and divide philosophy.
They become part of the devil whose peace and security is always breached by the
weak communities around the globe and a great number of BD diaspora stand and
fight alongside them.

My relative did not join any block or group foreseeing that may help him not to
get a good job or being muslim can land into serious type of framing, on the
other hand these people join together to serve their master’s interests with
total devotion and snobbish attitude.

This devotion even mean - when I call him he will say please can I call you back
during my lunch break. Same thing happens when I call my nephew in Australia,
‘mama’ can I call you back in the evening – in a low voice. They are
totally embedded in those societies.

My earnest urge to only those, - if you can not help leave us alone, otherwise
come forward with your renewed knowledge and wealth and share the pain of the
majorities with a human characteristics. It also pain us to see our former
brothers and sisters putting us down.



       Get your new Email address!
Grab the Email name you've always wanted before someone else does!
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-----Forwarded Message-----
From:
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Londonstani is a correspondent for the CNAS blog "abu muqawwama" and has been sending in some great reports from Pakistan> His latest is at:   http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/11/pakistan-dispatch-blame-game.html#comments   Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS. Pakistan Dispatch: The blame game November 4, 2009 | Posted by Londonstani - 8:20am | 8 Comments A few people have been wondering about what Pakistanis make of the recent attacks that have taken place all around the north of the country. Londonstani has been travelling around the region for the past couple of weeks, and unsurprisingly the most recent violence, mainly aimed at civilians, has been a hot topic of conversation. People's opinions are sometimes bewildering, insightful, thought provoking and/or frustrating but they are by no means monolithic. And since it's rare to hear the views of the average Pakistani citizen in daily news reports.. at least anything more than a 5 second sound bite... Abu Muqawama brings them to you here, in technicolour. Meet Shahid Aslam, from the Punjab-Kashmir border "I know the kind of people who volunteer to fight for the sake of God. They aren't the kind of people who blow up women and children in mosques. I grew up with people who went to fight in Indian Occupied Kashmir and they were good God-conscious people. The people who blow themselves up in market places are not people of God. They are people with no God. They are just people who want to kill and murder. "But I tell you one thing, whoever is doing this is Pakistani. That's for sure. They might not be doing the right thing, but they aren't coming over the border from India.  Whoever is paying them and convincing them to do this might well be from abroad, but those people are finding recruits out here. I blame the mullahs to some extent. When Pakistan was fighting India, the mullahs were on hand to say that it's OK to go to certain death when you have no other option. Now they are saying suicide operations are wrong. It's confusing for simple young people. But more than that, it makes the population even more convinced that the mullahs who are working in official circles are 'bought mullahs' whatever they are told to say, they say. So people have now decided not to listen to them. "In this area, we all think the government is paid for by the Americans. This isn't a Pakistani government. It's a wing of the American government. They do what the Americans want and not what we want. I remember when things were a bit better. I remember learning about what Pakistan could be. What our hopes were. But the young people now don't see that. They just see a government that helps the Americans fight in Afghanistan while it robs us. "It doesn't matter what government we have. We (Pakistan's average citizen) still lose. Every government we have will go towards the Americans because the Americans give them money. If they didn't get money from the Americans, they would just rob us more." Meet Mehboob Sherif, from southern Punjab "The Indians are doing to us what we did to them. It makes me laugh when I read the newspapers. I see articles about fighting in Kashmir where we call the gunmen in Indian "fighters" and in the next article about what is happening in Pakistan, we call the same people "militants" or "terrorists" because they are fighting us! That says it all really doesn't it? Do we like these people or not? We can't like them if they are on that side of the border and not like them when they are on this side. That just doesn't work. "Pakistan is in a rough neighbourhood. We have a new world power on one side, a little below that we have a sworn enemy that is quickly becoming powerful. On the other side the Americans are in Afghanistan. While at the same time, they seem to be making trouble here. And then there's Russia. Pakistan played a pretty large part in the beating they got in Afghanistan. I'm sure their hand is behind some of what is happening because they want some revenge. "Big city people only talk about what happens in Islamabad and Lahore. We have been suffering for years. There are smaller bombs everywhere in Punjab. If it's not the Taliban then it's shia trying to kill sunni and the other way around. People are getting caught in the middle like always and paying the price. "In my village, people have died in attacks that don't even make the newspapers. We also have people getting taken away in kidnappings. Then, once the police get involved, then its even worse because they just start arresting people all over the place and you don't know where that person is or when they will come back to their families." Meet Abdul Malik, from the Punjab-NWFP border area "No real Muslim would kill civilians and the Taliban have said they don't target civilians. But what I'm saying is that the Taliban who do this are not Muslims. "We definitely have a huge extremism problem. And those extremists are not Muslims. They are young people who have been led astray. Maybe some of them just want to fight and they say its in the name of Islam because it's better than saying 'I like to fight and kill'. If they did that the government would bomb them to hell and no one would care. You can cover many sins in the name of Islam. "It's a real tragedy because religion is supposed to make people better. The Taliban are blowing up shrines and talking about killing people who go to them. Is this the act of proper Muslims? No way. "This extremism problem is spreading everywhere. People used to be interested in poetry, in peace and in doing good works now its all about banning television and killing people who play cards, people who smoke hookah, people who sit in tea houses. The sad thing is that there are people saying this is Islam, and there are more and more people believing it." Conclusion: In Londonstani's view, people have a really hard time accepting that people who are similar to them could take something they see as a positive force and use it to justify killing innocent people. The far easier explanation is that other people are to blame and they are trying to discredit your shared religion/culture etc. This is true not only for Pakistanis but for other Muslims and applies equally to people in the UK and US who have a hard time imagining "Our Boys" committing war crimes. It's easier to accept that criminality is to blame for death and destruction because criminality is an aberration of normal society anyway, but its harder to accept when it looks like the destruction is supposed to be an authentic growth out of your own society, when you "know" it's not an authentic expression of your society. At the moment, people just want the attacks to stop. Questions of who is to ultimately blame have pushed to the back of people's minds. It looks like a small window off opportunity when Pakistani public opinion and Western understanding is on the same page. However, as soon as the immediate threat has receded, opinion polls suggest the mistrust will be back with a vengeance. Figures in the newspapers (that arent to hand now) show that way over 50 percent of Pakistanis see America as the country's biggest threat, 17 percent see India as the biggest threat and just under 10 percent put the Taliban in that position. It has to be said, from the point of view of your average citizen, like the good people above who gave me some of their time, there was no Taliban in Pakistan when there was no America in Afghanistan. And in much the same way that Americans and Europeans can say, "Just leave them to kill each other", Pakistanis can say, "al Qaeda attacking America is not our problem. America pissed them off not us." But then your average Pakistani citizen knows or cares little about how successive Pakistani militaries were building up the capacity of extremists to fight wars for them on the cheap. And if they did, they probably wouldn't give much thought to the fact that such a relationship is ultimately not sustainable, because at some point the two parties' interest will diverge. If it wasn't the "war on terror" that made the Pakistani government "infidel" in the eyes of the Lashkars, Sipahes and Jamaats, it would have been something else. In terms of WTF is going on... Londonstani has spent time in a couple of places where conflict is brewing or escalating and has found that such situations have a logic and momentum of their own. In such circumstance, societies rapidly move in directions that locals struggle to comprehend and actors come to the stage with motivations and outlooks that the majority of the population don't even recognise. In that sense, many Pakistanis might think they "know" their fellow countrymen, but does a southern Punjabi really know where a tribesman is coming from? And in say five years, would they understand the motivation of a 17-year-old suicide bomber who equates the word Pakistan with venal officials and military action that killed his family and friends? And right now, how much would a Karachi trader who sells knock off TVs from China really understand what's going through the head of a kid from a dirt poor family who's been in a madrassa where he was taught relentlessly that only when the country adheres to "pure Islam" will God see fit to bring social justice to the land? And like everything else, in essence that's a situation as true in Pakistan as it elswhere, as Londonstani recently found out when he worked on a documentary based around a white working class sink estate in England and found that many viewers from middle class backgrounds struggled to accept what they saw could happen in their country. Pakistan, attacks Email this page Printer-friendly version 8 comments Comment by MikeF on November 4, 2009 - 12:00pm Londonstani, Thank you for your excellent reporting. I'm a big believer that the right amount of personal antecdotes and narratives tied into qualitative/quantitative analysis and multiple case studies best help accurately define a problem set. Your reporting is providing a piece to this puzzle- well done. I thought you summed this up well, "Londonstani has spent time in a couple of places where conflict is brewing or escalating and has found that such situations have a logic and momentum of their own." From an initial western perspective, these problems can look muddled and irrational; however, I found that almost every conflict is rational on the lowest levels- even the suidide bomber. Many motivators for conflict can be traced back to emotion and the pursuit of power/wealth. Stay safe and keep the dispatches flowing. Mike Comment by Mike U on November 4, 2009 - 1:46pm I found that this para in your conclusion merited further comment: "It has to be said, from the point of view of your average citizen, like the good people above who gave me some of their time, there was no Taliban in Pakistan when there was no America in Afghanistan. And in much the same way that Americans and Europeans can say, "Just leave them to kill each other", Pakistanis can say, "al Qaeda attacking America is not our problem. America pissed them off not us." But then your average Pakistani citizen knows or cares little about how successive Pakistani militaries were building up the capacity of extremists to fight wars for them on the cheap. And if they did, they probably wouldn't give much thought to the fact that such a relationship is ultimately not sustainable, because at some point the two parties' interest will diverge. If it wasn't the "war on terror" that made the Pakistani government "infidel" in the eyes of the Lashkars, Sipahes and Jamaats, it would have been something else." I think the Pakistanis would remind you that the Lashkars, Sipahes, and Jamaats are not the actors targeting Pakistan’s cities today. That would be the TTP and its component groups based in the FATA and NWFP. Those elements are more closely related to the Haqqani’s than to the sectarian or Indian focused groups. This is a very important point. While I am not in denial about indicators that India focused groups are increasingly collaborating with the FATA based groups they are by no means the main effort. The groups targeting the Pak state are those that think it is enabling U.S. attacks against them. I don't mean to imply that the U.S. shouldn't target these groups, we should when they threaten our interests, but we should not confuse the logic behind their strategy. Also, you note that the average citizen cares little about that the PakMil has used these groups as proxies. Pakistan has created many proxy groups over the years but history tells us that not all are unsustainable across reasonable time horizons (10-20 years is all one can expect a politican to see - and that's best case). If you buy my premise, that those that attack the government today are based in the FATA, then it is worth noting that those groups (Haqqani’s, Hekmetyar’s, etc….)were created and financed not only by the Pak Mil and Saudi’s but by us as well. The average Pakistani does now this although admittedly they've probably added an exaggerated and conspiratorial twist to this understanding. Comment by Paul on November 4, 2009 - 3:27pm Thank you for your reporting. Putting faces and a bit of background together with the attitudes being expressed makes reading about them much more personal. It certainly makes it easier to understand how people that we don’t know can come to conclusions that seem completely outlandish to us. Please keep posting reports. Comment by Thomas on November 4, 2009 - 4:11pm Pictorial Profile of Hakimullah Mehsud Comment by omar on November 4, 2009 - 4:45pm Great Job! I would only add one more thing: Your psychoanalysis of the "common man's" confusions may be correct, but dont underestimate the layer of confusion ADDED ON by army psyops to whatever was inevitable and expected in ANY human society. The army has been running the country in one form or the other since 1953, they have a lot of leverage in the media (much of it unrecognizable to the casual observer). They have a particular interest in trying to project foreigners/Indians/CIA/Jews as the cause of all our troubles. And that interest may not even be primarily ideological (meaning it may not be because the army is all jihadi). Some of the motivation may be more pragmatic: The army high command may be willing to change course on the jihadi issue and even kill its own creations but they are NOT willing to sit back and let bloody civilians run the country as they see fit. If they accept responsibility for this mess it wont take long for ordinary people to realize that the "corrupt civilians" have done much less damage to the country than the super-efficient smartly dressed military patriots, which means the bloody civilians may be giving orders to generals one day..... I know this sounds too conspiratorial (maybe it is, maybe some bloody civilians have been blaming the army so long, they cannot think any other way), but I suspect that the high command is pretty shrewd when it comes to their interests in the power game. Bottom line: if the army wanted, it could actually demonize these talibans and terrorists much more. The problem is, they want them demonized, but not to the point where people start asking questions about "strategic depth"....Of course, they may actually believe their own propaganda. Its very easy to believe what is in the interest of your pocketbook.. Comment by Deus Ex on November 4, 2009 - 5:38pm Londonstani, I consider this piece to be the best one you have written. As some of you may know, I hold very harsh views towards Islam, and it isn't for personal religious reasons for I have no religion to speak of. Your piece was able to shed great light upon the situation, and I felt that it helped to broaden my views (as cliched as that might sound). The piece helps lessen my harsh views, especially when you discuss the manifold ways in which a person might be driven to an act like suicide bombing (the madrassa bit in the last paragraph was especially interesting). Good stuff, keep it up. Btw, the general impression I get as a pretty well-read American is that Pakistan is negligent in meeting the needs of America. Pakistan has pretty much failed to sufficiently confront the Taliban and other radical elements until the recent military effort, which may or may not prove to be cursory/superficial/ineffective. I found it highly interesting that so many Pakistanis found their own country to be a servant of America, when a person view of history has lead me to believe that Pakistan has only put on a show of helping the US, given the billions of dollars in aid that have been spent. Comment by Visitor on November 4, 2009 - 5:57pm Londonastani's right, no one likes admitting how dysfunctional their communities/ kinsfolk can be. I saw a similar documentary recently, although the rascist kids featured in this particular documentary werent blowing up markets, they were an embarrasment to their community: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Southmead-police-residents-hit-B... Comment by Visitor on November 4, 2009 - 6:25pm Thanks for the post. But I would like to echo Steve Coll, "Surely an adorable zoo animal gave birth somewhere, people."

Annals of National Security

Defending the Arsenal - In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?

by Seymour M. Hersh

November 16, 2009

New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/16/091116fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

America’s dealings with Pakistan may be increasing the risk of radicalization.

Taliban In the tumultuous days leading up to the Pakistan Army’s ground offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which began on October 17th, the Pakistani Taliban attacked what should have been some of the country’s best-guarded targets. In the most brazen strike, ten gunmen penetrated the Army’s main headquarters, in Rawalpindi, instigating a twenty-two-hour standoff that left twenty-three dead and the military thoroughly embarrassed. The terrorists had been dressed in Army uniforms. There were also attacks on police installations in Peshawar and Lahore, and, once the offensive began, an Army general was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles on the streets of Islamabad, the capital. The assassins clearly had advance knowledge of the general’s route, indicating that they had contacts and allies inside the security forces.

Pakistan has been a nuclear power for two decades, and has an estimated eighty to a hundred warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe? Asked this question the day after the Rawalpindi raid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and the military’s control over nuclear weapons.” Clinton—whose own visit to Pakistan, two weeks later, would be disrupted by more terrorist bombs—added that, despite the attacks by the Taliban, “we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.”

Clinton’s words sounded reassuring, and several current and former officials also said in interviews that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal. But the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only, or even the greatest, concern. The principal fear is mutiny—that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.

On April 29th, President Obama was asked at a news conference whether he could reassure the American people that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could be kept away from terrorists. Obama’s answer remains the clearest delineation of the Administration’s public posture. He was, he said, “gravely concerned” about the fragility of the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Their biggest threat right now comes internally,” Obama said. “We have huge . . . national-security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.” The United States, he said, could “make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure—primarily, initially, because the Pakistan Army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons’ falling into the wrong hands.”

The questioner, Chuck Todd, of NBC, began asking whether the American military could, if necessary, move in and secure Pakistan’s bombs. Obama did not let Todd finish. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort,” he said. “I feel confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands. O.K.?”

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.” Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will fuck us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”

The ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama’s so-called Af-Pak policy, which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan. I was told that the understandings on nuclear coöperation benefitted from the increasingly close relationship between Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani, his counterpart, although the C.I.A. and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have also been involved. (All three departments declined to comment for this article. The national-security council and the C.I.A. denied that there were any agreements in place.)

In response to a series of questions, Admiral Mullen acknowledged that he and Kayani were, in his spokesman’s words, “very close.” The spokesman said that Mullen is deeply involved in day-to-day Pakistani developments and “is almost an action officer for all things Pakistan.” But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding about the availability of American forces in case of mutiny or a terrorist threat to a nuclear facility. “To my knowledge, we have no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment,” Mullen said through his spokesman. The spokesman added that Mullen had not seen any evidence of growing fundamentalism inside the Pakistani military. In a news conference on May 4th, however, Mullen responded to a query about growing radicalism in Pakistan by saying that “what has clearly happened over the [past] twelve months is the continual decline, gradual decline, in security.” The Admiral also spoke openly about the increased coöperation on nuclear security between the United States and Pakistan: “I know what we’ve done over the last three years, specifically to both invest, assist, and I’ve watched them improve their security fairly dramatically. . . . I’ve looked at this, you know, as hard as I can, over a period of time.” Seventeen days later, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “We have invested a significant amount of resources through the Department of Energy in the last several years” to help Pakistan improve the controls on its arsenal. “They still have to improve them,” he said.

In interviews in Pakistan, I obtained confirmation that there were continuing conversations with the United States on nuclear-security plans—as well as evidence that the Pakistani leadership put much less weight on them than the Americans did. In some cases, Pakistani officials spoke of the talks principally as a means of placating anxious American politicians. “You needed it,” a senior Pakistani official, who said that he had been briefed on the nuclear issue, told me. His tone was caustic. “We have twenty thousand people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail.” The official added, “The Americans are saying, ‘We want to help protect your weapons.’ We say, ‘Fine. Tell us what you can do for us.’ It’s part of a quid pro quo. You say, also, ‘Come clean on the nuclear program and we’ll insure that India doesn’t put pressure on it.’ So we say, ‘O.K.’ ”

But, the Pakistani official said, “both sides are lying to each other.” The information that the Pakistanis handed over was not as complete as the Americans believed. “We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know,” he said. The Americans didn’t realize that Pakistan would never cede control of its arsenal: “If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”

High-level coöperation between Islamabad and Washington on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal began at least eight years ago. Former President Musharraf, when I interviewed him in London recently, acknowledged that his government had held extensive discussions with the Bush Administration after the September 11th attacks, and had given State Department nonproliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures. Musharraf also confirmed that Pakistan had constructed a huge tunnel system for the transport and storage of nuclear weaponry. “The tunnels are so deep that a nuclear attack will not touch them,” Musharraf told me, with obvious pride. The tunnels would make it impossible for the American intelligence community—“Big Uncle,” as a Pakistani nuclear-weapons expert called it—to monitor the movements of nuclear components by satellite.

Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to insure that no one can launch a warhead—in the heat of a showdown with India, for example—without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s ten-member National Command Authority, with the chairman—by statute, President Zardari—casting the deciding vote.

But the safeguards meant to keep a confrontation with India from escalating too quickly could make the arsenal more vulnerable to terrorists. Nuclear-security experts have war-gamed the process and concluded that the triggers and other elements are most exposed when they are being moved and reassembled—at those moments there would be fewer barriers between an outside group and the bomb. A consultant to the intelligence community said that in one war-gamed scenario disaffected members of the Pakistani military could instigate a terrorist attack inside India, and that the ensuing crisis would give them “a chance to pick up bombs and triggers—in the name of protecting the assets from extremists.”

The triggers are a key element in American contingency plans. An American former senior intelligence official said that a team that has trained for years to remove or dismantle parts of the Pakistani arsenal has now been augmented by a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the élite counterterrorism group. He added that the unit, which had earlier focussed on the warheads’ cores, has begun to concentrate on evacuating the triggers, which have no radioactive material and are thus much easier to handle.

“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “We saw their target list and their mobilization plans. We got their security plans, so we could augment them in case of a breach of security,” he said. “We’re there to help the Pakistanis, but we’re also there to extend our own axis of security to their nuclear stockpile.” The detailed American planning even includes an estimate of how many nuclear triggers could be placed inside a C-17 cargo plane, the former official said, and where the triggers could be sequestered. Admiral Mullen, asked about increased American insight into the arsenal, said, through his spokesman, “I am not aware of our receipt of any such information.” (A senior military officer added that the information, if it had been conveyed, would most likely “have gone to another government agency.”)

A spokesman for the Pakistani military said, in an official denial, “Pakistan neither needs any American unit for enhancing the security for its arsenal nor would accept it.” The spokesman added that the Pakistani military “has been providing protection to U.S. troops in a situation of crisis”—a reference to Pakistan’s role in the war on terror—“and hence is quite capable to deal with any untoward situation.”

Early this summer, a consultant to the Department of Defense said, a highly classified military and civil-emergency response team was put on alert after receiving an urgent report from American intelligence officials indicating that a Pakistani nuclear component had gone astray. The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and nonproliferation experts from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the F.B.I., and the D.O.E., is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland, within four hours of an alert. When the report turned out to be a false alarm, the mission was aborted, the consultant said. By the time the team got the message, it was already in Dubai.

In an actual crisis, would the Pakistanis give an American team direct access to their arsenal? An adviser to the Pentagon on counterinsurgency said that some analysts suspected that the Pakistani military had taken steps to move elements of the nuclear arsenal “out of the count”—to shift them to a storage facility known only to a very few—as a hedge against mutiny or an American or Indian effort to seize them. “If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.

“Let me say this about our nuclear deterrent,” President Zardari told me, when asked about any recent understandings between Pakistan and the United States. “We give comfort to each other, and the comfort level is good, because everybody respects everybody’s integrity. We’re all big boys.”

Zardari and I met twice, first in his office, in the grand but isolated Presidential compound in Islamabad, and then, a few days later, alone over dinner in his personal quarters. Zardari, who became President after the assassination, in December, 2007, of his charismatic wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, spent nearly eleven years in jail on corruption charges. He is widely known in Pakistan as Mr. Ten Per Cent, a reference to the commissions he allegedly took on government contracts when Bhutto was in power, and is seen by many Pakistanis as little more than a crook who has grown too close to America; his approval ratings are in the teens. He is chatty but guarded, proud but defensive, and, like many Pakistanis, convinced that the United States will always favor India. Over dinner, he spoke of his suspicions regarding his wife’s death. He said that, despite rumors to the contrary, he would complete his five-year term.

Zardari spoke with derision about what he depicted as America’s obsession with the vulnerability of his nation’s nuclear arsenal. “In your country, you feel that you have to hold the fort for us,” he said. “The American people want a lot of answers for the errors of the past, and it’s very easy to spread fear. Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban. They’re British-trained. Why would they slip up on nuclear security? A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan. It’s a fear being spread by the few who seek to scare the many.”

Zardari offered some advice to Barack Obama: instead of fretting about nuclear security in Pakistan, his Administration should deal with the military disparity between Pakistan and India, which has a much larger army. “You should help us get conventional weapons,” he said. “It’s a balance-of-power issue.”

In May, Zardari, at the urging of the United States, approved a major offensive against the Taliban, sending thirty thousand troops into the Swat Valley, which lies a hundred miles northwest of Islamabad. “The enemy that we were fighting in Swat was made up of twenty per cent thieves and thugs and eighty per cent with the same mind-set as the Taliban,” Zardari said. He depicted the operation as a complete success, but added that his government was not “ready” to kill all the Taliban. His long-term solution, Zardari said, was to provide new business opportunities in Swat and turn the Taliban into entrepreneurs. “Money is the best incentive,” he said. “They can be rented.”

Zardari’s view of the Swat offensive was striking, given that many Pakistanis had been angered by the excessive use of force and the ensuing refugee crisis. The lives of about two million people were torn apart, and, during a summer in which temperatures soared to a hundred and twenty degrees, hundreds of thousands of civilians were crowded into government-run tent cities. Idris Khattak, a former student radical who now works with Amnesty International, said in Peshawar that residents had described nights of heavy, indiscriminate bombing and shelling, followed in the morning by Army sweeps. The villagers, and not the Taliban, had been hit the hardest. “People told us that the bombing the night before was a signal for the Taliban to get out,” he said.

Zardari did not dispute that there were difficulties in the refugee camps—the heat, the lack of facilities. But he insisted that the fault lay with the civilians, who, he said, had been far too tolerant of the Taliban. The suffering could serve a useful purpose: after a summer in the tents, the citizens of Swat might have learned a lesson and would not “let the Taliban back into their cities.”

Rahimullah Yusufzai, an eminent Pakistani journalist, who has twice interviewed Osama bin Laden, had a different explanation for the conditions that led to the offensive. “The Taliban were initially trying to win public support in Swat by delivering justice and peace,” Yusufzai said. “But when they got into power they went crazy and became brutal. Many are from the lowest ranks of society, and they began killing and terrorizing their opponents. The people were afraid.”

The turmoil did not end with the Army’s invasion. “Most of the people who were in the refugee camps told us that the Army was equally bad. There was so much killing,” Yusufzai said. The government had placed limits on reporters who tried to enter the Swat Valley during the attack, but afterward Yusufzai and his colleagues were able to interview officers. “They told us they hated what they were doing—‘We were trained to fight Indians.’ ” But that changed when they sustained heavy losses, especially of junior officers. “They were killing everybody after their colleagues were killed—just like the Americans with their Predator missiles,” Yusufzai said. “What the Army did not understand, and what the Americans don’t understand, is that by demolishing the house of a suspected Taliban or their supporters you are making an enemy of the whole family.” What looked like a tactical victory could turn out to be a strategic failure.

The Obama Administration has had difficulty coming to terms with how unhappy many Pakistanis are with the United States. Secretary of State Clinton, during her three-day “good-will visit” to Pakistan, late last month, seemed taken aback by the angry and, at times, provocative criticism of American policies that dominated many of her public appearances, and responded defensively.

Last year, the Washington Times ran an article about the Pressler Amendment, a 1985 law cutting off most military aid to Pakistan as long as it continued its nuclear program. The measure didn’t stop Pakistan from getting the bomb, or from buying certain weapons, but it did reduce the number of Pakistani officers who were permitted to train with American units. The article quoted Major General John Custer as saying, “The older military leaders love us. They understand American culture and they know we are not the enemy.” The General’s assessment provoked a barrage of e-mail among American officers with experience in Pakistan, and a former member of a Special Forces unit provided me with copies. “The fact that a two-star would make a statement [like] that . . . is at best naïve and actually pure bullshit,” a senior Special Forces officer on duty in Pakistan wrote. He went on:

I have met and interacted with the entire military staff from General Kayani on down and all the general officers on their joint staff and in all the services, and I haven’t spoken to one that “loves us”—whatever that means. In fact, I have read most of the TS [top secret] assessments of all their General Officers and I haven’t read one that comes close to their “loving” us. They play us for everything they can get, and we trip over ourselves trying to give them everything they ask for, and cannot pay for.

Some military men who know Pakistan well believe that, whatever the officer corps’s personal views, the Pakistan Army remains reliable. “They cannot be described as pro-American, but this doesn’t mean they don’t know which side their bread is buttered on,” Brian Cloughley, who served six years as Australia’s defense attaché to Pakistan and is now a contributor to Jane’s Sentinel, told me. “The chance of mutiny is slim. Were this to happen, there would be the most severe reaction” by special security units in the Pakistani military, Cloughley said. “But worry feeds irrationality, and the international consequences could be dire.”

The recollections of Bush Administration officials who dealt with Pakistan in the first round of nuclear consultations after September 11th do not inspire confidence. The Americans’ main contact was Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, the head of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, the agency that is responsible for nuclear strategy and operations and for the physical security of the weapons complex. At first, a former high-level Bush Administration official told me, Kidwai was reassuring; his professionalism increased their faith in the soundness of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and its fail-safe procedures. The Army was controlled by Punjabis who, the Americans thought, “did not put up with Pashtuns,” as the former Bush Administration official put it. (The Taliban are mostly Pashtun.) But by the time the official left, at the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term, he had a much darker assessment: “They don’t trust us and they will not tell you the truth.”

No American, for example, was permitted access to A. Q. Khan, the metallurgist and so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, who traded crucial nuclear-weapons components on the international black market. Musharraf placed him under house arrest in early 2004, claiming to have been shocked to learn of Khan’s dealings. At the time, it was widely understood that those activities had been sanctioned by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.). Khan was freed in February, although there are restrictions on his travel. (In an interview last year, Kidwai told David Sanger, for his book “The Inheritance,” that “our security systems are foolproof,” thanks to technical controls; Sanger noted that Bush Administration officials were “not as confident in private as they sound in public.”)

A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others—perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

The former State Department official cited the large Pakistan Air Force base outside Sargodha, west of Lahore, where many of Pakistan’s nuclear-capable F-16s are thought to be stationed. “Is there a nuke ready to go at Sargodha?” the former official asked. “If there is, and Sargodha is the size of Andrews Air Force Base, would we know where to go? Are the warheads stored in Bunker X?” Ignorance could be dangerous. “If our people don’t know where to go and we suddenly show up at a base, there will be a lot of people shooting at them,” he said. “And even if the Pakistanis may have told us that the triggers will be at Bunker X, is it true?”

In the July/August issue of Arms Control Today, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who recently retired after three years as the Department of Energy’s director of intelligence and counter-intelligence, preceded by two decades at the C.I.A., wrote vividly about the “lethal proximity between terrorists, extremists, and nuclear weapons insiders” in Pakistan. “Insiders have facilitated terrorist attacks. Suicide bombings have occurred at air force bases that reportedly serve as nuclear weapons storage sites. It is difficult to ignore such trends,” Mowatt-Larssen wrote. “Purely in actuarial terms, there is a strong possibility that bad apples in the nuclear establishment are willing to cooperate with outsiders for personal gain or out of sympathy for their cause. Nowhere in the world is this threat greater than in Pakistan. . . . Anything that helps upgrade Pakistan’s nuclear security is an investment” in America’s security.

Leslie H. Gelb, a president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “I don’t think there’s any kind of an agreement we can count on. The Pakistanis have learned how to deal with us, and they understand that if they don’t tell us what we want to hear we’ll cut off their goodies.” Gelb added, “In all these years, the C.I.A. never built up assets, but it talks as if there were ‘access.’ I don’t know if Obama understands that the Agency doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

The former high-level Bush Administration official was just as blunt. “If a Pakistani general is talking to you about nuclear issues, and his lips are moving, he’s lying,” he said. “The Pakistanis wouldn’t share their secrets with anybody, and certainly not with a country that, from their point of view, used them like a Dixie cup and then threw them away.”

Sultan Amir Tarar, known to many as Colonel Imam, is the archetype of the disillusioned Pakistani officer. Tarar spent eighteen years with the I.S.I. in Afghanistan, most of them as an undercover operative. In the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union, in the eighties, he worked closely with C.I.A. agents, and liked the experience. “They were honest and thoughtful and provided the finest equipment,” Tarar said during an interview in Rawalpindi. He spoke with pride of shaking hands with Robert Gates in Afghanistan in 1985. Gates, now the Secretary of Defense, was then a senior C.I.A. official. “I’ve heard all about you,” Gates said, according to Tarar. “Good or bad?” “Oh, my. All good,” Gates replied. Tarar’s view changed after the Russians withdrew and, in his opinion, “the Americans abandoned us.” When I asked if he’d seen “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the movie depicting that abandonment and a Texas congressman’s futile efforts to change the policy, Tarar laughed and said, “I’ve seen Charlie Wilson. I didn’t need to see the movie.”

Tarar, who retired in 1995 and has a son in the Army, believed—as did many Pakistani military men—that the American campaign to draw Pakistan deeper into the war against the Taliban would backfire. “The Americans are trying to rent out their war to us,” he said. If the Obama Administration persists, “there will be an uprising here, and this corrupt government will collapse. Every Pakistani will then be his own nuclear bomb—a suicide bomber,” Tarar said. “The longer the war goes on, the longer it will spill over in the tribal territories, and it will lead to a revolutionary stage. People there will flee to the big cities like Lahore and Islamabad.”

Tarar believed that the Obama Administration had to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban, even if that meant direct talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Tarar knew Mullah Omar well. “Omar trained as a young man in my camp in 1985,” he told me. “He was physically fit and mission-oriented—a very honest man who was a practicing Muslim. Nothing beyond that. He was a Talib—a student, and not a mullah. But people respected him. Today, among all the Afghan leaders, Omar has the biggest audience, and this is the right time for you to talk to him.”

Speaking to Tarar and other officers gave a glimpse of the acrimony at the top of the Pakistani government, which has complicated the nuclear equation. Tarar spoke bitterly about the position that General Kayani found himself in, carrying out the “corrupt” policies of the Americans and of Zardari, while Pakistan’s soldiers “were fighting gallantly in Swat against their own people.”

A $7.5-billion American aid package, approved by Congress in September, was, to the surprise of many in Washington, controversial in Pakistan, because it contained provisions seen as strengthening Zardari at the expense of the military. Shaheen Sehbai, a senior editor of the newspaper International, said that Zardari’s “problem is that he’s besieged domestically on all sides, and he thinks only the Americans can save him,” and, as a result, “he’ll open his pants for them.” Sehbai noted that Kayani’s term as Army chief ends in the fall of 2010. If Zardari tried to replace him before then, Kayani’s colleagues would not accept his choice, and there could be “a generals’ coup,” Sehbai said. “America should worry more about the structure and organization of the Army—and keep it intact.”

Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the director general of the I.S.I. in the late eighties and worked with the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. Gul, who is retired, is a devout Muslim and had been accused by the Bush Administration of having ties to the Taliban and Al Qaeda—allegations he has denied. “What would happen if, in a crisis, you tried to get—or did not get—our nuclear triggers? What happens then?” Gul asked when we met. “You will have us as an enemy, with the Chinese and Russians behind us.”

If Pakistani officers had given any assurances about the nuclear arsenal, Gul said, “they are cheating you and they would be right to do so. We should not be aiding and abetting Americans.”

Persuading the Pakistan Army to concentrate on fighting the Taliban, and not India, is crucial to the Obama Administration’s plans for the region. There has been enmity between India and Pakistan since 1947, when Britain’s withdrawal led to the partition of the subcontinent. The state of Kashmir, which was three-quarters Muslim but acceded to Hindu-majority India, has been in dispute ever since, and India and Pakistan have twice gone to war over the territory. Through the years, the Pakistan Army and the I.S.I. have relied on Pakistan-based jihadist groups, most notably Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, to carry out a guerrilla war against the Indians in Kashmir. Many in the Pakistani military consider the groups to be an important strategic reserve.

A retired senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who worked with his C.I.A. counterparts to track down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said that he was deeply troubled by the prospect of Pakistan ceding any control over its nuclear deterrent. “Suppose the jihadis strike at India again—another attack on the parliament. India will tell the United States to stay out of it, and ‘We’ll sort it out on our own,’ ” he said. “Then there would be a ground attack into Pakistan. As we begin to react, the Americans will be interested in protecting our nuclear assets, and urge us not to go nuclear—‘Let the Indians attack and do not respond!’ They would urge us instead to find those responsible for the attack on India. Our nuclear arsenal was supposed to be our savior, but we would end up protecting it. It doesn’t protect us,” he said.

“My belief today is that it’s better to have the Americans as an enemy rather than as a friend, because you cannot be trusted,” the former officer concluded. “The only good thing the United States did for us was to look the other way about an atomic bomb when it suited the United States to do so.”

Pakistan’s fears about the United States coöperating with India are not irrational. Last year, Congress approved a controversial agreement that enabled India to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the United States without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, making India the only non-signatory to the N.P.T. permitted to do so. Concern about the Pakistani arsenal has since led to greater coöperation between the United States and India in missile defense; the training of the Indian Air Force to use bunker-busting bombs; and “the collection of intelligence on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal,” according to the consultant to the intelligence community. (The Pentagon declined to comment.)

I flew to New Delhi after my stay in Pakistan and met with two senior officials from the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s national intelligence agency. (Of course, as in Pakistan, no allegation about the other side should be taken at face value.) “Our worries are about the nuclear weapons in Pakistan,” one of the officials said. “Not because we are worried about the mullahs taking over the country; we’re worried about those senior officers in the Pakistan Army who are Caliphates”—believers in a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state. “We know some of them and we have names,” he said. “We’ve been watching colonels who are now brigadiers. These are the guys who could blackmail the whole world”—that is, by seizing a nuclear weapon.

The Indian intelligence official went on, “Do we know if the Americans have that intelligence? This is not in the scheme of the way you Americans look at things—‘Kayani is a great guy! Let’s have a drink and smoke a cigar with him and his buddies.’ Some of the men we are watching have notions of leading an Islamic army.”

In an interview the next afternoon, an Indian official who has dealt diplomatically with Pakistan for years said, “Pakistan is in trouble, and it’s worrisome to us because an unstable Pakistan is the worst thing we can have.” But he wasn’t sure what America could do. “They like us better in Pakistan than you Americans,” he said. “I can tell you that in a public-opinion poll we, India, will beat you.”

India and Pakistan, he added, have had back-channel talks for years in an effort to resolve the dispute over Kashmir, but “Pakistan wants talks for the sake of talks, and it does not carry out the agreements already reached.” (In late October, Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, publicly renewed an offer of talks, but tied it to a request that Pakistan crack down on terrorism; Pakistan’s official response was to welcome the overture.)

The Indian official, like his counterparts in Pakistan, believed that Americans did not appreciate what his government had done for them. “Why did the Pakistanis remove two divisions from the border with us?” He was referring to the shifting of Pakistani forces, at the request of the United States, to better engage the Taliban. “It means they have confidence that we will not take advantage of the situation. We deserve a pat on the back for this.” Instead, the official said, with a shrug, “you are too concerned with your relationship with Pakistan.”

Pervez Musharraf lives in unpretentious exile with his wife in an apartment in London, near Hyde Park. Officials who had dealt with him cautioned that, along with his many faults, he had a disarmingly open manner. At the beginning of our talk, I asked him why, on a visit to Washington in late January, he had not met with any senior Obama Administration officials. “I did not ask for a meeting because I was afraid of being told no,” he said. At another point, Musharraf, dressed casually in slacks and a sports shirt, said that he had been troubled by the American-controlled Predator drone attacks on targets inside Pakistan, which began in 2005. “I said to the Americans, ‘Give us the Predators.’ It was refused. I told the Americans, ‘Then just say publicly that you’re giving them to us. You keep on firing them but put Pakistan Air Force markings on them.’ That, too, was denied.”

Musharraf, who was forced out of office in August, 2008, under threat of impeachment, did not spare his successor. “Asif Zardari is a criminal and a fraud,” Musharraf told me. “He’ll do anything to save himself. He’s not a patriot and he’s got no love for Pakistan. He’s a third-rater.”

Musharraf said that he and General Kayani, who had been his nominee for Chief of Army Staff, were still in telephone contact. Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999, and remained in uniform until near the end of his Presidency. He said that he didn’t think the Army was capable of mutiny—not the Army he knew. “There are people with fundamentalist ideas in the Army, but I don’t think there is any possibility of these people getting organized and doing an uprising. These ‘fundos’ were disliked and not popular.”

He added, “Muslims think highly of Obama, and he should use his acceptability—even with the Taliban—and try to deal with them politically.”

Musharraf spoke of two prior attempts to create a fundamentalist uprising in the Army. In both cases, he said, the officers involved were arrested and prosecuted. “I created the strategic force that controls all the strategic assets—eighteen to twenty thousand strong. They are monitored for character and for potential fundamentalism,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that things had changed since he’d left office. “People have become alarmed because of the Taliban and what they have done,” he said. “Everyone is now alarmed.”

The rise in militancy is a sensitive subject, and many inside Pakistan insist that American fears, and the implied threat to the nuclear arsenal, are overwrought. Amélie Blom, a political sociologist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, noted that the Army continues to support an unpopular President. “The survival of the coalition government shows that the present Army leadership has an interest in making it work,” she said in an e-mail.

Others are less sure. “Nuclear weapons are only as safe as the people who handle them,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent nuclear physicist in Pakistan, said in a talk last summer at a Nation and Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy forum in New York. For more than two decades, Hoodbhoy said, “the Pakistan Army has been recruiting on the basis of faithfulness to Islam. As a consequence, there is now a different character present among Army officers and ordinary soldiers. There are half a dozen scenarios that one can imagine.” There was no proof either that the most dire scenarios would be realized or that the arsenal was safe, he said.

The current offensive in South Waziristan marked a significant success for the Obama Administration, which had urged Zardari to take greater control of the tribal areas. There was a risk, too—that the fighting would further radicalize Pakistan. Last week, another Pakistan Army general was the victim of a drive-by assassination attempt, as he was leaving his home in Islamabad. Since the Waziristan operation was announced, more than three hundred people have been killed in a dozen terrorist attacks. “If we push too hard there, we could trigger a social revolution,” the Special Forces adviser said. “We are playing into Al Qaeda’s deep game here. If we blow it, Al Qaeda could come in and scoop up a nuke or two.” He added, “The Pakistani military knows that if there’s any kind of instability there will be a traffic jam to seize their nukes.” More escalation in Pakistan, he said, “will take us to the brink.”

During my stay in Pakistan—my first in five years—there were undeniable signs that militancy and the influence of fundamentalist Islam had grown. In the past, military officers, politicians, and journalists routinely served Johnnie Walker Black during our talks, and drank it themselves. This time, even the most senior retired Army generals offered only juice or tea, even in their own homes. Officials and journalists said that soldiers and middle-level officers were increasingly attracted to the preaching of Zaid Hamid, who joined the mujahideen and fought for nine years in Afghanistan. On CDs and on television, Hamid exhorts soldiers to think of themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second. He claims that terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year were staged by India and Western Zionists, aided by the Mossad. Another proselytizer, Dr. Israr Ahmed, writes a column in the Urdu press in which he depicts the Holocaust as “divine punishment,” and advocates the extermination of the Jews. He, too, is said to be popular with the officer corps.

A senior Obama Administration official brought up Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Sunni organization whose goal is to establish the Caliphate. “They’ve penetrated the Pakistani military and now have cells in the Army,” he said. (The Pakistan Army denies this.) In one case, according to the official, Hizb ut-Tahrir had recruited members of a junior officer group, from the most élite Pakistani military academy, who had been sent to England for additional training.

“Where do these guys get socialized and exposed to Islamic evangelism and the fundamentalism narrative?” the Obama Administration official asked. “In services every Friday for Army officers, and at corps and unit meetings where they are addressed by senior commanders and clerics.”

A Wife’s Letter

A short Story by Rabindranath Tagore [1914]

Translated from Bengali by Prasenjit Gupta

http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/gStreerPatra1.html

 

 

The original story [streer patra*] by Rabindranath Tagore is a part of galpaguchchha [Collection of Stories] published by Visvabharati Publications. This translation first appeared in Indian Literature, published by the Sahitya Akademi, India.

 

Translated by Prasenjit Gupta who is a writer living in Iowa City.

 

Illustrated by Rajarshi Debnath who is is a software engineer currently based in London.

 

To Thine Auspicious Lotus-Feet:

 

Today we have been married fifteen years, yet not until today have I written you a letter. I’ve always been close by your side. You’ve heard many things from me, and so have I from you, but we haven’t had space enough to write a letter.

 

Now I’m in Puri on a holy journey, and you are wrapped up in your office work. Your relationship to Calcutta is a snail’s to its shell--the city is stuck fast to you, body and soul. So you didn’t apply for leave. It was the Lord’s desire, and so was His granting me my leave application.

 

I am Mejo-Bou, the second bride in your joint family. Today, fifteen years later, standing at the edge of the ocean, I understand that I also have other relationships, with the world and the World-Keeper. So I find the courage to write this letter. This is not a letter from your family’s Mejo-Bou. Not from the second wife.

 

Long ago, in my childhood days--in the days when my preordained marriage to you was known only to the Omniscient One who writes our fates on our foreheads--my brother and I both came down with typhoid fever. My brother died; I survived. All the neighborhood girls said, “Mrinal’s a girl, that’s why she lived. If she’d been a boy, she couldn’t have been saved.” Jom-Raj is wise in his deadly robbery: he only takes things of value.

 

No death, then, for me. It is to explain this at length that I sit down to write this letter.

 

When your uncle--a distant relative--came with your friend Nirod to view your prospective bride, I was twelve. We lived in an inaccessible village where jackals would call even during the day. Fourteen miles from the railway station by ox-cart, then six more on an unpaved road by palanquin; how vexed they were. And on top of that, our East-Bengal cookery. Even now your uncle makes jokes about those dishes.

 

Your mother wanted desperately to make up for the plain appearance of the first bride with the good looks of the second. Otherwise why would you have taken all the time and trouble to travel to our distant village? In Bengal no one has to search for jaundice, dysentery, or a bride; they come and cleave to you on their own, and never want to leave.

 

Father’s heart began to pound. Mother started repeating Durga’s name. With what offering could a country priest satisfy a city god? All they could rely upon was their girl’s appearance. But the girl herself had no vanity; whoever came to see her, whatever price they offered for her, that would be her price. So even with the greatest beauty, the most perfect virtues, a woman’s self-doubt can never be dispelled.

 

The terror of the entire household, even the entire neighborhood, settled like a stone in my chest. It was as if the day’s sky, its suffusing light, all the powers of the universe were bailiffs to those two examiners, seizing a twelve-year-old village girl and holding her up to the stern scrutiny of those two pairs of eyes. I had no place to hide.

 

The wedding flutes wailed, setting the skies to mourn; I came to live in your house. At great length the women tabulated all my shortcomings but allowed that, by and large, I might be reckoned a beauty; and when my sister-in-law, my Didi, heard this, her face grew solemn. But I wonder what the need was for beauty; your family didn’t love me for it. Had my beauty been molded by some ancient sage from holy Ganga clay, then it might have been loved; but the Creator had molded it only for His own pleasure, and so it had no value in your pious family.

 

That I had beauty, it didn’t take you long to forget. But you were reminded, every step of the way, that I also had intelligence. This intelligence must have lain deep within me, for it lingered in spite of the many years I spent merely keeping house for you. My mother was always very troubled by my intelligence; for a woman it’s an affliction. If she whose life is guided by boundaries seeks a life guided by intelligence, she’ll run into so many walls that she’ll shatter her forehead and her future. But what could I do? The intellect that the other wives in the house lacked, the Lord in a careless moment had bestowed upon me; now whom could I return the excess to? Every day you all rebuked me: precocious, impertinent girl! A bitter remark is the consolation of the inept; I forgive all your remarks.

 

And I had something else, outside all the domestic duties of your household, something that none of you knew. Secretly I wrote poems. No matter if it was all rubbish, at least there the boundary wall of the inner compound could not stop me. There lay my freedom, there I could be myself. Whatever it was in me that kept your Mejo-Bou detached from your family, you didn’t like it, didn’t even recognize it; in all these fifteen years none of you ever found out that I was a poet.

 

Among the earliest memories that I have of your house, the one that comes to mind is of your cowshed. Right next to the stairway leading up to the inner rooms was the room where the cows were kept. The tiny courtyard in front was all the space they had to roam. A clay trough for their fodder stood in one corner of the courtyard. In the morning the servants had many thing to do; all morning the starving cows would lick at the edges of the trough, bite at it, take chunks out of it. My heart cried for them. I was a village girl: when I first arrived at your house, those two cows and three calves struck me as being the only friends I had in the entire city. When I was a new bride, I would give my food to them; when I grew older, bantering acquaintances, observing the attention I show the cows, would express their suspicions about my family and ancestral occupation: all cowherds, they said.

 

My daughter was born--and died. She called to me, too, to go with her. If she had lived, she would have brought all that was wonderful, all that was large, into my life; from Mejo-Bou I would have become Mother. And a mother, even confined to one narrow world, is of the universe. I had the grief of becoming a mother, but not the freedom.

 

I remember the English doctor’s surprise upon entering the inner compound. When he saw the confinement room, he grew annoyed and began to scold. There is a small garden at the front of the house, and the outer rooms do not lack for furniture of decoration. The inner rooms are like the reverse of an embroidered pattern; on the inside there is no hiding the starkness, no grace, no adornment. On the inside the lights glimmer darkly, the breeze enters like a thief, the refuse never leaves the courtyard. The blemishes on the walls and floors are conspicuous and inerasable. But the doctor made one mistake; he thought this neglect would cause us sorrow. Just the opposite: neglect is like ashes, ashes that keep the fire hidden within but do not let the warmth die out. When self-respect ebbs, a lack of attention does not seem unjust. So it causes no pain. And that’s why women are ashamed to experience grief. So I say: if this be your arrangement, that women will suffer, then it is best to keep them in neglect, as far as possible; with attention and love, suffering only grows worse.

 

However it was, it didn’t even occur to me to recall the existence of grief. In the delivery room, death came and stood by my head; I felt no fear. What is our life that we must fear death? Those whose life-bonds have been knotted tight with love and care, they flinch before death. If Jom-Raj had caught me that day and pulled, then, in the same way that a clump of grass can easily be pulled out from loose earth, roots and all, I too would have come out in his hand. A Bengali girl will wish for death on the slightest pretext, but where is the courage in such a death? I am ashamed to die--death is too easy for us.

 

Like an evening star my daughter glowed bright for a moment, then set. I fell again into my eternal routine and to my cows and calves. Life would have passed, slipping on in that way to the end, and today there would have been no need to write you this letter. But a tiny seed blown on the wind can lodge in a brick terrace and put down the roots of a peepul tree; in the end that seed can split open the heart of brick and stone. Into the set arrangements of my world a tiny speck of life flew from who knows where, and that started the crack.

 

My elder sister-in-law’s sister Bindu, mistreated by the cousin she lived with after the death of her widowed mother, came to your house to seek refuge with her sister. That day all of you thought, Why did this misfortune have to land at our doorstep? I have a contrary nature, so what could I do: when I saw that you were angry at her, my heart went out to this defenceless girl and I resolved to stand firm at her side. To have to seek shelter at another’s house against their will-what an indignity that is. Even if we are forced to accept someone against our will, should we push them away, ignore them?

 

And I watched my Didi. Out of great compassion she had brought her sister Bindu in, but when she saw her husband’s annoyance she began to pretend that Bindu’s presence was an unbearable imposition on her too, and she’d be relieved to be rid of her. She couldn’t muster up the courage to express her affection publicly for her orphaned sister. She was a very devoted wife.

 

Observing her dilemma, I grew even more distressed. I saw her make the rudest arrangements for Bindu’s food and clothing--and she ensured that everyone knew about it--and so demean her in every way, even engaging her in household chores as she would a housemaid, that I was not only sad but also ashamed. Didi was anxious to prove to everyone that our household had been fortunate in obtaining Bindu’s services at bargain rates. The girl would work tirelessly, and the cost was minimal.

 

Didi’s father’s family had had nothing other than its high lineage: neither good looks nor wealth. How they fell at your father’s feet, importuned him to take her into your family--you know all that. Didi herself has always thought of her marriage as a grave indignity to your family. That is why she tries in every way to draw herself in, not to impose; she takes up very little space in this house.

 

But the virtuous example she set gave me a great deal of trouble. I could not humble myself in all ways as she had done. If I find something worthy, it’s not my inclination to disparage it just to please someone else--you’ve had proof of this many times.

I drew Bindu into my room. Didi said, “The girl comes from a simple home, and Mejo-Bou is going to spoil her.” She went around complaining to one and all as if my actions were putting the family in great peril. But I am sure that deep inside she was greatly relieved. Now the responsibility was mine. She had me display the affection towards her sister that she could not herself show, and her heart was lightened by it.

 

Didi always tried to leave a few years off Bindu’s age. She was no less than fourteen, and it was just as well to mention this only in private. As you know, her looks were so plain that if she were to fall and crack her head against the floor, people would first concern themselves about the floor. In the absence of father and mother, there was no one to arrange a marriage for her, and besides, how many people would have the strength of their beliefs to marry someone who looked like her.

 

Bindu came to me in great fear, as if I might not be able to bear her touch, as if there were no reason for her having been born into this great universe. And so she would always shrink away as she passed, lower her glance as she walked by. In her father’s house, her cousin had not even given her a corner in which an unwanted object might lie. Unwanted clutter makes its own space around the house, and people forget it’s there; not only is an undesired person not wanted where she is, but while she’s there she’s also not easily forgotten, so there’s no place for her even in the trash-heap. It could not be said that Bindu’s cousins themselves were greatly desired by the rest of the world, though they were comfortably off.

 

When I brought Bindu into my room, she began to tremble. Her fear caused me great sorrow. I explained gently that there would always be a little space for her in my room.

 

But my room wasn’t mine alone. So my task wasn’t easy. And after only a few days she suffered a red rash on her skin. Maybe it was prickly heat, or something else; anyway, all of you decided it was smallpox.-After all, it was Bindu. An unskilled doctor from your neighborhood came and declared, It’s difficult to say what it is without waiting another day or two. But who had the patience to wait another day or two? Bindu herself was half-dead from the shame of her ailment. I said, I don’t care if it’s smallpox, I’ll stay with her in the confinement room, no one else will have to do anything. On hearing this, all of you gave me extremely menacing looks, even seemed poised to do me harm; Bindu’s sister, feigning extreme displeasure, proposed sending her to the hospital. Soon, however, Bindu’s rash faded away completely. Seeing this, you grew even more agitated. Some of you said, It’s definitely smallpox, and it’s settled in.-After all, it was Bindu.

 

There’s one thing to be said for growing up neglected and uncared for: it makes the body ageless, immortal. Disease doesn’t want to linger, so the easy roads to death are shut off. The illness mocked her and left; nothing at all happened. But this much was made clear: it is most difficult to give shelter to the world’s most wretched. Whoever needs greatest shelter also faces the greatest obstacles to gaining it.

 

As Bindu’s fear of me ebbed, another problem arose. She began to love me so much that it brought fear into my heart. I have never seen such an embodiment of love in real life; I’ve read of it in books, of this kind of intense attachment, and, there too, between women. Not for many years had I had occasion to remember that I was beautiful; that long-forgotten beauty had charmed this plain-looking girl. She’d stare at my face, and the hope and trust in her eyes would grow. She’s say to me, “Didi, no one but me has seen this face of yours.” She’d become upset when I tied my hair myself. She liked to play with my hair, arranging it this way and that. Apart from the occasional invitation, there was really no need for me to dress up. But Bindu was eager; and every day she would ornament me one way or another. She grew besotted with me.

 

There’s not even a yard of free space in the inner compound of your house. Near the north wall, next to the drain, somehow a mangosteen had taken root. The day I saw its new leaves budding forth, bright red, I’d know that spring had truly touched the world. And when I saw-in the middle of my routine life-this neglected girl’s heart and soul filling up with color, I realized that there was a spring breeze of the inner world as well, a breeze that came from some distant heaven, not from the corner of the alley.

 

The unbearable impetus of Bindu’s love began to agitate me. Once in a while, I admit, I used to be angry at her, but through her love I saw a side of myself that I’d never seen before. It was my true self, my free self.

 

Meanwhile, my care and attention for a girl like Bindu struck you all as beyond the limits of propriety. And so there was no end to petty scoldings and peevishness. When one day an armlet was stolen from my room, you felt no shame hinting that Bindu must have had something to do with the theft. When, during the Shodeshi movement, the police began to search people’s houses, you came very easily to the conclusion that Bindu was a police informer. There was no other proof of that, only this: she was Bindu.

 

The maidservants in your house would object to doing the slightest work for Bindu. If ever I asked one of the women to fetch Bindu something, she would pause, frozen in reluctance. And so my expenses for Bindu went up: I engaged a special maid for her. None of you liked that. You saw the kinds of clothes I gave Bindu to wear, and you became incensed. You even cut off my spending money. The very next day I began to wear coarse, unbleached, mill-made, ten-anna dhutis. And when the maid came to take my plate away after lunch, I told her not to. I fed the left-over rice to the calf and went to the courtyard tap to wash the plate myself. You saw that and were not too pleased. But the idea that not pleasing you was all right—that your family’s pleasure was of little consequence—had not yet entered my mind.

 

Your anger increased. And meanwhile Bindu’s age kept increasing too. This natural progression embarrassed all of you to an unnatural degree. One thing surprised me: why you didn’t force Bindu to leave. I understand it now: deep inside, you were all afraid of me. Deep inside, you could not help respect the intelligence that God had given me.

 

In the end, not strong enough yourselves to make Bindu leave, you sought the shelter of the gods of matrimony. Bindu’s wedding was arranged. Didi said, “Saved! Ma Kali has protected the honor of our clan.”

 

I didn’t know who the groom was; I heard from you all that he was worthy in every respect. Bindu came to me, and sat at my feet and cried. “Didi, why do I have to be married?”

 

I tried to explain things to her. “Bindu, don’t be afraid: I’ve heard your groom is a good man.”

 

Bindu said, “If he’s good, what do I have that he would like me?”

 

The groom’s people did not even mention coming to see Bindu. Didi was greatly relieved.

 

But Bindu cried night and day; her tears didn’t want to stop. I knew how painful it was for her. In that world I had fought many battles on her behalf, but I didn’t have the courage to say that her wedding should be called off. And what right did I have to say that anyway? What would become of her if I were to die?

 

First of all she was a girl, and on top of that she was dark-skinned; what kind of household she was being sent off to, what would become of her—it was best not to think of such things. If my mind turned to such thoughts, the blood would shudder in my heart.

 

Bindu said, “Didi, just five more days before the wedding, can’t I die before then?”

 

I scolded her sharply; but the One Who Sees Within knows: if there was some way she could have passed easily into death, I might have been relieved.

 

The day before the wedding, Bindu went to her sister and said, “Didi, I’ll just stay in your cowshed, I’ll do whatever you tell me to, I beg you, don’t get rid of me like this.”

 

For some time now, I had seen Didi wipe her eyes in quiet moments; now, too, her tears ran. But the heart could not be everything; there were rules to live by. She said, “You must realize, Bindi dear, a husband is a woman’s shelter, her protector, her salvation, her everything. If suffering is written on your forehead, no one can avert it.”

 

The message was clear: there was no way out. Bindu would have to marry, and whatever happened afterwards would have to happen.

 

I had wanted the wedding to be conducted at our house. But all of you were firm: it must be at the groom’s house; it was their ancestral custom.

 

The matter became clear to me. The gods of your household couldn’t bear it if any of your money was spent on Bindu’s wedding. So I was forced to be quiet. But there’s something none of you know. I wanted to tell Didi but I didn’t; she might have died of fear. Secretly I gave Bindu some of my jewellery, made her wear it before she left. I thought Didi would notice it; perhaps she pretended not to. Do—in the name of kindness—forgive her that.

 

Before leaving, Bindu threw her arms around me. “So, after all, Didi, you are abandoning me completely?”

 

I said, “No, Bindi, no matter what your condition may be, I’ll never abandon you in the end.”

 

Three days went by. The tenants of your estate had given you a sheep to feast on; I saved it from the fire of your hunger and kept it in one corner of the coal-shed on the ground floor. I would go and feed it grain first thing in the morning. I had relied on your servants for a day or two before I saw that feeding the animal was less interesting to them than possibly feeding upon it.

 

Entering the coal-shed that morning, I saw Bindu sitting huddled in a corner. As soon as she saw me she fell at my feet and began to cry.

 

Bindu’s husband was insane.

 

“Is that really true, Bindi?”

 

“Would I tell you such a lie, Didi? He’s insane. My father-in-law wasn’t in favor of this marriage, but he’s mortally afraid of his wife. He went off to Kashi before the wedding. My mother-in-law insisted on getting her son married.”

 

I sat down on the heap of coal. Woman has no compassion for woman. Woman will say, “She’s nothing more than a woman. The groom may be insane, but he’s a man.”

 

Bindu’s husband did not seem deranged to look at, but once in a while he grew so frenzied that he had to be locked up in his room. He was fine on the night of the wedding, but the next day—perhaps as a result of the excitement, staying up late, and so on—he became completely unbalanced. Bindu had just sat down to lunch when her husband suddenly grabbed her brass plate and flung it, rice and all, out into the courtyard. For some reason he was seized with the notion that Bindu was Rani Rashmoni herself, and that the servant must have stolen her platter of gold and given her his own lowly plate instead. Hence his outrage. Bindu was half-dead from fear. When on the third night her mother-in-law ordered her to sleep in her husband’s room, Bindu’s heart froze within her. Her mother-in-law was a terrible woman; if she was angered she lost all control of herself. She too was unbalanced, but not completely, and therefore all the more dangerous. Bindu had to enter the room. Her husband was placid that night. But no matter; Bindu’s body turned wooden with terror. With what silence and craft she made her escape after her husband fell asleep, it’s not necessary to describe at length.

 

I burned from contempt and anger. I said, “A marriage based on such a deception is not a marriage at all. Bindu, stay with me the way you did before, let’s see who dares to take you away.”

 

You all said, “Bindu’s lying.”

 

I said, “She’s never lied in her life.”

 

You all said, “How do you know that?”

 

I said, “I’m sure of it.”

 

You all tried to frighten me. “If Bindu’s in-laws report this to the police, you’ll be in trouble.”

 

I said, “They deceived her and got her married to a madman, and when I tell the court that, they’ll listen.”

 

You all said, “Then we’ll have to go to court over this? Why? Why should we bother?”

 

I said, “I’ll sell my jewellery and do what I can.”

 

You all said, “You’re going to a lawyer then?”

 

I couldn’t answer that. I could complain bitterly, but I didn’t have the courage to do any more.

 

And meanwhile, Bindu’s brother-in-law had arrived and was raising a racket outside the house. He said he was going to file a report at the police station.

 

I didn’t know where my strength came from, but my mind would not accept the idea that for fear of the police I would simply hand her over—hand over to the butcher himself the calf that had come running from the cleaver, afraid for her life, to seek shelter with me. I found the audacity to say, “Fine, let him go file a report then.”

 

After saying this I decided I must take Bindu into my bedroom right away, put a lock on the door, and stay inside with her. But when I looked for Bindu I couldn’t find her. While I was arguing with you all, she had gone out on her own and given herself up to her brother-in-law. She understood that by staying in the house she was putting me in great danger.

 

Running away the way she had earlier, Bindi had only increased her own unhappiness. Her mother-in-law argued that her husband hadn’t done anything to hurt Bindu. There were plenty of terrible husbands in the world. Compared to them her son was a jewel, a diamond.

 

My elder sister-in-law said, “She has an ill-fated forehead; how long can I grieve over it? He may be crazy, may be a fool, but he’s her husband, after all!”

 

The image rose in your minds of the leper and his wife—oh devoted woman!—who herself carried him to the prostitute’s house. You, with your male minds, did not ever hesitate to preach this story, a story of the world’s vilest cowardice; and for the same reason—even though you’d been granted the dignity of human shape—you could be angry at Bindu without feeling the least discomfort. My heart burst for Bindu; for you I felt boundless shame. I was only a village girl, and on top of that I had lived so long in your house—I don’t know through what chink in your vigilance God slipped me my brains. I just couldn’t bear all your lofty sentiments about woman’s duty.

 

I knew for sure that Bindu would not return to our house even if she had to die. But I had assured her the day before her marriage that I would not abandon her in the end. My younger brother Shorot was a college student in Calcutta. You all know about his different kinds of volunteer work, running off to help the Damodor flood victims, exterminating the rats when the plague struck—he had such enthusiasm for these projects that even failing the F.A. exams twice had not dampened his spirit. I summoned him and said, “Shorot, you have to arrange things so that I can have news of Bindu. She won’t have the courage to write, and even if she does, the letter will never reach me.”

 

My brother might have been happier if I’d asked him to kidnap Bindu and bring her back, or perhaps to crack her crazy husband’s skull.

 

While I was talking to Shorot, you came into the room and said, “Now what mess are you getting us into?”

 

I said, “The same one I made right at the beginning: I came to your house.—But that was your own doing.”

 

You asked, “Have you brought Bindu back and hidden her somewhere?”

 

 I said, “If Bindu would come, I’d certainly bring her back and hide her. But she won’t come, so you all needn’t be afraid.”

 

Seeing Shorot with me had kindled your suspicions. I know that you didn’t approve at all of Shorot’s comings and goings. You were afraid that the police were keeping tabs on him, and that some day he would get himself into some political tangle and drag you into it too. So I didn’t usually call him to the house; I even sent him my Bhai-phota offering through someone else.

 

I heard from you that Bindu had run off again, and that her brother-in-law had come looking for her again. Hearing this, I felt something sharp pierce my heart. I understood the luckless girl’s unbearable suffering, but I could see no way of doing anything for her.

 

Shorot ran to get news of Bindu. He returned in the evening and told me, “Bindu went back to her cousins’ house, but they were terribly angry and took her back to her in-laws’ right away. And they haven’t forgotten the money they had to spend on fares and other expenses for her.”

 

As it happened, your aunt had come to spend a few days at your house before leaving for Srikhetro on a pilgrimage. And I told you all, I’m going too.

 

You were so delighted to see in me this sudden turn towards religion that you forgot altogether to object. You also thought, no doubt, that if I stayed in Calcutta at that time, I would certainly make trouble about Bindu. I was a terrible nuisance.

 

I would leave on Wednesday; by Sunday all the preparations had been made. I called Shorot and said to him, “No matter how difficult it is, I want you to find some way to get Bindu on the Wednesday train to Puri.”

 

Shorot grinned with delight; he said, “Don’t worry, Didi, not only will I see her into the train, I’ll go with her to Puri myself. It’ll be an opportunity to see the Jagannath temple.”

 

Shorot came again that evening. I took one look at his face, and the breath stopped in my chest. I said, “What, Shorot? You couldn’t do it?”

 

He said, “No.”

 

I asked, “You couldn’t get her to agree?”

 

He said, “There was no need any more. Last night she set fire to her clothes and killed herself. I talked to her nephew—the one I was in touch with—and he said that she’d left a letter for you. But they destroyed the letter.”

 

Oh. Peace at last.

 

People heard about it and were enraged. They said, It’s become a kind of fashion for women to set fire to their clothes and kill themselves.

 

You all said, Such dramatics! Maybe. But shouldn’t we ask why the dramatics take place only with Bengali women’s sarees and not with the so-brave Bengali men’s dhutis?

 

Truly Bindi’s forehead was seared by fate. As long as she lived she was never known for her looks or talent; even in her last hours it didn’t enter her head to find some new way to die, some novel exit that would please the nation’s men and move them to applaud her! Even in dying she only angered everyone.

 

Didi hid in her room and cried. But there was some solace in her tears. However it was, at least now the girl was beyond suffering. She had only died; who knew what might have happened if she’d lived?

 

I have come here on my holy journey. Bindu didn’t need to come any more, but I did.

 

In your world I didn’t suffer what people would normally call grief. In your house there was no lack of food or clothing; no matter what your brother’s character, in your own character there was nothing that I could complain of to the Lord, nothing I could call terrible. If your habits had been like those of your brother’s, perhaps my days would have passed without upheaval; perhaps, like my sister-in-law, so perfectly devoted to her husband, I too might have blamed not you but the Lord of the World. So I don’t want to raise my head in complaint about you—this letter is not for that.

 

But I will not go back to your Number Twenty-Seven Makhon Boral Lane. I’ve seen Bindu. I’ve seen the worth of a woman in this world. I don’t need any more.

 

And I’ve seen also that even though she was a girl, God didn’t abandon her. No matter how much power you might have had over her, there was an end to that power. There’s something larger than this wretched human life. You thought that, by your turn of whim and your custom graved in stone, you could keep her life crushed under your feet forever, but your feet weren’t powerful enough. Death was stronger. In her death Bindu has become great; she’s not a mere Bengali girl anymore, no more just a female cousin of her father’s nephews, no longer only a lunatic stranger’s deceived wife. Now she is without limits, without end.

 

The day that death’s flute wailed through this girl’s soul and I heard those notes float across the river, I could feel its touch within my chest. I asked the Lord, Why is it that whatever is the most insignificant obstacle in this world is also the hardest to surmount? Why was this tiny, most ordinary bubble of cheerlessness contained within four ramparts in this humdrum alley such a formidable barrier? No matter how pleadingly Your world called out to me, its nectar-cup made of the six elements borne aloft in its hands, I could not emerge even for an instant, could not cross the threshold of that inner compound. These skies of Yours, this life of mine: why must I—in the shadow of this most banal brick and woodwork—die one grain at a time? How trivial this daily life’s journey; how trivial all its fixed rules, its fixed ways, its fixed phrases of rote, all its fixed defeats. In the end, must the victory go to this wretched world, to its snakes of habit that bind and coil and squeeze? Must the joyous universe, the world that You created Yourself, lose?

 

But the flute of death begins to play—and then where is the mason’s solid-brick wall, where is your barbed-wire fence of dreadful law? A sorrow, an insult, can imprison; but the proud standard of life flies from the hand of death! Oh Mejo-Bou, you have nothing to fear! It doesn’t take a moment to slough off a Mejo-Bou’s shell.

 

I am not scared of your street any longer. In front of me today is the blue ocean, over my head a mass of monsoon cumulus.

 

The dark veil of your custom had cloaked me completely, but for an instant Bindu came and touched me through a gap in the veil; and by her own death she tore that awful veil to shreds. Today I see there is no longer any need to maintain your family’s dignity or self-pride. He who smiles at this unloved face of mine is in front of me today, looking at me with the sublime expanse of His sky. Now Mejo-Bou dies.

 

You think I’m going to kill myself—don’t be afraid, I wouldn’t play such an old joke on you all. Meera-Bai, too, was a woman, like me; her chains, too, were no less heavy; and she didn’t have to die to be saved. Meera-Bai said, in her song, “No matter if my father leaves, my mother too, let them all go; but Meera will persevere, Lord, whatever may come to pass.”

 

And to persevere, after all, is to be saved.

 

I too will be saved. I am saved.

 

Removed from the Shelter of Your Feet,

 

Mrinal

 

I enjoy and support the truth telling writing by Rater Zonaki. He/she has more knowledge & humanity than all lazy political partisan clods who comment on without validating their facts or their sources and who havent read a book or done any serious writing in years.

Life is cheap in Bangladesh

By Rater Zonaki

Published: November 05, 2009

http://www.upiasia.com/Human_Rights/2009/11/04/life_is_cheap_in_bangladesh/4465/

Hong Kong, China — "Life is so cheap in Bangladesh,” a senior journalist pointed out to a Bangladesh Army colonel who had come to his office to intimidate him. “My life can be ended at any time … by any of the violence that goes on around us. Why are you so concerned about my life?”

The colonel, an officer of the Directorate General of the Forces Intelligence, had come to warn the journalist to stop speaking out against lawlessness during the two-year state of emergency that ended in December, 2008.

The DGFI is known for the specialized torture cells it maintains in the country’s garrisons, used to interrogate suspects. Many of the country’s politicians have experienced the taste of torture in those cells.

Bangladeshi authorities routinely prove that life is cheap in the country. The poor man’s life is cheapest of all. An incident occurred last Saturday at Tongi in Gazipur district, near the capital Dhaka, that illustrates this point.

Around 1,500 workers reporting for work Saturday morning at Nippon Garments, a readymade garment factory, were met by a notice stating that the factory would be closed for a month. They had not been told of this closure when they ended their day’s work on Friday, and their monthly wages of US$30 had not been paid.

This is a frequent occurrence in the country’s readymade garment industry. Employers or their loyal staff terminate ordinary workers whenever they wish, often by verbal notice, as most workers do not have written contracts that detail their employment status and salaries.

It is a “national tradition” in Bangladesh that the laws favor those in power, not the ordinary people. This has often caused frustration among the people, who then demonstrate to express their demands, regardless of their legitimacy or logic.

The outraged workers of the closed garment factory demonstrated on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. When factory authorities failed to meet the workers or respond to their demands, they got impatient and began vandalizing vehicles.

The government sent riot police to control the situation. The police suddenly started firing indiscriminately at the demonstrators, killing at least three people – a rickshaw-puller who had gone to rescue his garment-worker wife, a pedestrian and a mason. Many others were wounded by police bullets.

The media claimed there were even more deaths, and accused the police of a cover-up to suppress the truth. But Home Minister Sahara Khatun denied that anyone was killed by police gunfire. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina seems to have ended the issue simply by declaring that none would be spared if found guilty.

Unfortunately, Bangladeshis already know that they cannot expect justice from their politicians. Deaths due to police gunfire or other unwarranted violence are quite common. The police torture or kill people in custody. Political parties also kill their rivals in open attacks.

In recent years, for example, a number of people were killed in Sherpur, Jamalpur and adjacent districts when police opened fire on farmers who were demanding fertilizer to grow their crops.

Around eight villagers of Shibganj in Chapainawabganj district were killed by police gunshots for demanding electricity, after being forced to pay electric bills without having received even the minimum power supply.

A similar incident occurred in Fulbari of Dinajpur district when locals protested against a multinational company that wanted to mine coal without regard for the local environment and without adequate compensation for local people displaced by the mines. Several were killed by police gunfire.

After each of these shocking incidents, the ruling party made rhetorical speeches and promised compensation to the victims. But they failed to even identify the perpetrators or investigate the situation. No comprehensive or sustainable solution was offered, and the suffering of the victims was ignored.

After each such incident, the opposition parties became government critics and voiced their sympathy to the victims while lamenting their inability to change things because they were not in power. But no progress is made even when the same opposition becomes the ruling party.

There is no remedy or explanation for the unruly violence caused by law enforcement authorities.

It is the political parties that have always benefited from violent acts. Bangladeshi politicians have repeatedly demonstrated their penchant for weak and bad policies, irresponsible practices, uncontrollable desire to plunder state property, and greed for power and money.

While they survive with all their drawbacks, they have no time or ability to overcome them – let alone helping ordinary citizens or solving problems of state and public institutions.

The police – regardless of whether they are riot, traffic or normal police – are part of Bangladeshi society, which has grown impatient with such behavior. This situation prevails in all public institutions, including the basic legal institutions, which fail to address the problems calmly and fairly.

People die unnatural deaths every day, but nobody cares. Such carelessness deserves to die its own death in an "intellectual firing.” The nation should immediately start building an intellectual infrastructure to kill this ongoing carelessness. Otherwise, life will remain as cheap as the lives of the laborers in the garment industry.

--

(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)

Yes Khaleda and Chatra Dal did no less. And AL has not thrown grenades yet. And Delwar is indeed a pajama-loosing parliament-thief mouthpiece of the opposition. But these facts do not diminish the responsibility or accountability of the ruling party.

None of which answers the original polite inquiry:

"Did the Rakkhi Bhahini worked for Mujib while killing JSD workers?"  

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "musasarkar" <m_musa92870@...> wrote:
>
>
> Khaleda-BNP supported Chhatra Dal didn't do any less. At least the
> present government ministers haven't staged any grenade attacks at the
> opposition rally or murdered any of their MPs (remember 21 Aug, 2004,
> and Shah AMS Kibria and Ahsanullah Master incidents). Everyday the
> pajama-loosing parliament-thief mouthpiece of the opposition is freely
> spewing filth. But it is really very hard for the outwardly
> Islamic-minded (but spiritually empty) people to see.
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Enayet Ullah enayet_2000@ wrote:
> >
> > The caricature of extra-judicial killing patronized by Seikh Mujib, by
> killing Siraj Sikdar, but not ended through his demise.
> >
> > Political vendetta by the name of killing still continues today,
> Hasina-BAL supported Chattara League already rampage the various
> institution of Bangladesh.
> >
> > --- On Tue, 10/27/09, ezajur Ezajur@ wrote:
> >
> > From: ezajur Ezajur@
> > Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: The Father of "Crossfire in Bangladesh?
> > To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 12:06 AM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Alochok Musa
> > Yes it is hypocrisy to say Mujib was responsible for the deaths of
> thousand's of JSD members but that Zia was not responsible for the
> deaths of thousands of Army and Air Force staff.
> > Fortunately, for me, I have no problem saying that Zia, given his
> position at the time, was responsible for those deaths. Those who pulled
> the triggers worked for Zia.
> > But are you saying that Mujib was not responsible for the deaths of
> JSD members? Were those who pulled the triggers ie the Rakhi Bahini, not
> working for Mujib?
> > It's a genuine question and I am asking for your opinion.
> > Regards
> > Ezajur Rahman, Kuwait
> >
> > --- In alochona@yahoogroup s.com, "musasarkar" <m_musa92870@ ...>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Alochok SH,
> > >
> > > You said - "During the last BAL government, there was a public
> demand of
> > > publishing the list of army officers and other muktijodhas claimed
> to
> > > have killed by Zia", can you tell us where those public demanded the
> > > list, the date, any proof? You wanted one name of the muktijudhdha
> who
> > > was killed by Zia, here it is - Name: Col. Taher, Address :
> Graveyard.
> > > Please in your next posting I want answer to my very simple question
> -
> > > "If the killings of more than 30,000 JSD workers by Bangabandhu' s
> order
> > > are true, then why does JSD always ally with AL, never with AL's #1
> > > enemy BNP?" Please give us a simple answer and relieve us from your
> BNP
> > > propaganda.
> > >
> > > It is the hypocrisy in our mind that we blame Bangabandhu for the
> deaths
> > > of thousands of JSD workers killed by Rakhkhi bahini, but when it
> comes
> > > to Zia's order to kill thousands of Army and Air Force officers and
> > > soldiers indiscriminately in the name of suppressing numerous coups,
> we
> > > deny Zia's role.
> > >
> > > MS, California, USA.
> > >
> > > --- In alochona@yahoogroup s.com, Sajjad Hossain shossain456@ wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Dear Alochok Sarkar
> > > >
> > > > The number you have cited is the biggest mystery of our time.
> During
> > > the last BAL government, there was a public demand of publishing the
> > > list of army officers and other muktijodhas claimed to have killed
> by
> > > Zia. However, they could not produce anything. You have one with
> name
> > > and address, I would love to receive it and the nation will be
> relieved
> > > from the BAL propoganda.
> > > >
> > > > SH
> > > > Toronto
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ____________ _________ _________ __
> > > > From: musasarkar m_musa92870@
> > > > To: alochona@yahoogroup s.com
> > > > Sent: Thu, October 22, 2009 12:50:00 AM
> > > > Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: The Father of "Crossfire in Bangladesh?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > If the killings of more than 30,000 JSD workers by Bangabandhu' s
> > > order are true, then why does JSD always ally with AL, never with
> AL's
> > > #1 enemy BNP? MAYER CHEYE JATIYATABADI MASIDER DORODTA EKTU BESHI
> BESHI
> > > DEKHA JAE. It is extremely funny that the hypocrites shed more tears
> > > for Siraj Sikdar, the founder of extremist terrorist party called
> Purbo
> > > Bangla Sarbohara Party than anybody even from Siraj's own party.
> > > > Natural justice also eliminated the greatest Danob in Bengali's
> > > history - the Aug 15 murder conspirator, killer of tens of thousands
> of
> > > Muktijudhdhas, and the great rehabilitator of all Rajakars on 30
> May,
> > > 1981.
> > > > --- In alochona@yahoogroup s.com, Sajjad Hossain <shossain456@
> ...>
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Thank you dear great BAL supporter. OK I did not know that
> Sheikh
> > > Mujib got training for crossfire from the Razakars and Al Badr.
> > > > > I am not shedding any tears for Siraj Sikder. Whether he was a
> > > killer or not that was a legal issue. If someone abides by the rule
> of
> > > law, Siraj Sikder should not have sent to crossfire. It was your
> great
> > > leader Sheikh Mujib who did not have any respect for rule of law.
> > > Therefore, he found only solution "extra judicial killing". He also
> > > ordered killing of more than 30,000 JSD workers. Anyway, there is
> > > something called "natural justice" and through that process this
> "Danob"
> > > was eleminated.
> > > > >
> > > > > SH
> > > > > Toronto
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ____________ _________ _________ __
> > > > > From: Robin Khundkar rkhundkar@ .
> > > > > To: alochona@yahoogroup s.com
> > > > > Sent: Mon, October 19, 2009 12:36:05 PM
> > > > > Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Who Pioneered "Crossfire in Bangladesh?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Dear Sajjad Hossain
> > > > > Well if he did he must have learnt it from the Al Badrs and Al
> Shams
> > > Razakars and their foreign masters who refined it onto an art
> alongwith
> > > with total deniability! !!
> > > > >
> > > > > Cross fire/encounter killings/extra judicial murders are a long
> > > standing tradition in the subcontinent. From Peshawar to Chittagong
> from
> > > Delhi to the tip of Sri Lanka!
> > > > >
> > > > > I am curious at your shedding of crocodile tears at the death of
> > > Siraj Shikder the naxalite and a firm believer in the politics of
> > > annihilation. Do you really think he would shown you any mercy to
> > > hardcore communalists like you if he had ever come to power.
> > > > >
> > > > > If you really do I want some of your Kool Aid!
> > > > >
> > > > > Robin
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > >From: Sajjad Hossain
> > > > > >Sent: Oct 18, 2009 11:19 PM
> > > > > >To: alochona@yahoogroup s.com
> > > > > >Subject: [ALOCHONA] Who Pioneered "Crossfire in Bangladesh?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >Crossfire or extra-judicial killings are now-a-days very common
> > > practice among the so-called law enforcers.
> > > > > >However, when it was pioneered in the history of Bangladesh?
> The
> > > historical facts show that it was Bangabondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
> ever
> > > first introduced
> > > > > >"Crossfire" in Bangladesh. The first victim of his Crossfire
> was
> > > Siraj Shikder. After his brutal killing, the so-called "Jatir Pita"
> > > shouted in the Parliament "Where is Siraj Shikder Now?". What a Pita
> who
> > > sent his son to be tortured and brutally killed!
> > > > > >
> > > > > >SH
> > > > > >Toronto
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > ____________ _________ _________ __
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Khawja Shamsuddin
Sent: Nov 2, 2009 6:26 PM
To:
Subject: Police still rules the press in Bangladesh

---

It is an example of how the Chinese authorities apply not so subtle a pressure on photojournalists in a country like Bangladesh, where the police can still dominate, threaten the press with an iron hand but wearing velvet gloves. See the link below !   http://www.shahidulnews.com/?p=6426   Leaning on Friendly Nations November 1st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized “You speak good Chinese”, said Qian Kaifu, Cultural Councellor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Bangladesh. A soft-spoken elderly gentleman. Standing beside him was a quiet, smartly dressed woman, Cao Yanhua the Cultural Attache, who passed him a bag. “We’ve brought some presents for you.” The 2010 calendar would be useful, but a silk tie was probably not the most appropriate gift for me. The tea was not so unreasonable. How were they to know I was not a tea drinker? Irfan knew the meeting with Free Voice, regarding the media academy was very important and wouldn’t normally have disturbed me. So when Mr. Kaifu, instead of showing interest in our sole Chinese member Jessica Lim in the library, insisted that we find a quiet place to talk, I realized it was more than a courtesy call. He got straight to the point. “We would like you to cancel the Tibet exhibition” he said. Reminding me that Tibet was a part of China, he went on to explain how the Bangladesh China relationship would be affected if the show went on. He also spoke of the many things we could do together, the exhibitions we could bring. About how such a famous organisation like Drik would find many partners in China. It seemed churlish to remind him that my recent application for a visa when I was to judge the TOPS photojournalism contest in China, had been rejected. As politely as I could, I reminded Mr. Kaifu that ours was an independent gallery. I asked him how he felt he had the right to tell us, what we could show. I invited him to the show and assured him that he would be free to present his own opinion at the opening. We would be happy to show a Chinese exhibition, if the quality was right. He wanted to see the gallery and a colleague showed him around as I went back to the meeting. I was reminded of the time when the director of the British Council in Dhaka had demanded that we take down Roshini Kempadoo’s exhibition, the European Currency Unfolds, as he felt it showed Britain in a bad light. Of the midnight call by the minister, on the eve of the first Chobi Mela, when he felt ‘certain’ images that didn’t support the official version of the war of 1971, should be taken down from the National Museum walls. Of the fact that the Alliance Francaise, had backed out of their sponsorship of my show criticising general Ershad’s rule. Of how every major gallery, including the ‘progressive’ Art College gallery had refused to show the work. Of the civil society protest against the government, when they had used the military to round up opposition activists, that had taken place in our gallery. Of why we needed a gallery of our own. On that last occasion, people with knives, under military protection, had attacked me in the street the following day. I had no illusions about the implications of our action, but this small organisation was going to hold its ground. We had relocated from the National Museum, and put up the 1971 show at Drik instead. Despite the threats, our curatorial freedom is something we have staunchly protected, every time. It was evening before the phone call from the ministry of culture came in. “China was a friend, you mustn’t show pictures of Dalai Lama” the high ranking official went on. “No no we are not talking of censorship, but…” This was followed by some artist who spoke as if he was a friend. I couldn’t place either of the callers, though I could place the ministry official by his rank. I could see it was to be a multi-pronged attack. I was in a meeting with two Korean professors that Gitiara Nasreen, the chairperson of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication,  Dhaka university had brought over to Drik when Hasanul Huq Inu MP, the president of JSD (Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal) called. He reminded me of how supportive Bangladesh was of the “One China Policy”, the implications that holding the exhibition would have for the nation. The next visitors from Special Branch were perhaps to be expected. Speeding up the staff meeting in the studio, I went down to try and handle this next ‘situation’. Mr. Khairul Kabir did most of the talking while Mr. Palash nodded from the side. They wanted details of the organisers. I asked for an official request. It wasn’t simply my concern for the organisers, I also wanted to test out the ground rules. “Khamakha jotil kore phelchen” (you are making it unnecessarily complicated) was his veiled threat. I was familiar with this language, but decided to hold my ground. A few calls to ‘higher ups’ followed, made more for me to hear than anyone else. “He is not being cooperative… Yes he is here… I have explained the gravity of the situation… We have done nothing else yet…” went the conversation. The responses to the text messages I had been sending out in between began to come in. “Would you like some tea?” I offered. Mr. Kabir’s smile was not as sweet as mine as he declined. A lawyer friend’s response was heartening. I was within my rights to refuse to provide information until an official request had been made. I knew such technicalities might not help if the situation became more awkward, and decided to send out a twitter alert, just in case. A few more calls followed, to more ‘higher ups’ and the pair walked out to make more calls. That gave me the opportunity to call my lawyer friend and to mobilise more support. Just in case. Mohammad Enamul Huq of the Special Branch, inspecting the show on Tibet, at Drik Gallery. © Shehab Uddin/Drik/Majority World The Special Branch do like me. They came to visit again. Initially it was Mohammad Enamul Haq the Chief of City Special Branch Dhanmondi Zone. He had been sent by SS Additional IG. Shah Alam Officer in Charge Dhanmondi Thana, joined us later. The initial cordial conversation, turned sharp when I ref © Shehab Uddin/Drik/Majority World used to divulge the contact details of the organizers. They reminded me of how it would become difficult for Drik to operate in the future if we didn’t take the side of the government. I reminded them that I was siding with the law. That the law applied to the police, was an unknown concept to Shah Alam. “The show has to be stopped” were his passing words, along with a terse instruction to pass on this message to the organizers. As we wait for the opening later this afternoon, I am unsure of where the next call is going to come from.  Reports are coming in of the Bangladesh police preventing a journalist from filing torture allegations against paramilitary soldiers, I wonder what the implications are for Drik in the days to come. After 25 years of working to promote photography in Bangladesh, it is interesting to find the government suddenly taking an interest!

Why do you suggest he should have another Nobel Prize for tenure? He was not
awarded the first Nobel Prize for tenure! Also I think there is no Nobel Prize
awarded for tenure. Unless you are talking of some noble Bangladeshi prize I am
not aware of :)

Dr Yunus has enemies ONLY because he does not fit any normal profile in the
Bangladershi landscape. Its not like commentators, especially the political
ones, really give a damn about Grameen Bank's interest rates.

Jealousy is ugly and thrives everywhere. But jealousy as part of the political
culture of the half educated is a truly horrible thing.


--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "Md. Aminul Islam" <aminul_islam_raj@...>
wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> nobel loriet Dr Unus keeps the position of MD in grameen Bankk for more than 9
years,
> So another nobel for him?
> read link bellow
>
> http://www.amadershomoy.com/content/2009/10/26/
>
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