Multiple fronts
As tensions between India and Pakistan continue to climb higher, multiple fronts have been opened up. Since October 27, there have been several cross-border firing incidents, with claims and counter-claims pouring in. India’s assertion that it killed 15 Rangers personnel in firing on Thursday after its BSF forces came under attack from across the border has been firmly denied by the ISPR. Pakistan says six civilians, including two women have been killed in the Shakargarh and Nikial sector as a result of unprovoked firing by Indian troops and that the BSF has been consistently adopting hostile tactics on this constantly volatile line. As a result, there have been over 20 injuries to civilians and villages in the line of fire on both sides of the border are suffering as persons most at risk move away. These people who live close to the border are always the innocent casualties of hostility between the two neighbours. For the first time in many months, there has also been another manifestation of this. On October 27, India accused a staffer at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi of involvement in spying and asked him to leave the country. On the same day, Pakistan expelled an Indian diplomat on the same charges. Such expulsions were especially common in the 1990s. The fact that they have begun again simply demonstrates the new low to which Indo-Pak relations have sunk.
At the present moment, there seems to be little constructive effort to lift them to a more even plane. India has rejected negotiations offered by Pakistan over Kashmir and the tone of the Modi government remains particularly hostile and particularly bitter. Modi’s failure to win support for his stance on Kashmir at several international meetings over the past month may be contributing to this. Certainly, the Indian media is playing its part, regularly accusing Pakistan of false accusations and of deliberately stirring up trouble as well as of intervention in Kashmir. The unfolding scenario shows just how unstable the relationship between the two countries is and the extent to which it keeps the region unsafe. As a consequence, people living along the long border that separates the subcontinental neighbours are suffering once more and it does not appear any reduction in aggression hangs around the corner.
Let compassion not be hanged
The fate of Imdad Ali, a prisoner on death row suffering from schizophrenia, appears to be sealed after a Vehari sessions court issued his death warrant. This comes after the Supreme Court ruled that schizophrenia did not fall within the legal definition of mental disorders. The one other hope for mercy Imdad may have had left was exhausted last year when the president denied his plea for clemency. Pakistan is a signatory to international agreements which prohibit the execution of mentally ill prisoners and there is no doubt that Imdad is severely mentally ill. His wife, Safi Bano, hadn’t even appealed to the court to set aside the verdict; she merely wanted the execution postponed so that he could get treatment and settle his affairs. The Ministry of Human Rights has written to the interior ministry asking it to halt the execution on humanitarian grounds but a presidential pardon is the only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision and Mamnoon Hussain had already denied a pardon last year. Now that Imdad’s plight has received more media attention and we are better educated about his condition, the president needs to revisit the case and grant him either a pardon or a commutation. The Supreme Court too should reconsider the case and listen to another appeal, with mental health professionals at hand to explain the severity of schizophrenia.
Imdad’s lawyers are arguing that the overcrowded, unhygienic conditions in prison made his condition worse which, if true, would only add to the culpability of the state. The head of psychiatry at Nishtar Hospital testified that Imdad suffered from paranoid delusions and his illness was “chronic and disabling”. The problem was that he was only diagnosed with genetic paranoid schizophrenia by government doctors in 2012, a decade after he committed the murder for which he was convicted. Imdad, though, shouldn’t have to pay the price for government tardiness. His family knew he had a mental illness but being too poor to afford good healthcare, they never had it diagnosed. To execute him because of that would be tantamount to admitting that those who are poorer are less likely to receive justice. Instead, his sentence should be overturned and law-enforcement officials taught to have suspects medically examined so that they are given a fair shot at justice. It is obvious that Imdad, with his crippling schizophrenia, is unable to understand the gravity of his actions. He needs professional help and not death by hanging.
Banning the ban
The administrative and ideological confusion in our country, capable of creating chaos at all kinds of levels, has been exhibited most recently by a notification which apparently went out to schools in Sindh two weeks back ordering them to stop dance classes for their pupils. Amidst an uproar from experts in the performing arts, writers and social activists, the Sindh chief minister announced that any ban on dance was being undone and that the art form would continue in schools and in fact be encouraged as a means to develop the talent and potential for children and counter extremist ideas.
It is extraordinary that a debate over dance should have taken place in this day and age in the first place. In Sindh, a province seen as relatively more progressive than some others, the issue seems to have arisen from a letter written by a PTI lawmaker, one of three from the party in the 168-member strong Sindh Assembly to the education minister seeking a ban on dance at schools. From this, some sequence of events appears to have unfolded leading to the education department ordering schools to stop dance classes. The Sindh CM also promised a probe into the matter and made it clear he felt strongly that nothing regarding the curb on dance should have gone out from any government department. Of course, this should never have happened. The reality is that dance is embedded deep in our culture and tradition, going back to the Mughal times and even before that, with many traditions of classical dance admired across the world rising in the Subcontinent. It is also true that dance is an important form of artistic impression and seen by experts as crucial to child development in many ways. Any talk suggesting it is inappropriate adds to the confusion already at stir in the minds of people. Music, dance and art need to become a part of the lives of all, including our children.