SENATOR Asfandyar Wali, President of Awami National party, has said if President Pervez Musharraf went ahead to start construction of Kalabagh Dam, his people would be constrained to reject the Pakistan Resolution. Addressing an anti-KBD rally at Jahangira (Nowshera District) on Thursday, he warned of the danger of Federation splitting up if will of the Punjab was thrust on the other three smaller provinces. Is it a hollow threat or a repetition of his family’s well-known stance on the division of the sub-continent? Bach Khan and his successors have had their own reservations on the establishment of Pakistan. However, over time the family’s diehard supporters representing the Awami National Party had shown a greater degree of accommodation and had begun to accept the ground realities. Their growing opposition to the Kalabagh Dam has however once again brought into focus their old thinking.
The controversial Dam which the experts have observed is a must for Pakistan will, when built, cause inundation of some agricultural lands in the heart of ANP’s now not-so-strong fortress but the benefits that shall accrue to five districts of NWFP and Sindh as also to the national economy shall be enormous. Without mega dams on the Indus at Kalabagh, Bhasha and some more locations on Pakistan’s major river, the irrigation water shortages will grow to some 25 million acre feet by 2020. This indeed is a frightening scenario. President Musharraf told newspaper editors on Thursday at Lahore that it will be treason to turn back on mega water reservoirs. This means that the Government will soon proceed to start construction of major dams regardless of what some politicians say. To save limited area of agricultural lands likely to be submerged by the KBD lake the Government cannot and should not succumb to the threats emanating from some quarters opposing KBD on sentimental and political grounds and not on sound technical reasons.
The previous Governments in the 80’s and 90’s have miserably failed to address the issue of fast growing irrigation water shortages. The decision on big dams is long overdue and it must go to the credit of President Musharraf to have made it a mission of his life to save succeeding generations of Pakistan from untold miseries such as hunger and deprivation. The debate triggered by Government’s announced intentions to proceed to take up big dam projects has gradually removed apprehensions and misgivings created in the public mind by ill-advised opposition. The supreme national interests must guide our policies. The entire nation will gain if KBD comes up. Our politicians must think of he nation rather than fight to promote their parochial and personal interests.
One the one hand President Musharraf is busy in addressing misplaced apprehensions of some elements in Sindh and NWFP, on the other he is determined to loosen the stranglehold of Baloch Sardars on the people of the province of Balochistan. The nation is with him and given his commitment he shall overcome all opposition.

Grave truth

SKELETONS continue to tumble out of the Narendra Modi government’s cupboard. The discovery of a mass grave this week in Gujarat, India with the remains of 26 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 goes to demonstrate that you cannot suppress truth for long and forever — be it in Gujarat or Iraq or the Balkans. The blood-stained truth comes to haunt all those who, power-intoxicated, may think they can get away with murder. The Indian government must be complimented for acting swiftly following the discovery of the mass grave in Lunawada. It quickly dispatched a team of the country’s top investigative agency CBI to probe the mass grave and present a report to the Centre. The federal government has also demanded an explanation from the Modi government. The CBI has moved the remains to Delhi for a DNA test and further investigation while some of its officials are camping in Dahod to question local people about the carnage that killed these innocent men, women and children.
However, as human rights groups have insisted in their plea to the Gujarat High Court, there is need for a full investigation by the CBI in the matter. This is essential not only to find the truth beyond the Dahod mass grave but also important to unravel the larger conspiracy behind Gujarat massacre that continued for full two months even as the state government helpfully added fuel to the communal inferno. Who knows how many more such graves are there across Gujarat?
India remains a fascinating and noble example of a secular, and richly pluralist society that offers equal opportunity, justice and freedom to all. Gujarat challenges these liberal traditions and secular credentials of the country. As even former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and BJP chief Lal Krishna Advani have admitted, what happened in Gujarat in February 2002 remains a blot on the truly tolerant and liberal visage of the South Asian giant. Although two inquiry commissions formed by the Centre have indicted the Gujarat government, chief minister Modi remains unscathed, smugly unrepentant and beyond the reach of the long arm of the law. So do most others who choreographed the dance of death across the province. The Congress-led coalition government that is committed to the cause of secularism and justice for all would do well to take steps to restore India’s liberal image by clearing this blot. It appears reluctant to go after Modi lest it is accused of being politically motivated. However, justice has to prevail. Gujarat remains the ultimate test of Indian secularism and justice. The world’s largest democracy just can’t afford to flunk this critical test.

—Khaleej Times