I observed the moon very carefully on the evenings (early nights) of 25th and 26th September 2009. According to Mullah Popalzai 7th of Shawwal should have fallen on the 25th and according to Mufti Sahib it was to be on the 26th. On any 7th of the lunar month the moon is exactly half and forms a perfect semi-circle. It was clearly so on the evening of 26th September proving Mufti Sahib to be correct. Readers would be able to see for themselves the full moon – an exact circle - on the 14th of Shawwal that will now fall on Saturday 3rd October 2009 and not on Friday 2nd October. Similarly we would find 21st Shawwal – again an exact semi circle - falling on the 10th of October and not on the 9th October 2009. All these would prove Mullah Popalzai to be wrong and culpable of making his followers miss one Roza. May Allah (SWT) forgive him for that.
Col. ® Riaz Jafri
Rawalpindi
Getting real
on Kashmir
In his address to the UN General Assembly, President Asif Zardari, among other issues, urged the world community that meaningful progress towards resolution of the Kashmir dispute was necessary for durable peace. This rhetoric has become almost a policy statement by our leadership on national and international forums. However, as yet we have not found a way forward ourselves and nor any recipe has been suggested by the international community. This is a kind of camouflage for our leadership and a strategy to deceive the nation. The real issue in our Kashmir policy is ascertaining our end-game strategy or finding a solution that would be agreeable and acceptable to us. For its part, New Delhi has quite clearly said several times and at various forums that Kashmir is an integral part of India — clearly suggesting that there will be no change in its territorial boundaries on this issue. And we need to understand our options in this context. We have employed all kinds of tools ranging from wars to low-intensity conflict and even fomenting an independence struggle within Indian-held Kashmir and these have yielded no results. Then we engaged in back-channel diplomacy and in this the issue is that we are still not clear of what should be our strategic vision for such negotiations. But there are certain realities — first, it will be foolish to consider that war or hostilities are anymore an option to solve this issue. Second, Kashmir will not be part of Pakistan in the foreseeable future, and however unfortunate or unpalatable that may seem we need to accept this reality. Three, our leadership has created a strong pressure group in the country which will vehemently oppose or militarily resist any sensible bargain with India. Four, it will be myopic to consider that the international community will offer any substantive help to resolve the Kashmir issue to our liking. So what should we do? Our leadership needs to be realistic as already the nation has suffered a lot on this account. It is time to be realistic to determine as to what is minimum possible acceptable to us and state facts to the nation and take people into confidence. The president is the leader of the country’s most popular political party, a party whose founding father had the courage to go to Shimla and search for a solution to the Kashmir issue. The president needs to do the same, instead of reading a speech prepared by the establishment. We need the president to show courage and vision on this. No more adventures like Kargil, we need peace.
Brig (r) Asif Alvi
Karachi
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