Bollywood is in steep decline w/ movies like Race with nutty songs like "Touch me, Touch me, Kiss me, Kiss me." As I write another silly film is on the TV, Jab We Met. Yes-English and Hindi. One problem is there are few writers of the caliber of Shakeel, Majrooh, Sahir, Kaifi and music directors like Naushad working in the industry today. Except for what are called art movies (see e.g., Satyajit Ray), these Bollywood films almost always feature songs and dances often at the most improbable moments. The scripts have heavily contrived plot twists and the wildest kinds of situations and outcomes.

Indian corporate media replicates America in its obssession w/ celebrities. Endless articles and features on the comings and goings of Bollywood stars such as Kareena, Chhote Nawab, Katrina, SRK, Ashwariya, Big B, et al.

I saw the new film Jodha Akbar, a Bollywood blockbuster with lavish sets, costumes and battle scenes, depicting the supposed romance between the Emperor Akbar-16th century-and one of his wives, Jodha, who was Hindu.

Salman Rushdie-for what he's worth as a historian- says there is nohistorical evidence indicating the Jodha ever existed. I could not recall a single song or melody. Ditto for Debuji who is a professional musician and remembers virtually everything.

It is stunning to fly into Delhi from Lahore. It's less than an hour's flight. One moves immediately from an Urdu language environment to Hindi with their radically different scripts. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and Hindi is India's national language. Urdu is also the language of Jammu and Kashmir state in India. Urdu is written right to left in the Persian-Arabic script whereas Hindi is written left to right. Partition wreaked havoc on Urdu, a uniquely Indian language drawing from Farsi, Arabic and North Indian languages. It is rich and expressive with a great tradition in poetry. Just to name a few of the great poets - Mir, Ghalib, Faiz. The grammer of Hindi and Urdu is identical but the official government driven languages are going in opposite directions with Hindi being Sanskritized and Urdu being stripped of its Indian vocabulary. Since the division of India, the language issue has been a political football used by nationalists in the sub-continent.

In mid-April driving through places like Meerut, Roorkee, and Sahranpur in western Uttar Pradesh was an interesting experience in just reading sign boards. These areas used to have huge numbers of Urdu speakers before partition. Now almost without exception, save for mosques and seminaries, the Urdu script is nowhere to be seen. Devanagri, the Hindi script, is everywhere.

There are still Muslims who speak Urdu in these areas but I suspect because of fears of sectarian attacks prefer not to identify themselves at least as far as script goes. Although they do spell out their names in Devanagri. India's 150 million plus Muslims constitute one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. With the rise of Hindu fundamentalism as represented by the political party, BJP an off shoot of an openly fascist and racist formation called RSS, Muslims have been targeted in what is called here communal violence.

In December I attended some music events here in Delhi that I failed to record at the time. the first one featured a Pakistani classical vocalist Ustad (master) Hamid Ali Khan. It was mehfil, a home concert. It really took me back to the late 60s when I was part of the music scene here. I was learning sitar in those days. The mehfil setting has its own culture.

Real musicians, savants and wannabes remove their shoes and sit on carpets. At this one, there was the familiar tareef (praise) from the assembled. Senior musicians would sit in the front and the audience would take its tareef cues from them-but not too loudly. Actually the Ustad and his son who was accompanying him often repeated himself and fell into cliches. Musically speaking the evening was a disappointment but everyone stuck around because there was delicious biryani (a mughlai dish of meat and rice) to be had at the end.

A day or two later it was Eid, the Muslim holiday and Ustad Asad Ali Khan, hosted a celebration with the inevitable piles of meat and rice and a few veggie dishes on the margins. The Pakistani musician also showed up. Prior to his arrival the assembled masters took his performance apart but when he appeared they were all praising him.

A few days after that my Guruji, Pandit Debu Chaudhuri hosted the annual Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan concert at a public hall. I saw musicians and friends there that I had not seen in years. Some in 40 years. It left me filled with nostlagia and the what ifs had I stayed with the music. Debuji is building a music centre in Delhi in honor of his teacher the great sitarist Ustad Mushtaq Ali Kahn. I knew him him too and even learned from him. I stayed with him in Calcutta and Benares. An amazing man and musician. He was a link between the feudal culture of pre-independent India and the modern period. He passed on in 1989.

Back to the Empire tonight. McCain says Hamas would welcome an Obama victory. Hillary saber rattles over Iran. And Obama threatens to bomb Pakistan.

After the book launch with Arundhati Roy last night, friends suggested I should move here. Very touching.

Hillary's comment on obliterating Iran attracted much media attention here. Obama made a similar statement minus the genocidal language. What can one say? The NY senator then aired ads invoking Pearl Harbor and bin Laden. The fear mongering was on the order of her 3AM phone call ad. I can't tell how you distressing it is to be on the outside looking in on the insane politics and political system we "enjoy" in the bastion of democracy.

One of the many negative consequences of the British decision to divide India in 1947 was to cut India off from its land border with Iran. Pakistan is there. Iranian influence from architecture to language to cuisine can be seen and felt in India today. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is visiting India on 29 April. The State Department raised hackles here by requesting that New Delhi "ask Iran to become a more responsible actor on the world stage by ending its rather unhelpful activities regarding Iraq and support for terrorism...and to meet the requirements that the Security Council and the international community have placed on him in terms of suspending their uranium enrichment activities...."

The U.S. with its military machine invading and occupying countries, ("the supreme internatonal war crime"- UN Charter) threatening others with military attack-yet another crime under the UN Charter-with 700-plus bases straddling the globe and spending more on weapons than all the countries in the world combined is giving lectures to countries about their responsibilities under international law. Where is Jonathan Swift when we need him?

The response from the Indian government to Washington's request was sharp: No advice needed. The External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "We tell the U.S., do not take it upon yourself the responsibility whether Iran is manufacturing weapons or not. Leave it to the IAEA (the UN-agency based in Vienna led by Mohammedel-Baradei which regulates nuclear weapons, the designated authority." He added, India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations spanned centuries. Both countries are "perfectly capable" of managing their relations. "Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace."

The U.S. is also breathing down India's neck not to go through with the proposed IPI-Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline deal. An agreement that would make sense for India but would not further Washington's desire to isolate Iran and to continue its relentless economic warfare on Tehran.

India, a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, joining Pakistan and Israel in that category, twice voted against Iran in 2005 and 2006 at the IAEA. These votes generated considerable ire in some political circles here who do not want India to compromise its non-aligned status. However the pressure is on New Delhi. With an eye toward "containing" China, Washington wants to lasso in India into its military orbit. Arms deals and training exercises are increasing. Tel Aviv too is a player in this equation. There is some resistance to these developments. In terms of the economy, neo-liberal policies have made enormous inroads.

The nuclear deal between the U.S. and India is still being held up by the Left. The Left has enough political power in the coalition government (United Progressive Alliance) led by Mamnmohan Singh to block it. It sees the agreement as subordinating New Delhi to Washington. The Left, flawed of course, controls three state governments-West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Hard to imagine such a situation in the U.S. where our two business parties dominate. The UPA government, increasingly weak and unpopular, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party is poised to win the election next year, is not inclined to challenge the Left which is a key component of its coalition.

I know this stuff is kind of dry and boring but anyway hope some of you find it of interest. For more detailed info on these and other issues you can perhaps check the websites of The Hindu newspaper, and the magazines Frontline, Combat Law, Down to Earth, and Outlook.

In yesterday's blog I mentioned Salwa Judum. By good chance today Siddharth Varadarajan (see AR website for bio) had a column in The Hindu in which he writes:

"...instead of seeking ways of peacefully ending the naxalite insurgency, the Government of India has actually fuelled a new civil war. For the past three years, the Chhattisgarh government (ruled by the BJP-the Bhartiya Janata Party-a Hindu fundamentalist formation) has been financing and arming a private vigilante death squad known as Salwa Judum (SJ), whose terror tactics have led to the forced displacement of tens of thousands of tribals from their homes. The Special Police Officers (SPOs), often minors, who form the core of SJ are accompanied by paramilitary forces and the police. Their modus operandi consists of forcing villages suspected of being sympathetic to the Maoists to relocate to strategic hamlets on the main road. Villagers who resist are attacked and killed, their huts and property looted and destroyed. Several independent inquiries ˜ the most recent of which was by the National Commission for Child Rights ˜ have confirmed the violation of human rights on a massive scale, including sexual violence. In Kota Nendra village, for example, during the course of an SJ attack in 2006, not only was a three-month-old burnt alive (his mother gave up eating and died soon after of grief) but other children were shot while bathing at the borewell and in the village pond.

Though the SJ is an initiative of the ruling BJP in the State, it has the full backing of the Congress at the Centre. In a recent appearance before the Supreme Court ˜ which is hearing a PIL urging the disbanding of the vigilante squads ˜ the Centre‚s counsel actually argued that the government was forced to rely on civilian SPOs because the regular police were (allegedly) too scared to take on the Maoists. It is bad enough that the establishment insists on pursuing a purely military solution. But when it arms and dispatches untrained civilians to commit crimes, this makes the government, as the Chief Justice of India noted on March 31, guilty of abetment."

A comment from me: The Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh announced last week that he would visit the Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi in order to gain tips and pointers on "how to do a Gujarat" in his upcoming state elections. What does this mean? Recall that Modi and his state apparatus engineered an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002. Modi is a leading force in the so-called saffron revolution, a euphemism for Hindu fundamentalism. His BJP government was reelected in December 2007. (See my 29 December Brave New India: Uprisings interview with Arundhati Roy) Modi is the face of fascism in India. A scary guy. Neither he or the pogromists have been held to account thus continuing a string of massacres and crimes that have gone unpunished-the large-scale murder of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984, anti-Muslim killings in Mumbai in 1992-93 and poor villagers in Nandigram getting in the way of "development" in March 2007. Kashmir, the insurgency there began in the late 1980s, differs from the ones just mentioned in sheer scale of killings and disappearances by state authorities. Muslims, like other minorities, are disposable people who are inconvenient to the powerful and are used to mobilize voter blocs, (called vote banks here), based on race, religious, and caste hatred. Many Muslims who lost their homes in the 2002 Gujarat pogram have still not been resettled properly compensated. And their tormentors roam the streets and the corridors of power.

Keep these things in mind the next time you see a big ad from the Govt of India Tourism Dept. beckoning you to visit and sample the Wonders of India.

The sun is frying my brain cells. How could I mention the Tehri dam-see Apr 24 blog-and not mention the huge human costs? Over 100,000 people displaced. Some were relocated to the Plains where the climate and topography are radically different from mountainous Uttarakhand. Harsh Dobhal pointed out the sites of former villages that were flooded out by the dam. There were some suicides particularly among women The issue of displacement not just from dams but from all sorts of neo-liberal inspired projects is fueling an insurgency in India. Much of the iron ore, maganese, bauxite and other minerals as well as timber are on Adivasi (indigenous people) land. They are seen as disposable people blocking progress and development. Again, I think Sanjay Kak's documentary, referred to in 24 April blog, gets to the heart of the matter.

Special economic zones (read special privileges for the rich including free land, tax breaks and tax holidays) are popping up all over India. There was a big backlash in the Nandigram area of West Bengal. Daanish Books in Delhi has just come out with an excellent new book on the topic Nandigram: What Really Happened? The Communist government in West Bengal, which has been in power for 30 years, cut a deal with a notorious Suharto-connected Indonesian industrialist to locate a chemical plant in one of these SEZs in the Nandigram area. There was a popular uprising which was crushed by state sponsored goons. There is still resistance and the West Bengal government has now backed off the project. However, another one in the same state in Singur is going forward. That is the site of the new Tata auto plant which will build the world's cheapest car, the Nano.

It is the current prime minister Manmohan Singh who while finance minister in the early 1990s embraced the neo-liberal economic agenda also sometimes called the Washington Consensus. Incredible India. Shining India scream the tourist posters and brochures. The land of the Taj Mahal and emperor-billionaires like Ambani, Ahluwaliaand Tata. Four of the richest ten people in the world are Indians. In the U.S.A.O, the United States of Amnesia and Obliviousness there is very little info or reports on the grotesque inequalities being created by the new economic order in India.

Heard P. Sainath last week give a lecture on suicides among Indian farmers. The figure is now approaching 200,000. Again, one of globalization's "collateral damages." Agricultural sector devastated by subsized grains and cotton coming in mostly from U.S. Sainath, AR has done some programs with him, is the only journalist in India that covers the rural areas on a regular basis for "The Hindu" newspaper. One might think this would be a major story but again the victims are not on the radar screen of those in power. Another distressing development is the creation of Salwa Judum units, kind of the Indian equivalent of the Contras. Set up and armed by the state to fight the Naxalites/Maoists/terrorists-all used interchangeably for anyone taking up arms. Villages which may be sympathetic to those in revolt are evacuated and the villagers are put in camps encircled with barbed wire. Strategic hamlets a la Vietnam. The idea being to remove the water where fish can swim. Again, human rights abuses abound in these so-called operations. There are critically important things going on in India and Pakistan as well that deserve our attention, solidarity and action.

The hot summer months in South Asia are April, May and June. The monsoon rains in July/Aug provide some respite. It's already been warmer than usual here with temperatures now breaking 40C. Tasks are all planned around the heat as well as Delhi's massive traffic jams. I was to depart on 23rd but I have a book launch with Arundhati Roy here in Delhi on Saturday 26 April has delayed my return until 28th.

The AR hunting and gathering work in Pakistan and India has yielded what I hope to be some excellent programs with all new voices. In Pakistan I interviewed Najma Sadeque, Tahira Abdullah, Isa Daudpotra and I.A. Rehman.

In India: Sunita Narian, Praful Bidwai, Youdon Aukatsang and Sunderlal Bahuguna. The latter played a major role in the Chipko movement of saving trees and preserving forests in the 1970s. Chipko probably launched India's environmental movement. Mr. Bahuguna is now frail and aged and this interview may have only print value. I talked with him in Dehradun. A new found friend and comrade Harsh Dobhal was instrumental in arranging my meeting with Mr. Bahuguna. It was an honor to meet an eco-warrior of his standing and repute. In later years he went on extended fasts to try and stop the construction of the big Tehri dam on the upper Ganges in Uttarakhand state in North India. Alas, he was unsuccessful. The dam is built in a very shaky geological area which has had earthquakes. If there is a quake the damage downstream in large populated areas would be inestimable. The rationale was to provide water for Delhi's millions. It has done that only partly because the projections have fallen short due to the shrinking of the Gangotri glacier. You can see the water level lines and how far the have fallen in the lake that was formed by the dam and along the river itself.

In the meantime, Tehri and other parts of Uttarakhand are suffering from water scarcity. One journalist in Tehri, to make a point, told me he used have four buckets of water to bathe and now he gets only one. Water is a key issue in the sub-continent and around the globe. Foreign corps like Coke and Pepsi have swept done and are providing bottled water here. A familiar story repeated elsewhere. Just before I left New York for Karachi I interviewed Maude Barlow author of the new book "Blue Covenant" on water issues. Will air on AR soon. Just yesterday I was looking at Sanjay Kak (Jashn-e-Azadi) wonderful film "Words on Water." I had seen it a few years ago. I had forgotten what alandmark work it is. It focusses on the struggles to stop the dams in the Narmada Valey in Central India. Like his doc on Kashmir it explores thenature of Indian democracy. The aforementioned Harsh Dobhal edits a fine journal called "Combat Law," published in English and Hindi. And it was with Harsh that I was able to visit Tehri, Gangotri and other places in Uttarakhand. Harsh also set up a lecture for me at his organization the Human Rights Law Network. That was one of the three new places in Delhi where I gave talks. The other two were JNU and Jama Millia Islamia universities. I spoke again at the Attic in Connaught Place. In Dehradun I spoke to forests activists and organizers. Much coverage of the Pennsylvania primary in local press. A teenager asked me about it over lunch yesterday. Can you imagine an American asking about something going on in Orissa?

In neighbouring Nepal, the Maoists (a State Dept "terrorist" organization) has won the election. It looks like curtains for the monarchy. They promise to declare a republic. Its leader Prachand is saying he wants to encourage Capitalism. Uncertain what this means. The Olympic torch had a heady arrival and very limited run in Delhi on the 17th. 17,000 police were deployed to prevent any incidents. Tibetan activists and their supporters staged an alternative torch run the day before.

Tibetans have established a presence in Jantar Mantar near the Parliament where they have rallies and talks. I went there a couple of times. Some Tibetans, there are over 100,000 in India, are on a march to Tibet. No way Indian govt will allow it to get near the Tibet border. Facing its own insurgencies and separatist movements it can't easily announce support for an independent Tibet without opening up a Pandora's box for itself. It has granted asylum to the Dalai Lama on the condition that he not be a political figure. India also has its own border issues with China. I talked about all this with Youdon Aukatsang, a JNU and U.S. trained activist and organizer. She is a remarkable Tibetan woman who was born in India. Stay tuned for that one.

Incidentally the Pakistani friend I wrote to lives in Karachi and is in her 20s. She wrote to me about what she sadly described as her "doomed country."

The new PM Yusuf Gillani has made some popular moves by restoring student unions and banned trade unions. I presume the ousted judges are next for bahali (restoration). But the Nawaz Sharif-Zardari marriage is precarious. Can it last? Unlikely. The NRO, a get out of jail pass, is a big issue. Surely it will be declared unconstitutional, as it should be, by the Supreme Court and where will that leave Asif Baba and his 40 crimes? A Pakistani friend wrote chastising me for omitting liberals from my feudals/junta clique that is choking the country. I think they are marginal in terms of real power. They make a lot of noise because they have access to the editorial pages of the English-language press and appear seemingly endlessly on the boring TV chat shows. Their actual influence may be more outside the country than inside. One can hear them on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered and see them on the NewsHour with the insipid Jim Lehrer. The interviewers on those programs know next to nothing or even less about Pakistan hence ask absurd questions. Sorry for the digression. I may be too harsh in my assessment of Pakistani liberals but I think they are more palaver than bite.

The Olympic torch is in Delhi today. If I can penetrate the massive police presence and barricades I will go to the demo. The Indian govt is backing China on Tibet because of Kashmir. It fears that calls for Tibetan self-determination will lead to the end of its rule in Kashmir.

Have given a bunch of talks in Delhi. One of them was solely on Pakistan and I talked a lot about the shortages and the tensions/hostilities they naturally produce. On top of not enough electricity and potable water now Karachi and other parts of the country are experiencing skyrocketing food prices. Few states have been served so poorly for so long by so few people. The disdain and contempt for the average Pakistani by the junta/feudal clique that rules is both breathtaking in its scope and deeply sad. Spending a morning in Lyari (a massive slum area in Karachi) or an hour at the Civil Hospital in Larkana was very sobering and depressing. It's not difficult to understand the attraction to intiha pasandi (fundamentalism) in such an atmosphere. When people have no hope and nothing to lose.... However one should not despair even though the temptation is great. As Galeano says, Save depression for better times. It is still possible to turn things around. During the revolt in France in 1968 one of the slogans was: "Be Realistic! Demand the Impossible!"

I'm happy to be here at the Attic again. I spoke here in December 2007. The Attic is a valuable space for the arts and for political discussions.

Pakistan is routinely quoted in the American media as 'the world’s most dangerous country.' You can turn to Newsweek, USA Today, Business Week and other magazines and newspapers and it's always described in those dire terms. How it became that way is never explained. It just happened. It may be something in the genes of Pakistanis, that they are naturally inclined to be dangerous. But I think it's important to talk about US involvement in Pakistan. Because that explains a lot of why Pakistan is the way it is today. According to the Human Rights Commission of that country which just issued its annual report, Pakistan is a nation that is "half alive." And 2007 is called "one of the worst years in Pakistan's history, if not the worst."

So, I think it's crucial to know a little bit about the background of the country. And it’s interesting how India factors in this and especially the US. When Pakistan is created out of British India in 1947, the US was at that time kind of dividing the world into different regions that it would seek to dominate. South Asia was part of that focus, the major focus was West Asia for obvious reasons: oil. But South Asia was also of great interest to Washington. In the post-colonial era of newly independent states, an alternative between the US and the USSR was trying to establish itself. It was the non-aligned movement. India’s Nehru was its most visible figure. But there were others such as Kenyatta in Kenya, Nhkruma in Ghana, Nasser in Egypt, and Sukarno in Indonesia. This Third Way Bandung (the site in Indonesia where the non-aligned movement met) politics was viewed by Washington with great apprehension. It is interesting. Instead of, perhaps, embracing the non-aligned Third World movement, Washington saw it as a threat. Even then, the idea was: You're either with us or you're against us. You can’t be in the middle. There is no grey area.

So Washington, in response to the non-aligned movement, as well as its primary goal of "containing" the USSR, started to create a network of military alliances. Pakistan would be used as a foil to India. It was quickly brought into US-run military alliances, specifically CENTO, also known as the Baghdad Pact, as well as SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization). Although how Pakistan geographically comes into South East Asia is, of course, a bit of a leap as they say. What Washington was doing was globalizing its Latin American model which it had developed over decades. That is to say, to create strong alliances with military and security services in client states. The military and security services were always seen as natural allies of the United States that could be relied upon, they were dependable. They were hierarchal, top down organizations which did not brook dissent.

So the Latin American model now is globalised. And Pakistan is brought into the US orbit. And the Pakistanis, fearing rival India, were quite willing to come under the US umbrella. Pakistani officers are brought to the United States for training. There are mutual exchanges and military exercises and billions of dollars of weapons are flowing to Pakistan. The US supports a string of military dictatorships beginning with Ayub Khan in 1958, continuing through Yahya Khan and then the notorious Zia-ul-Haq (1977-88). And finally, Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in 1999. He is president of the country but his position is very shaky right now. He has become a major liability for the Americans. He has become an albatross around their necks.

That was one of the reasons they had negotiated this deal with Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan. She was going to be the eloquent, articulate, sophisticated, Harvard and Oxford-educated face of Pakistan with Musharraf in the background. As part of the deal Benazir agreed to allow American troops to openly operate in the country. In return she exacted a high price for her cooperation. The most controversial condition was the dropping of all criminal charges facing not only her but also her husband Asif Ali Zardari and members of the Pakistan People's Party. There were two other components of the deal. The clause in the Pakistani Constitution that would only allow for a Prime Minister to serve for two terms was to be eliminated. Recall that Benazir served as twice as PM from 1988 to 1990, then again from 1993 to 1996. So that was going off the books. And the last, not so well known, condition was the removal of the clause in the Pakistani Constitution which allows a President to dismiss a Prime Minister for corruption or incompetence or for violating the Constitution. Twice, Benazir was dismissed by presidents. So those were the conditions that she negotiated for her return to Pakistan on 18 October 2007. Many Pakistanis were aghast by the deal she struck. Her detractors sarcastically referred to her as "Bezamir, " (Urdu for no conscience)

Benazir is a subject of great interest in the United States particularly since her shahadat, martyrdom. She has been glorified in death. Her actual historical record has been distorted and reinvented. It's not surprising because I’m old enough to remember John F. Kennedy. And when he was assassinated, all of a sudden he became a saint. Everyone forgot about his invading Cuba, his using chemical weapons and bombing Vietnam, counter insurgency in Laos, and the coup in Brazil. Once he was killed he was transformed into an angel.

It is not surprising that a similar pattern occurs in Pakistan. It may have even happened in India when different political leaders have died. History is engineered. It's an interesting concept almost like a building you can reconstruct it. So history is reworked in order to glorify and sanitize the one who has died.

But there are other aspects of Pakistan and why its relationship with United States became so military dominated. The US had a particular strategy for West Asia, the Middle East as it is referred to in the US. The region was to be controlled by "local cops on the beat" as Nixon’s defense secretary Melvin Laird called it. And that's to say that Israel, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, all non-Arab states, were all recruited by the US to kind of police the Arabs. And of course if there were a big problem, then Washington would intervene directly. But the preference was to delegate the smaller tasks to surrogates. So Pakistan proved to be valuable asset. In1970, the Pakistani army under Zia-ul- Haq was responsible for attacks on Palestinians in Jordan during the Black September period. Pakistani air force pilots were basically the Saudi air force. The Saudis had no pilots, they had used Pakistani pilots to fly their planes. And the US established an important spy base in Pakistan outside Peshawar. It was from that base that the infamous Gary Powers and his U-2 plane took off from to spy on the USSR in 1960. Powers' capture created a huge incident between the two superpowers. Today, in fact, it is suspected that very same base has been resurrected by the US and is being used to launch missile strikes in the frontier areas as well as in what is called FATA, the Federally Administrate Tribal Areas. This is not exactly a province of Pakistan. Pakistan has four official provinces, and then it has what are called the tribal areas.

Many Americans when they hear the terms tribes and tribal leaders, immediately lapse into the cliches of wild Indians, the indigenous population, attacking innocent white settlers who are trying to bring civilization to the savages. The vocabulary has been repeated in Iraq in exactly the same way. Sunni tribes led by sheikhs, have been hired by the Americans to do their bidding. In a classic colonial technique, this is how they win hearts and minds of people in Iraq or Pakistan. Let me demonstrate another technique of power and control. (A large wad of Rupees is shown to the audience) This is money. The people are bought to perform certain services for the pay-Master.

It was the Great Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s that saw the US-Pakistan relationship bloom into full flower. Zia-ul Haq's 1977 US-backed coup ousting Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto effectively ended a democratic interlude in Pakistan. Bhutto, father of Benazir, with all his flaws, was a civilian ruler and had promulgated a constitution for the country. He was the founder of the PPP-the Pakistan People’s Party. Zia had him executed in 1979. Zia was an all too willing satrap and instrument to promote Washington’s goal of giving the Soviets a "Vietnam" in Afghanistan, Billions of dollars flowed into Pakistan from Saudi Arabia and the US to arm and train jihadis from all over the Islamic world who were brought to Pakistan and then sent into Afghanistan to fight. The Afghan operation was the biggest in the CIA’s history. It worked closely with the powerful Pakistani ISI, the Inter- Services Intelligence agency. The ISI made sure the bulk of the weapons coming in from the US and Europe went to its favorite client, the fundamentalist Gulbuddin Hekmetyar

All the US and Saudi money was funneled through the ISI and Pakistani military. Much of it simply disappeared. It is in this period when Zia institutes his fundamentalist Islamic program. Highly restrictive laws directed against women are implemented. Many are still in place. It is during the 80s that many of the extremist madarssas, seminaries, are established and funded. Zia’s reign is without question the darkest era in Pakistan’s 60-plus year history. The country has not yet fully recovered from the excesses of his rule. He was killed in a plane crash in 1988. The cause of the crash, which also killed the head of the ISI and the American ambassador to Islamabad, remains a mystery. The US, hell-bent on its agenda of bloodying the Soviets, played a central role in turning parts of Pakistan into a center for jihad. The consequences have been huge. Some of the jihadis, who President Reagan called "freedom fighters," later morphed into the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The primacy of the military in Pakistan has seriously diminished and hindered the development of civil society along, for want of a better term, more normal lines. US policy is greatly responsible for that. Pakistan has been prevented from, let's say, evolving along the line of its neighbor India in terms of civil society. It's always been the military that has been in the foreground in the country. It was privileged by the Americans over all other groups.

Do you know the great American philosopher Yogi Berra? He’s a kind of a character people make jokes about. He's kind of like Mullah Nasruddin. He seems to be foolish but he says incredibly intelligent things. Yogi Berra is not a yogi by the way. He was asked once by an American, "How would you explain how Pakistan is ruled?" And he said, "Well, first of all, 22 feudal families control 40 percent of the country's wealth." Then he said, "The other 90 percent is controlled by the military."

Yogi has a problem with math. But he doesn't have problem with analysis of a situation. The dominance and intervention of the Pakistani military in that country's economic life is stunning, You may not be aware of the kinds of things controlled by the Pakistani military. For example, they are the largest realtors in the country. They have housing developments, banks, strip malls, cement factories, they make tissue paper and, last but not least, breakfast cereal! The poet Daman said it well, "Now each day is fair and balmy. Everywhere you look: the army."

There is a very good book on this topic, by Pakistani scholar Ayesha Saddiqa, it's called Military Inc. It's the first book to document in detail the role and degree of involvement of the military in the Pakistani economy. A lot is happened in the last one year. The crisis begins on 9 March 2007 when Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was dismissed by Musharraf. Why? The Chief Justice was reportedly looking into the suspicious sale of a state steel mill. He was also asking questions about the whereabouts of the many Pakistanis disappeared by the state security services. Musharraf has long been the American favorite in Pakistan. The US has been supporting him since he overthrew Nawaz Sharif in 1999. As recently as early April, George Bush said he still supports Musharraf and called him a real friend of the United States. The General also received some ten billion dollars from the Americans to carry out their various projects in the so-called war against terrorism. Most of that money is unaccounted for and very little of it went to the needs of the Pakistani people.

Musharraf's dismissal of the Chief Justice sparked lawyers to take to the streets in protest. They maintained their protests through the year and into 2008. It was an impressive display of consistency and principle. They were joined by others from civil society but it always seemed that it was the men in suits and ties who formed the bulk of the public opposition.

Pakistan’s terrible year ends with the murder of Benazir in Rawalpindi on 27 December. Few believed the Musharraf story blaming Beitullah Mehsud and the Taliban. Most Pakistanis believe the intelligence agencies must have been involved. They point to the quick cleansing of the murder site and the destruction of all forensic evidence. The Scotland Yard investigation, reluctantly agreed to by Musharraf, was thus very limited and many government officials were not available for questioning by the detectives. Political assassinations in Pakistan have a long history of never being solved.

Benazir’s death set off a series of events. The 8 January elections were postponed until 18 February. When they were held Musharraf and his allies were given a stinging defeat. The Islamic parties also were routed. A coalition of the PPP now led by Zardari and the PML-N led by Nawaz Sharif formed a coalition to rule the country. Their alliance must be seen as temporary as there are deep differences dividing them. Nevertheless there is a honeymoon period for the time being. The new PM, a PPP stalwart, Yusuf Gilani, endeared himself to many by lifting the dreaded bans on student unions and trade unions. The government has announced it is seeking some kind of truce with militants. The Americans are very nervous about this and are putting pressure on Islamabad not to go forward with any kind of peace deal. Musharraf continues as president of the country. How long he will last is uncertain. It can't be for long. He is even more unpopular than his patron and payroll master, George W. Bush. The latter is bound for Crawford, Texas. And Musharraf, if he avoids being killed, may end up in Miami, Florida or in his house in Turkey.

I am in Islamabad. Spoke in Gujranwala in northeastern Punjab yesterday afternoon. Passed a jaloos (procession) railing against Denmark and Holland. Signs everywhere - humrat-e rasool par jan bhi qurban hai. Rough translation "We're prepared to sacrifice even our lives for upholding the honour of the Prophet." A`wonderful sentiment in a country with massive load shedding (South Asian English for power failures), scarcity of potable water, skyrocketing food prices, a political class that historically is corrupt and dedicated to serving itself, an army tht owns whatever sectors of the economy the feudals don't, and the Americans breathing down its neck. That's a partial list of the woes besetting Pakistan.

At GIFT University in Gujranwala there was confusion about the starting time. They thought 2 PM, we thought 4. We lost. Arrived 3:40 to a "throng" of about 20 people. Was so tired from the early morning flight to Islamabad from Karachi and then a long drive to Gujranwala that I have little memory of what I said save for some comments about the imperial viceroy Negroponte. He is in Islamabad and announced that he had no hidden agenda. This elicited laughs from the audience. I said he just happened to be in the area and popped in to attend a cricket match and have some delicious roghan josh and gulab jamun. I also reminded the audience that he is a khooni, murderer. He`was the US ambassador in Honduras and helped arm and organize the contra death squads that attacked Nicaragua in the 1980s. So in some ways fitting that he should be sent here. Another emissary accompanying Negroponte is Richard Boucher. A man of little accomplishment and standing. He mouthed all the usual platitudes about Pakistan being a sovereign state, "we" want a democratic Pakistan, the need to fight the War on Terror together, etc. The unctious Zardari (widower of Benazir) and now a big political figure, was there sitting next to him smiling and nodding his head probably counting the newinfusions of dollars from America for which he will no doubt skim off, sometimes called undue gratification in local parlance. Zardari sidebar-On Wednesday I visited Sehwan Sharif, the Sufi shrine of Shabazz Qalandar in Sindh. People were chanting- Zardari ka yar, mulk ka ghadar- Friends of Zardari are traitors to the country.

After my lecture in Gujranwala one man got up and said, "Why should we struggle? Nothing will change. There is no hope." To which I replied "why do you bother breathing?" Two people asked about what they should do in Pakistan. I told them your work is here and my work is there. You have to figure out things for yourself. The drive back to Islamabad at night, the first part of which was on an extremely bad road was excruciating and seemed to take forever. Meeting with journos here this eve and then another event on 31st before going to Lahore on 1 April.

Entries from David's 2007 Trip Follow

The partition of India into two states in 1947, India and Pakistan, was a calamity with after effects felt today. The departing British, led by Mountbatten and his imperial cartographer Radcliffe, must bear a huge moral responsibility for dividing the country and the rivers of blood and torrents of refugees that ensued. Kashmir is an unresolved issue from that period. It has been the source of wars, big and small, producing heavy militarization and massive war budgets way beyond the capacity of two poor states to bear. This militarization particularly in much smaller Pakistan has created huge distortions in its economy and political life. The U.S. played an instrumental role in the evolution-or lack of same-in Pakistani politics. The U.S. was suspicious of and hostile to Nehru's neutral Third World/Bandung politics. (Nehru was India's first prime minister and served in that post from 1947 until his death in 1964) Thus, America enlisted Pakistan in its global crusade against the USSR and its successor designated enemy-radical Islam/Al-Qaida. And a well-armed Pakistan would be a foil to Nehru's ambitions. The alliance help warp Pakistani politics until the present. It was the classic model so often used in Latin America and the Caribbean. By favoring the military and building it into the most powerful institution in Pakistan, the U.S. seriously undercut and hampered the growth of civil society. Pakistan was recruited to join military pacts such as CENTO. Pakistani officers were brought to the U.S. for training. Weaponry and money flowed to Islamabad. The country became a major listening post as well as the site of secret bases. Gary Power's U-2 flew from one such base near Peshawar. Pakistani forces were used to crush the Palestinians during Black September in Jordan. The U.S. has backed a series of Pakistani military rulers-Gen Ayub Khan 1958-1969, Gen Yahya Khan 1969-1971, Gen Zia ul-Haq 1977-1988 and Gen Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in 1999. Musharraf-sometimes called Busharraf by his critics- may soon be too big an albatross for Washington to bear and may be "terminated with extreme prejudice" or find himself a cozy exile somewhere. Miami is a suitable destination, There he'd have the company ofother U.S. favorites fallen from grace. Meanwhile, there is always a general in the wings waiting to do Washington's bidding. Can any one say Afshaq Kiyani? He replaced Musharraf as head of the army. He is U.S. trained-Ft Benning and Ft Leavenworth. Andwas former head of the all powerful ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. As the mafia would say, he's a made man.

This is short-cut history. New Delhi's legal claim to Kashmir is based on the so-called accession to India by the Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh in 1947 in defiance of the preference of the majority to be part of Pakistan. A war over the territory resulted in one-third taken by Pakistan. This is called Azad Kashmir. The rest, including the central valley where the city of Srinagar is located, was taken by India. Nehru, though born in Allahabad in North India, was of Kashmiri Brahmin origin. He had promised to Kashmiris and the outside world that a plebiscite would be held to determine their desires. He never followed through and over time New Delhi consolidated its hold. India talks about Kashmir as an integral part of the IndianUnion and will not entertain any alternative.

In an interesting chronological parallel Palestine was divided in 1948. The Palestinians revolted against Israeli rule in 1987. In Kashmir, the years are 1947 and 1989. Kashmiris told me they were inspired by the intifada in Palestine. As I traveled around Kashmir, I've been to Palestine twice, there were some similarities between the occupations, although the massive Israeli colonies, euphemistically called settlements, do not have their equivalent in Kashmir. Also note that India, is moving close to Israel in terms of military, intelligence-sharing and economic arenas. "They" know how to deal with rebellious Muslims. The Washington-New Delhi connection is rapidly developing.

I arrived in Srinagar on 24 Dec and after a quick meal of qeema and nan was whisked off by my hosts to meet what are called civil society activists. The venue was the upstairs of a well known eatery. About 20 people asked me various questions but I was keen to hear from them rather than once again hear myself rattling on. It was a lively exchange. One medical doctor told me, "We have been living in hell for 60 years. Can no one hear our voice?" Others chimed in with accounts of repression and the massive military presence that is a part of their daily lives. I kept coming back for the need to organize and act locally. You can't wait for outside help. It's good to have and it will hopefully increase but ultimately it's what happens in the local communities. At one point the power went out and candles were brought in. It created an almost seance-like atmosphere. Of the 20 people present, all were men save for one woman, who said nary a word. Lots of food was served but coming fast on the heels of a late lunch I could barely partake.

I could not and did not want to lecture them as to what to do. Though that question came up more than once in different forms. I did try and explain why India has been so successful in dominating the outside world's perceptions about Kashmir. And not just the outside world. Most Indians have little awareness of the situation beyond the government-driven platitudes and cliches: All's well, just a few criminal elements and terrorists supported by Pakistan/Al-Qaida and other evildoers.

Last night (30 Dec) at a dinner gathering of progressives just outside of Delhi, except for a couple of people, the familiar tropes about Kashmir were repeated.

Xmas day. I met with a group of Kashmiri journalists. It would be hard for me to reproduce what was said. My lecture was at the Grand Mumtaz Hotel. The room was packed, close to 200 hundred people. All kind of blurring at this point though I remember the response to my reading an Iqbal couplet that is well known in the valley. Iqbal, of Kashmiri origin himself, asks why this land is so poor and oppressed and then he laments that once Kashmir was known as Little Iran. (Cultural and historical connections between Iran and Kashmir are deep) Some in the audience were murmuring the words as I said them. I can't tell you how moving that was. It gave me chills.

The next day was a tour of valley and border areas. Troops galore. See The entry just before this one.

Last day 27 Dec, I went to an important 600-yr old shrine of Shah Hamdan, a Iranian mystic. It's a place of tranquility and a respite from the outside world.

Yes, I am writing quickly friends and now I have to bring this missive to a close.

I am so glad I went to Kashmir. My friend Sanjay Kak (Jashn-e Azaadi) was instrumental in getting me there. My hosts there were just gems of affection and love. And knowledgable. I learned much from them. By the way, all over India and Pakistan the hospitality and kindness of people I met were overwhelming. I feel kind of at home here.

Happy New Year.

Dec 29/Saturday/Delhi - Just back from almost back to back interviews with Vandana Shiva and Arundhati Roy. A bit tired and under the weather and had several technical lapses with Roy. Got through it but neither of us were particularly thrilled with the results. May have print value rather than broadcast. Let's see. The Shiva interview will work for radio. The exciting news is that my book with Roy - “The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile” will be published here by Penguin in early 2008. I may come back for that book launch. And Daanish Books based just outside of Delhi may soon publish “Targeting Iran.”

On 28 December/Friday/Delhi I interviewed the documentary film maker Sanjay Kak, His Jashn-e Azaadi (Celebration of Freedom) is a very important work on Kashmir, a topic vastly underreported in the U.S. and elsewhere and when there is media attention the lens is Indian framed and designed. (for info on the film-see www.indiepix.net)

I was in Kashmir Dec 24-27. It was my first visit since 1968 when I went with my guruji Debu Chaudhuri. Prior to that I was there in 1966 during my “traveling” days. At that time I had only a vague awareness of the politics, culture and history of the area but I loved the Central Asian feel, Buddhist-influenced architecture and Soofiana kalam, Sufi-inspired music. The first time I saw the valley was when the bus I was traveling on from Pathankot came out of the tunnel. At once an unforgettable majestic panorama. Snow-capped mountains surrounding the valley floor. Rivers, lakes and streams. And tall, willowy poplar trees lining the roads. Until this trip I had mistakenly called them chinar only to learn they are poplar (pres in Kashmiri).

The scale of the Indian military presence in Kashmir is staggering. There are between 600-700,000 security forces in Kashmir. The ratio is about 1 soldier for every 12 Kashmiris. Arriving at the airport was almost like enetering another country minus passport being stamped. Armed troops, roadblocks, checkpoints, bunkers, towers, barbed wire, garrisons literally everywhere. From the streets of the capital of Srinagar, Residency Road for example, where my hotel was located to remote rural areas, gun-toting soldiers were to be seen.

Military convoys rule the road. Civilian cars must pull over and wait until, as my companion called them “sahib ki ghariyan” - the vehicles of the masters - pass. They point their machine guns at you and make threatening hand and facial gestures. This happened to me many times in a full day tour of parts of the valley not far from the border aka LOC-Line of Control with Pakistan. To collapse a lot of history, in 1947, when India was partitoned into India and Pakistan, by all logic of geography and religion, Kashmir should have become part of Pakistan. Through a series of maneuvers India persuaded the Hindu maharaja, king, Har Singh to opt for India. He did this against the wishes of the majority Muslim population. A war ensued between India and Pakistan. The defacto borders after the end of fighting left India with two-thirds of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan with one-third. That Pakistani area is called Azad (free) Kashmir. A war broke out again in 1965 and since then there have been on-again, off-again-skirmishes, cross-border raids, etc. The most serious military action took place in 1999 when Gen Pervez Musharraf launched an offensive in the Kargil sector of Kashmir. He did in this in the earlier part of that year, months later he overthrew Nawaz Sharif.

Much of the valley has been turned into Bantustans. Huge military bases are are connected by strips of land. There are also guardposts and camps on hills. Water is appropriated for military use depriving farmers of much needed irrigation for their crops as well as for drinking. In addition, high ground water sources are frequently polluted by the army thus contaminating drinking water.

Kashmir is called jannat-e benazir, heaven without equal. (Yes, the same Benazir as in Bhutto.) For many residents, the heaven part is remote. The decades-long occupation and repression have turned it into a hell. Everyone seems to have a story of killings-some 70,000, disappearances some 7,000, extrajudicial executions, imprisonment, torture, sexual molestation and rape. One journalist told me there are “100s of Abu Ghraibs” in Kashmir. He then showed me cigarette burns on his wrists when he was held captive. Because of a large number of disappeared, macabre terms such as half-widows and half-orphans have been coined to describe those in the limbo status of not knowing the fate of their loved ones. A local-based human rights group has documented the instance of assaults on women. One technique employed is to arrest or disappear a man. Then when the women go to inquire about the fate of their menfolk they are sexploited. As in most conservative cultures the number of women coming forward and reporting incidents is far lower than the actual number.

Since 11 Sept, India has skillfully wedded its occupation and repression of Kashmir in the discourse of terrorism. The Indian govt has converted Kashmir into a battlefield which is covered with a carpet of force and propaganda. Few Indian intellectuals/liberals have anything to say in terms of challenging the official story. The idea of secularism is twisted to justify occupation. For the right-wing hanging on to Kashmir is an article of faith. In classic colonial style, Kashmiris are spoken for by people who magically know what they want and what is best for them.

The Kashmiris I was able to talk with seemed to favor independence rather then joining with Pakistan. There is no way I can judge how widespread this sentiment is. One thing everyone agreed upon is the occupation must end.

I will try and write more soon.

1- Pakistan is showing characteristics of a state that is falling apart. The military basically is in control. The intelligence agenies exercise enormous power. The assassination was predictable. Since I arrived here on 30 November I have been telling people that Benazeer will be killed. It did not take a genius to see that. A major attempt was made on her life on 18 Oct in Karachi when over 140 people were killed. The political situation is highly unstable and has been for some time. Musharraf sacked the Supreme Court Chief Justice in March. Since then he has taken more autocratic measures supposedly to curb extremists but in fact aimed at the moderate opposition, lawyers, judges and the media.

2 - Al Qaida and the Taliban could not operate in Pakistan without at least the collusion of the military and the intelligence agencies who have long had ties with them. The Taliban is literally a creature of the latter.

Much of the jihad was birthed in Islamabad and funded by Saudi Arabia through the madarsa network of Islamic seminaries. US has never acknowledged its central role in the creation of these groups. In order to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, a Faustian bargain was struck by Washington. The chickens, as Malcolm X used to say, have come and are coming home to roost.

No doubt there are jihadi elements operating inside of Pakistan. Bhutto was a hope for Washington because she was on record as saying that if she came to power she would allow the US military to enter Pakistan. Najam Sethi, the noted Pakistani journalist in Lahore, is on record as saying Benazeer was Washington's candidate. Others have intimated the same. As Musharraf has accrued more and more power and is increasingly obdurate he has become a liability for America. Another reason for the tilt toward Benazeer. Of course the US cares not an iota for Pakistan or its people. They like Iraqis and Afghans are mere extras on the grand chessboard. Imperialism takes no prisoners and saves no lives.

3- With all her political problems and charges of corruption notwithstanding Benazeer was still an important and charismatic figure. Beyond grief there is great rage and anger at Musharraf. She was provided with no visible security protection at an open rally in the very park where Pakistan's first prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated, hence named after him. She was also killed very near the prison where her father was hanged in 1979 by the infamous dictator and Islamist Zia ul-Haq. Elections are still scheduled for 8 Jan thou even now Nawaz Sharif has announced his party will boycott.

Prospects for more bloodshed and anarchy in Pakistan are high as the country continues its slide into darkness.

Yes, here too. The awful malls are springing up all over the place. Today Sunday was a day with my Delhi family, Debu Chaudhuri. We drove out of capital to the other side of the Jamuna River to Ghaziabad and the Pacific Mall. Loud music, crowds, couples trying to couple and singles trying to end their status. Malls are hot dating spots. Restaurants galore with such as Kebab Krazy, Pizza Hut Express, Amritsar Express, Dosa Plaza, Andaaz-e Lucknow, etc. Couples at tables feed one another, very intimate. A fair espresso was imbibed by your reporter.

From Pacific to another mall- Cross River. On the way, I saw a group of slight women at building sites, this is late afternoon on a Sunday. They were carrying impossible piles of bricks on their heads. I've noticed at other construction sites that work continues into the night. They labor in dangerous conditions and for very little.

Cross River mall has Baskin & Robbins, McDonald's Levi Struass and other American favorites. It has a cinema too. We saw the film “Welcome.” Yes, the English word. The usual improbable Bollywood narrative spins mixed with wild loud beat music and dance scenes with enough women's flesh showing to keep the boys salivating. Years ago Bollywood films would always have at least a few memorable songs. Apparently not any more. It's now blow out the eardrums with bhangra, a Punjabi dance style, beats and gyrations, with lyrics from nowhere, laced with rap and hip hop as well. Urdu poets like Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Sahir Ludhianvi used to write for films to support themselves. Now they've been replaced by MTV knockoffs.

Did find a music store where I bought a CD of prominent singers from India and Pakistan singing some of the best ghazals, poems, from Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the sub-continent's leading Urdu poet of this era. He died in the mid-80s. He was Eqbal Ahmad's favorie poet. Looking forward to listening to that as well as Begum Akhtar singing Ghalib, the greatest Urdu poet who died in 1869. I found that CD in Bombay with my friend Zaheer Ali and his wife Ferdos Begum patientaly waiting for me to comb through the CD racks.

Day ended in Kalkaji in South Delhi, near where I am staying, at a wonderful South Indian restaurant called Naivedyam (Offering). South Indian food is much lighter than the meat-laden North Indian variety. South India also has decent coffee.

Distressing election news today from the Indian state of Gujarat. Narenda Modi, a Hindu nationalist who presided over an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002, was reelected.

I'm off to Srinagar tomorrow. There is a famous sher, couplet, in Farsi about Kashmir from Shah Jehan-

Agar ferdos ba ru-e zameen ast
hameen ast, hameen ast, hameen ast

If there is heaven on earth,
it is this, it is this, it is this.

Apparently heaven has had some hard knocks since 1989 when the uprising began. Tens of thousands dead. More on that later.

In Pakistan, Musharraf is called Busharraf and Benazeer (without example)is called Bezameer (without conscience)!

The situation there is very unstable. A bomb blast killed more than 50 in a mosque near Peshawar on Eid, (the important Muslim holiday). The target was a hated former Interior Minister-Sherpao. He escaped without injury. There are allegations of vote rigging already in the lead-up to the election on 8 January. Possibility of what is called “civil unrest” could ensue. Some parties are boycotting the vote. And Nawaz Sharif's party is legally prevented from contesting because of some technicality. Sharif incidentally is no geat shakes. He was a minister under the notorious Zia ul-Haq regime and twice prime minister in the 1990s. It was he that Musharraf overthrew in a 1999 coup. A businessman from Punjab, he is a chor (thief). However he can't compete with Benazeer who is a maha chor (great thief) The military and the secret intelligence agency (ISI) basically run the country. They are doing well, the country is sinking. As I may have mentioned in an earlier message, elements of a failed state are evident. And as Fatima Bhutto (Benazeer's niece who is in opposition to her aunt) warns, the Islamists are at the gate.

I had Eid dinner at Ustad Asad Ali Khan's house in Asiad Village. Mountains of biryani. Not a vegetable, piece of fruit or salad in sight. Quite a contrast from my dosa (South Indian crepe)lunch. Lots of talk about gharana, raag, bandish, silsalah, khandan, etc. One Pakistani musician present, Hamid Ali Khan, boasted of performing in front of Musharraf not once but several times. Vah, vahs (praise) were uttered. Khan Sahib assured us the President/General is a connoisseur of music. I thought Musharraf probably doesn't know the difference between do and re. The evening proved another world is not only possible, it exists in the minds and lives of these musicians.

I escaped around midnight.

Today I visited the construction site of the Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan Centre for Culture in South Delhi. The Ctr is being built by my guruji Debu Chaudhuri in honor of his sitar master (Ustad). I knew and learned from him as well. He was quite a character, someone who bridged the feudal era (pre-1947)-where all the musician's needs were taken care of by royals-to the modern period where they have to compete and are a commodity in the marketplace.

The building is a project I'm excited about and actively suporting but to visit an Indian construction site is risky business. It seem pieces of wood are miraculously holding up slabs of concrete, wires jutting out from all angles, garbage and building materials are strewn everywhere and the workers live in windowless brick hovels surrounding the plot of land. The South Delhi area is in a building frenzy. Malls, apt blocks and stores. Even saw a hated Domino's Pizza. Dust everywhere. Roads choked with traffic and cars who are in permanent beeping mode. Pollution is suffocating.

As tomorrow is the Eid holiday, and most of the workers are Muslim, not much was happening. The contractor, himself a Muslim, was around and immediately produced out of nowhere padded office swivel chairs and the inevitable deadly-sweet tea and biscuits. Debuji and he were in an animated conversation about money, timetables and design issues. I injected some Urdu poetry which was appreciated all around.

This evening we are going to hear some musicians from Pakistan at a mehfil-soiree where people sit on the floor and listen to music. Best atmosphere for this kind of music. The connoisseurs mumble words of praise and appreciation after some particularly brilliant musical phrase or display of virtousity. The musician nods or brings his hand to his chest. Promises of sumptious food afterwards keeps people from leaving. 10PM is average dinner time.

I lectured at Delhi University today. It went well. I have to rein in my U.S. humor, not be clever and be very concrete. A local publisher, Daanish Books looks like it's going to put out Targetng Iran here soon. Daanish previously published my book with Tariq Ali here. I am gobbling up copies of that one and selling them at events.

My best payments for talks so far- A Delhi talk netted me a pair of wollen socks. At another Delhi talk I got a towel, and Bombay Univ paid me $7.50, you read it right, seven dollars and fifty cents.

I saw one Xmas sign in Delhi today. What a relief to be free from the commercial bombardment of sense and sensibilities.

I leave for Kashmir on 24 Dec for 4 days. I was last there in 1968. This himalayan state revolted against Delhi in 1989. Since then tens of thousands of Kashmiris have been killed. Kashmir with a population of 3 million has 700,000 Indian “security” forces, making it the most densely occupied place in the world. The “problem” of Kashmir is yet another great achievement of the British Empire who left India divided-note Palestine, Cyprus, Ireland and other London success stories-and Kashmir, Muslim majority, incorporated into India against the will of the people. My friend Sanjay Kak, a Kashmiri Hindu by the way, has just released an excellent doc called Jashn-e Azadi (Celebration of Freedom.) His irony is intended. Kashmir continues to bleed and Delhi holds on, refusing to conceded autonomy or heaven forbid-self-determination-a promise made several times by Nehru and reneged upon.

I am in Lahore. Just back from a rally/demo in front of the High Court. About 1,500-2,000 people attended. 3 nights ago I attended a smaller similar protest in Islamabad.

Today before the protest I spoke at Punjab Univ. Wonderful audience of mostly students but also some faculty and others,including Dr Mubashir Hasan (fmr Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto finance minister and old friend of Eqbal Ahmad's) and Tahira Mezher Ali (Tariq Ali's mother) both attended.

I was in pretty good form, recited some shers (couplets) from Iqbal, Faiz and Ghalib.

You would have enjoyed the latter. You know his ghazal- Koi umeed bar nahi aati?

Anyway I changed the last couplet-

Amreeka kiss mu se jaogay Musharraf
Sharm tum ko magar nahi aati

People were laughing and clapping.

Pollution is so bad here, my eyes are burning and my throat feels like it is infested with some alien microbes.

The more I hear from people the more I feel Pakistan is sliding into the failed state category. Withholding making judgments based on just ten days in the country but.... The stories of corruption, incompetence, greed and sheer indifference to the people's needs are breathtaking.

On Friday, spent a hour or so with Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar, did an interview with him. Unfortunately had to rush back to Islamabad to attend the protest I referred to above, so did not spend much time in Peshawar.

Last night a soiree w/ old leftists arguing old issues. They have no clue what to do and are still lamenting the demise of the USSR which they insisted was socialist. They were asking me for guidance! I said just walk outside. Looking for something to do? Your country is on fire.

Was in a lively demo/march Fri eve about 400 people here in the capital Talk in the air of US intervention to protect nukes, already sightings of Americans in Quetta in civvies. Growing hostility toward Washington. Had lunch w/ a Geo reporter at Omar Khayyam, an Iranian restaurant in Islamabad. She reports that GEO TV is still banned. Others back on only after signing a censorship agreement with the government. Was on one show for half an hr and not a question about Pakistan

Running jokes -

Benazeer=Bezameer (without conscience),
Musharraf=Busharraf

English print media, small circulation but influential, is not subjected to as much censorship as the electronic.

Stations that were taken off the air have had to sign statements agreeing to limit themselves. All have complied save GEO. In Karachi, I was on Indus News TV for 30 minutes and not one question about Pakistan. On 6 Dec, in Islamabad I was on Dawn TV. Was asked to talk about Islamophobia and hate groups in the U.S., so that was safe. One radio station in Karachi FM 103 was still off the air as of last week because it refused to comply w/ the restrictions.