Following the Army’s technical clearance and a commercial bid likely to be submitted by next month, the rifles factory in Amethi which was inaugurated in March is all set to receive an order to manufacture 6.7 lakh Kalashnikov assault rifles soon.
The joint venture Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited for production of AK 203 assault rifles is all set to get an approval at an acquisition meeting later this month and will move to the subsequent stage of the inking of the contract to start manufacturing.
Initially, during the first phase, 6.7 lakh rifles will be manufactured for the Army and the count will soar to at least 7.5 lakh depending on the requirements of other forces. The technology transfer clause of the deal will be fulfilled after the first one lakh rifles are manufactured, following which all components of the weapon system will be produced in India. The project is expected to produce AK 203 rifles that will cost about $1000 each.
Though the Amethi factory was officially inaugurated earlier in March, it was yet to get orders as they had to go through the acquisition process of negotiating technical and commercial terms. As per sources, the deal inked with Russia mandates complete transfer of technology on modern assault rifles to India.
Hailing the joint venture, a top Army officer said that it is an epitome of how India has gained technology transfer through planned acquisitions. The joint venture for manufacturing of Kalashnikov rifles has been acclaimed as one of the ‘fastest’ ones brought about by Russia for an Indian venture.
In addition to this, the factory is getting operational with the supplied equipment to manufacture weapons and armaments procured. Besides, a serving Major General from the Army is been assigned the job of supervising the development.
In yet another massive self-goal scored by Congress party, senior Congress leader and former Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha – Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday called the ‘Shastra Puja’ as a ‘tamasha’ and attacked Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for performing it as he received the first Rafale aircraft on the day of Vijayadashami.
Mallikarjun Khage, Congress on Defence Minister officially receiving Rafale aircraft in France & performing ‘Shastra Puja’: There is no need to do such ‘tamasha’ (drama). When we bought weapons-like the Bofors gun previously purchased, no one went & brought them while showing off pic.twitter.com/ITM0IpSMw6
Calling Shastra Puja as a ‘tamasha’, Kharge further said that the previous Congress government bought weapons like the Bofors guns, but no one went and brought them by showing off. In a hurry to attack the Modi government, Kharge recalled the Bofors scam to compare it with the Rafale deal.
“Our Air Force officers judge whether they are good or not. These people go, show off, sit inside (the aircraft),” said Kharge.
Interestingly, while the quality of Bofors and Rafale have never been questioned, Kharge also indirectly hinted that the quality of the Rafale will be judged by the Air Force. Kharge seems to forget that the IAF had wanted to Rafale even during the Congress tenure but the Congress had asserted that they had no money to buy the jets. In fact, there was also speculation that the Congress party had not purchased the Rafale because they wanted to buy the Eurofighter. Christian Michel, Congress era middleman in the Agusta Westland case was also a middleman for Eurofighter as was Defence Dalal Sanjay Bhandari who has close links with Robert Vadra.
The controversial Bofors deal, which is known to be the first inter-continent defence scam had linked former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. There were exclusive investigative reports that had questioned Sonia Gandhi’s Italian family involvement in the Bofors scam. OpIndia had earlier accessed evidence to show that Sonia Gandhi’s Italian family could have been involved in the Bofors scandal, with their names carefully hidden from the public eye.
The Bofors deal for 155 mm field howitzers which Kharge referenced became a big scandal during the erstwhile Rajiv Gandhi government, with senior government functionaries accused of taking kickbacks in exchange of approving the deal.
Since yesterday, the Congress party has been continuously attacking the Modi government after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh performed the Shastra Puja on Rafale aircraft and wrote ‘Om’ on it. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had visited France to receive the first unit of Indian Air Force’s Rafale fighter jet from France which also coincided with Vijayadashami and also Indian Airforce day.
Shashtra puja, the weapons’ worship as part of Dussehra celebrations, came under attack from the Opposition parties especially the Congress party. Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit accused the Narendra Modi government of saffronising the Rafale handover. “This religious context of Vijayadashami and the Rafale aircraft doesn’t match. A festival that all of us celebrate, why should it be linked with an aircraft?” said Sandeep Dikshit courting a controversy.
Former AAP leader Alka Lamba, who recently joined the Congress brought in communal references to attack Modi government for performing Shastra Puja. “If former Defence Minister AK Antony would have been the Minister of Defence or former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had this fortune today, what would have happened had taken Bible and Quran as per their religion like Rajnath Singh?” Alka Lamba wrote on Twitter.
Alka Lamba went on to mock Rajnath Singh as she tweeted a photo of lemons placed under the wheels of the jet. “France made Rafale has not even reached India and India has already achieved its first major success by squashing two green lemons and saved the country from the eyes of the evil.”
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has hit back at Congress party after they criticised Rafale Shastra Puja performed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Home Minister Shah said that the sole purpose of Congress was to oppose the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and stated that the puja was performed by the Defence Minister as per Indian traditions.
“Congress did not like it. Is Shastra puja not performed on Vijayadashami? They should ponder over what needs to be criticised and what not,” Amit Shah said a rally in Haryana on Wednesday.
The far-left propaganda media outlet, The Telegraph, is now coming for our religious rituals. It is now running a campaign to alter the words of the Puspanjali offered during Durga Pujo. It’s asking its readers to chant ‘Santanan Dehi’ instead of ‘Putran Dehi’ during prayers.
The Telegraph is under the impression that Putran Dehi conveys a desire to be gifted a male child. However, in reality, the word in Sanskrit signifies a child, regardless of his or her gender. As Nityanand Misra, author in the field of Hinduism and Indology, explains in the Swarajya Mag, “The words ‘putrān dehi’ means both “give [us] sons” and “give [us] daughters and sons”. To understand this, we need to know the principle of ‘ekaśeṣa’ in Sanskrit grammar, by which the masculine dual can also stand for a female and a male, and the masculine plural can also stand for females and males collectively. In other words, the masculine dual in Sanskrit also serves as ‘mixed dual’ (a female and a male) and the masculine plural also serves as a ‘mixed plural’ (females and males).”
The Telegraph, in its campaign against Putran Dehi, has found support from equally harebrained progressives. Ananda Gupta, the chairperson of the 56-year-old Camden puja, told The Telegraph, “We learnt about the campaign quite late but took no time to come on board. The initiative to seek a child irrespective of gender from the goddess finds synergy with our theme of Tomar Durga, Amar Durga, which encompasses not only the affluent daughters but also the impoverished ones who jump into the river post-immersion to salvage coins or bamboo structures or seek food in dustbins. We are welcoming the LGBTQ community to our puja.”
“The mantra dates back to an age when people wanted sons rather than daughters. But we are not in that age any more,” said Parimal Dey, president of Beliaghata 33 No. Palli Bashi Brinda. “Ma-er pujo korbo ar chaibo sudhu chhele? (We’d worship the Mother Goddess but seek only son)?” said Sandipan Banerjee, puja committee convener of Behala Nutan Dal. “There is no harm if the mantra is changed,” said Bappaditya Mukherjee, who has been conducting the puja for 19 years according to the Devipuran.
The extremely little regard and the contempt the progressives reserve for traditions is revealed in the manner in which they tinker and twist essential Mantras and modes of worship without even bothering to understand the fundamentals of it. Changing the words of the prayer will have no impact at all in the manner in which society functions. The entire charade is merely an exercise in virtue-signalling.
If the progressives are hell-bent on destroying a prayer even as benign as ‘Putran Dehi’ which does not refer to a child of a particular gender at all, one wonders what else they want to destroy. It won’t take them too long to remove ‘Santanan Dehi’ from the prayer altogether as they will argue that wishing for a child itself is deeply sexist and misogynistic as the burden of pregnancy always falls on women.
The only effect changing the words will ever have is that a tradition and a mode of worship that has survived centuries and millennia will be lost to the vagaries of modernity. It also highlights that in many ways, progressivism is even more dangerous to Hindu traditions and culture than Radical Islam itself. Traditions and modes of worship that survived the atrocities of the Radical Islam empires during the ancient and the medieval era are now facing the threat of extinction due to the unhindered march of progressivism.
The e-commerce giants led by Amazon and Flipkart have achieved a record $3 billion or Rs 19,000 crores of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in the first six days of the festive sale from September 29-October 4 in India.
According to the reports, e-commerce websites such as Walmart owned Flipkart and Amazon managed to own 90 per cent of the market share during the six-day sale event, said Bengaluru-based research firm RedSeer Consultancy.
Interestingly, given the momentum received during the first part of the festive season sale, the entire month of October is expected to generate up to $6 billion or Rs.39,000 crores in online sales, driven mostly by Amazon and Flipkart.
“The first wave of the festive sale event has seen record GMV of almost $3 billion despite the challenging macro environment, indicating that consumer sentiment on online shopping remains bullish,” said Anil Kumar, Founder, and CEO, RedSeer Consulting.
The consulting group stated that the year-on-year (YoY) growth during the festive sale period was 30 per cent, with significant share coming from customers in tier II and III cities.
Mobile was the category leader, contributing to over 55 per cent of GMV in festive days. Reportedly, consumers delayed their mobile purchases for the festive sale season, indicating the strong “value shopping” proposition of festive days.
In GMV sale, Flipkart continued to lead with 60-62 per cent standalone gross GMV share during the sale event, and nearly 63 per cent share along with its other group entities like Myntra and Jabong, said the report.
“Strong performance across categories including mobiles was the key reason for Flipkart leadership. This was, in turn, enabled by strong value prices, high EMIs adoption and diverse selection across categories, all marketed aggressively to reach customers widely,” the RedSeer report said.
The GMV growth of e-commerce giant Amazon in India was 22 per cent (YoY). However, its volume growth rate was more than 30 per cent (YoY).
“The larger push has come from non-metro ‘Bharat’ customers, migrating to online shopping driven by the strong value provided from the online retailers across categories including mobiles, which have shown a strong surge during sale event despite having a relatively slow-growing first half of 2019,” Kumar noted.
Earlier, two big e-commerce players Amazon.in and Flipkart had announced record transactions on their respective platforms, along with adding new customers, especially from the tier II and III cities in the September 29-October 4 sale period.
Consumer electronics, smartphones, fashion and large appliances were among the top gainers as the demand surged from smaller cities and towns this year, indicating that the consumer spending has only increased in the country despite slowdown fears.
According to Amazon.in, the e-commerce company saw 65,000 sellers from more than 500 cities receive orders in just five days of the first edition of its “Great Indian Festival” sale. Nearly 15,000 sellers more than doubled the sales while millionaire sellers including “crorepati” sellers exceeded 21,000 sellers in the sale.
Targetting to bring the next 200 million consumers into the e-commerce fold, Flipkart said that “The Big Billion Days” sale witnessed almost 50 per cent growth in the number of new customers compared to last year, with 70 billion views in six days of the sale.
Flipkart added that more than 50 per cent of Flipkart Plus shoppers were from smaller cities and towns, while sales from tier 3 cities grew by 100 per cent (YoY). Nearly 50 per cent of top sellers on Flipkart witnessed three times growth and over 40 per cent of transacting sellers during the sale were from Tier 2 and beyond towns.
Asim Omar, the dreaded terrorist and the Al-Qaeda chief of South Asia region has been killed in Afghanistan in a joint US-Afghanistan commando raid on 23 September. According to the reports, Asim Omar, the leader of Al-Qaeda’s South Asian branch, was killed in a US-Afghan joint airstrike in Musa Qala district in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province in September.
The India-born head of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) was killed along with six other Al-Qaeda members in the southern Helmand province. According to US government, Maulana Asim Omar was a resident of Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh in India. He had then migrated to Pakistan in 1990.
According to a report in the AFP, Asim Omar led Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) from its inception in 2014.
Confirming the killing of Asim Omar, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security tweeted, “NDS can now confirm the death of Asim Omar, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), in a joint US-Afghan raid on a Taliban compound in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on Sep. 23.”
1/2: BREAKING: #NDS can now confirm the death of Asim Omar, leader of #Al_Qaeda in the #Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), in a joint US-Afghan raid on a Taliban compound in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on Sep. 23. pic.twitter.com/sFKi38M6MC
“Omar, a Pakistani citizen, was killed along with six other AQIS members, most of them Pakistani. Among them was Raihan, Omar’s courier to Ayman Al-Zawahiri. They had been embedded inside the Taliban compound in the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala,” Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security further tweeted.
2/2: Omar, a #Pakistani citizen, was #killed along with six other AQIS members, most of them Pakistani. Among them was Raihan, Omar’s courier to Ayman #Al_Zawahiri. They had been embedded inside the Taliban compound in the #Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala. pic.twitter.com/7jQF7bK7aD
Reportedly, the joint US-Afghan operations also resulted in collateral damage with at least 40 people attending a wedding party in the area were killed.
Nearly 22 Taliban fighters were killed during the operation while 14 people were arrested, including five Pakistani nationals and one Bangladeshi citizen. A large warehouse of supplies and equipment was also destroyed during the joint raid.
A case was registered recently, on the directions of the Court, against 49 ’eminent personalities’ who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling Jai Shri Ram a ‘provocative warcry’ and registering a protest against the ‘increased atrocities’ against Muslims and Dalits in India. The complaint was filed by an advocate.
Following the registration of the case, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had written an open letter to Prime Minister Modi asking him to condemn the filing of the FIR against the ’eminent personalities’ on the direction of the Court, in the name of protection of ‘dissent’. Now, it appears more than 180 ’eminent personalities’ have come out and endorsed the original letter to the Prime Minister and condemned the charges it attracted.
The statement reads, “Can this be called an act of sedition? Or is harassment by misusing the courts a ploy to silence citizens’ voices? All of us, as members of the Indian cultural community, as citizens of conscience, condemn such harassment. We do more: we endorse every word of the letter our colleagues wrote to the Prime Minister. This is why we share their letter here once again and appeal to the cultural, academic and legal communities to do the same. This is why more of us will speak every day. Against mob lynching. Against the silencing of people’s voices. Against the misuse of courts to harass citizens.”
Interestingly enough, one person who is greatly concerned about the ‘misuse of courts’ to silence ‘voices’ is Anand Teltumbde, an alleged Urban Naxal accused in the Elgar Parishad case. He was arrested in the matter in February but was later released on a technicality. The Supreme Court, in the past, has refused to quash the FIR against him despite several requests.
Anand Teltumbde’s brother, Milind Teltumbde, was named in the FIR regarding the blast at Gadricholi that led to the death of 15 police personnel. Milind Teltumbde who handles the operations of the CPI(M) is also accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Amusingly enough, the controversial letter which attracted a case against the signatories in the first place boasted among its signatories a convicted Naxalite. Binayak Sen was convicted in 2010 on charges of sedition for his links to Naxals and sentenced to life imprisonment under sections 124A and 120(B) of the IPC. He was also found guilty under section 8(1) of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act. He was given bail by the Supreme Court in 2011. It is rather ironic that a man convicted of sedition for helping Naxalites was taking the moral high ground in the letter that referred to the signatories as “peace-loving and proud Indians”.
Thus, we have ’eminent personalities’ like Naseeruddin Shah, dancer Mallika Sarabhai, authors Ashok Vajpeyi, Nayantara Sahgal and Shashi Deshpande, historian Romila Thapar, singer T.M. Krishna, and artist Vivan Sundaram collaborating with an alleged Urban Naxal to condemn an open letter to the Prime Minister that had among its signatories a convicted Naxalite. One would have expected ’eminent personalities’ to be more careful about the company they kept but apparently, support from every quarter is justified as long as it’s in opposition to Narendra Modi.
As the Congress party struggling for its survival after its humiliating defeat in 2019 Lok Sabha elections and followed by rebellion within the party in several states, senior leader Salman Khurshid has put the blame on Rahul Gandhi for the current crisis stating that the “biggest problem” is that Rahul Gandhi “walked away”.
According to the reports, former union minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday stated that the 49-year-old former Congress President “left in a huff” and his mother Sonia Gandhi appears to be treating herself as a stand-in arrangement until a new Congress chief is selected.
“We haven’t really got together to analyze why we got defeated. Our biggest problem is our leader has walked away,” Khurshid was quoted as saying in the AP report and adding that Rahul Gandhi still retained the allegiance of the party.
“It’s kind of left a vacuum. Sonia Gandhi stepped in, but there is more than an indication that she is treating herself as a stop-gap arrangement. I wish it wasn’t so,” Khurshid reportedly said. Sonia Gandhi was selected as interim president of the Congress party in August this year after Rahul Gandhi refused to take back his resignation, she is expected to lead the party till the time a full time president is found.
Reportedly, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid also said the struggles of the Congress party are such that it is unlikely to win the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. The former External Affairs Minister said that the struggles of the Congress party are at the point that it may not “ensure its own future”.
Salman Khurshid added that the Congress is facing attrition because it is “taking too long to come to terms” with its defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress party were able to win only 52 of the 542 parliamentary seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, compared to 303 won by the Bharatiya Janata Party. After the defeat in May, Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president and his mother, Sonia Gandhi stepped in on an interim basis.
The party is facing an existential crisis ahead of crucial state assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra that are scheduled to be held on October 21. With so much infighting, rebellion and a mass exodus of the leaders in various states, the Congress party has already given up on securing victory in the upcoming state elections.
In a shocking incident, a VHP functionary named Yuvraj Singh Chauhan was shot dead in Mandsaur of Madhya Pradesh by three bike-borne assailants. Besides being associated with VHP and other Hindutva organisations, Yuvraj also headed SRM cable network. The attackers are currently on the run.
#Breaking | Madhya Pradesh: VHP functionary has been shot dead. Sources suggest that assailants are on the run.
According to news reports, the three assailants came on bike and attacked Yuvraj when he was out to pay the electricity bill. As per eyewitness account, three youths on a motorcycle encircled Yuvraj when he was heading towards a tea stall near abhinandan square and then shot him dead.
After the assassination of the VHP leader on Wednesday morning, the situation in the district has turned tense. The police have deployed forces as a precautionary measure to avoid any unforeseen incident.
The police has launched an investigation into the murder by sealing off the entries and exits of the district and is on the lookout for the miscreants. According to preliminary reports, the real motive for killing Yuvraj has not been established yet. However, the police is also probing the possibility of a personal animosity of the deceased with the assailants as reason for his murder.
It is noteworthy to mention that this is second murder in 2 months of functionaries having links with Hindutva organisations.
Starting with the Kerala floods of 2018, every time a natural calamity strikes, it has become almost fashionable to blame the Modi government for not giving enough money for disaster relief or at times, not even tweeting about the disaster! The WhatsApp group of “Self-declared Eminent Citizens” are typically at the forefront of spreading these rumours. At first, I did a cursory search in the Lok Sabha website and surprisingly found out that 1000s of crores of money was indeed given by the Central government to various state governments just in the past couple of years. Very curious, I dug further.
Under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, there are two kinds of funds set up exclusively for disaster relief – the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) and the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF). In addition to maintaining the NDRF, the central government also used to contribute 75% of the funds of SDRF. So each state had to only contribute 25% to the SDRF (In the case of Special Category states, 90% came from the central government).
After the Modi government came into power, the total value of funds made available in SDRF for the period of the 14th Finance Commission (2015 to 2020) was increased from the previous INR 33,580 crores to INR 61,220 crores. That’s a startling 88% more money available for any kind of disaster relief. Additionally, starting April 1st, 2018, the Modi government has increased the centre’s contribution to the SDRF to 90%. Now, all states of the country get 90% of their SDRF funds from the central government itself.
The funds available in the SDRF are entirely at the disposal of the state government only. There is no need for the states to get the permission of the centre to use this money for all designated disasters. In case additional funds are needed, an Inter-Ministerial Team meets regularly to decide on how much to allot from the NDRF.
When the Kerala floods happened in August 2018, this WhatsApp group were at the forefront of this charade that while UAE was offering INR 700 crores for relief, our government had given only INR 600 crores. When the UAE offer turned out to be a big lie, this group went totally silent. And in December 2018, the centre released a whopping INR 3048 croresfor the Kerala Floods. This is in addition to the INR 790 crores already available in the SDRF, and also in addition to many other thingsdone at that time.
When the Titli cyclone hit the coasts of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the then AP CM, Shri N.Chandrababu Naidu was on the forefront of complaining that the centre was not giving him enough funds. Those were the days when he used to complain that the centre was not funding a new handkerchief each time he sneezes, but those were also the days when many people believed his propaganda. The cyclone hit the coast in October 2018. In addition to released INR 230 crores in October itself, the central government had given a totalof INR 539.52 crores for Titli relief from the NDRF. Do note here that the state government already has INR458 crores in the SDRF, 90% of which came from the centre only! By the way, Odisha received additional assistance of INR 1023 crores from the NDRF for Titli relief measures.
Similar noise was made when cyclone Fani hit the coast and impacted AP, Odisha and West Bengal on April 2019. In a shocking move, Mamta Banerjee did not even talk to the PM when the PM himself called to assess the damage. Yet, advance assistance of INR 1086 crore was released to the three states. An additional INR 1000 crores were given to Odisha only after the PM visited the cyclone ravaged state. People who wanted to call this an election gimmick could not do so, for the simple reason that the cyclone hit Odisha and AP *after* the election was over!
There was yet another outrage after the recent Karnataka floods. The centre has now released 1200 crores for rehabilitation efforts in Karnataka.
The expectation that as soon as calamity strikes, the central government should simply give as much money as is being demanded, is a totally unfair one. In all their responses to the various questions in the Parliament, the central government has a standard paragraph. It is important that we read it carefully (emphasis mine):
“Though the primary responsibility for disaster management rests with the State Governments, Central Government extends all possible logistics and financial supports to the States to supplement their efforts to meet the situation effectively. The concerned State Governments undertake an assessment of damage and provide financial relief in the wake of natural disasters including cyclone, from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) already placed at their disposal. Additional financial assistance is extended from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) by following the laid down procedure, which includes an assessment based on the visit of an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT).”
While we speak so much about money, there are many things that the Government of India provides as logistics support that doesn’t get counted into all the above amounts I have mentioned. Like the thousands of metric tonnes of relief material (Rice, water, milk etc); Like the helicopters/aircrafts the Indian defence forces have deployed; like the boats, the Navy deploys; like the occasional tax sops; like the additional trains run; like rebuilding the national highways and so on.
While it is indeed a fashion to blame Modi for everything, it is pertinent to note that the state governments usually tend to get away with this blame game. The state governments must be held more responsible for all the rebuilding efforts. With so much relief material that pours in from various parts of the country when disasters happen, what exact reason do the state governments have to not co-ordinate exemplary rebuilding efforts?
As for the lies propagated by the usual suspects, it is a shame that they simply dust it off when their cheap propaganda is pointed out.
For decades Pakistan’s all-powerful military has been in control of the country, whether directly as in military dictatorships or indirectly by the installation of a ‘puppet’ head of the government. Recently the Pakistan military has been quite reluctant in getting what it wants, jumping like a ping pong: its ‘selected’ candidate as Prime minister, its media critics hounded into compliance, creating a domestic ruckus from Kashmir issue and a reason to tighten its grip on the nation.
In their effort to wrest control and power from every possible institution, Pakistan’s military has so ruthless in crushing all forms of dissent that, at times, picking up the fight and challenging the brass seemed a fight not worth picking. On the contrary, the military has also been reluctant in ‘championing’ themselves as saviours of ‘humanity’ for every crisis outside the boundaries of Pakistan.
One more demonstration of Pakistani military’s authoritarianism and cellularly absolutists character was seen this year on May 26 when Pakistan tried to suppress a rights demonstration in the troubled region of Waziristan. At a peaceful protest organised by Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) – an umbrella organisation and a political movement for the protection of basic rights of Pashtuns in Pakistan – at Khar Kamar checkpoint in northern Waziristan, Pakistan’s dictatorial military initiated violent confrontation that left at least 13 people dead and 25 others wounded. The protest was led by two members of parliament — Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar — who are members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). The military, being true to its suppressing tactics, arrested the Pashtun parliamentarian Ali Wazir for allegedly attacking the Khar Kamar checkpoint. “Their time is up,” Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, the spokesman, said of the P.T.M. at a news conference insinuating about an ever harder approach towards PTM. “North Waziristan has become a black hole since the incident,” said Mohsin Dawar, post-arrest of his fellow Ali Wazir. “Curfew has been imposed. Phones are not working. Roads are closed. The entire district has become a jail.”
Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar
The protest was in reaction to a series of severe human rights abuses by Pakistan Army in the Pashtun tribal regions, predominantly the small region of Waziristan close to the Afghan border. The suppression was another failed attempt at crushing a voice of dissent, a movement gaining ground in Pakhtunkhwa. PTM movement is steered by a 26-year-old young dynamic leader from the improvised tribal background of Waziristan – Manzoor Pashteen – in a place where dissent is crushed, suppressed, silenced and censored as anti-state, anti-Islam or as a product of nefarious foreign influence.
Despite all cryptic attempts by Pak establishment, PTM rose to prominence from a small university in the remote outpost ranges of Waziristan in early 2018. Although the grievances PTM tapped into—discrimination against tribal people, violence by the Taliban, and military presence in the area—were long-standing, the trigger for the group’s recent explosion was the extrajudicial killing of an aspiring model and artist from Waziristan – Naqeebullah Mehsud –in the city of Karachi in January 2018.
Manzoor Pashteen
Months ago I wrote about the rise of Pashtuns against the state encouraged and deeply embedded discriminatory attitude of Pakistan Army towards Pashtuns. The situation hasn’t improved a bit, only subjecting to further deteriorations in Pashtun life. Naqeebullah’s killing was a quintessential example of Pakistan’s state espoused system of extrajudicial killings and human rights violations. The young boy’s death bought back all the dark memories of Pakistan’s discrimination against Pashtuns in the past.
Pashtuns in Pakistan have been governed through draconian colonial laws for years and upon that came Pakistan military with its ever-authoritarian oppressive character. Military pillorying collective punishment to all villagers for the crime of one person was the most frequent tactic, particularly in the Waziristan of FATA.
In suspicion of any Taliban links in the village, the Pakistani Army completely decimated the entire villages, bulldozing the homes of family members of suspected militants and inflicting collective punishments to entire community/village.
No Pashtunwali practices including Jirga were allowed by Pakistan forces in these cases. Landmines were installed in community areas of Pashtuns in villages in Waziristan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Instead of Taliban terrorists, these landmines used to affect average civilians, children and women.
Pakistani forces – an epitome of desuetude and egregious banality – used its well-versed tactic of arresting, kidnapping and extra-judicial killings of dissenting voices who dare to challenge the brass. Pakistan has a history of using these tactics and inflicting severe punishments on Pashtuns. One such heinous incident from the history was ‘Babrra Massacre’ of 12th August, 1948, when 600 unarmed Pashtuns supporters of Khudai Khidmatgar Movement, gathered on Babrra ground Hashtnagar, were brutally killed on the orders of Muslim League leader Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri (the then C.M. of NWFP).
Even after this horrendous mass shooting of innocent civilians, neither A. Q. K. Kashmiri nor the Pakistan authorities, showed any grievances or atonement. Speaking at provincial assembly A.Q. Khan disparagingly said “They were lucky that the police ammunition ran out; otherwise not a single soul would have survived.”
There have been punishments meted out to students who support PTM and professors are forced to identify students attending rallies so authorities can take actions. Pashteen has been called a ‘traitor’ and a ‘terrorist’ by Pakistani establishments and PTM has been labelled as a foreign-funded organisation. Media coverage of PTM and Pashteen has been blocked and no media is allowed to air news about them.
“Punishment is all about sending a message to keep silent” told Pashteen to the Associated Press. Pashteen told “One thousand percent we were sure we would be killed”. Pakistan is a construct of preposterous institutions – a personification of fallacy – deeply enmeshed in extremism and hugely reliant on fawning. Impugning the Army spawns a series of severe punishments and sometimes extrajudicial killings.
“The military has become a state within a state”. “PTM leader Pashteen doesn’t mince his words and has made it clear who he holds responsible for the Pashtun suffering: “We have to identify the place that destroyed us,” Pashteen said at a recent rally. “It is GHQ!” he said, referring to the Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi, cited a DW article.
One slogan that PTM regularly uses to highlight the misdeed of Pakistani forces is “Yeh jo dehshatgardi hai, is ke peechay wardi hai” (behind this terrorism, is the [military] uniform).
Pashtuns – who have been subjected to gross human rights abuses in their own land – are quickly morphing into an Achtung force for justice. The unremittingly difficult condition of Pashtuns in Pakistan is a gonged reminder to the world to wake up to reality and leave the bed of banality it is sleeping into for years now. Pashtun Tahafuz Movement is not an encoring performance steered for scoring brownie points, rather it is a strong rebuttal to the embedded world order, a chance of conformity towards realism for the entire global intelligentsia. The plight of Pashtuns in Pakistan must make the world to mirror Pakistan – when it ping pongs in every external conflict pufferying itself as the global human rights champion – that it needs to see no further than inside to exercise it’s supposed champion finesse.
