Inquilab zindabad!

By:Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

How is Bhagat Singh more Indian than Pakistani?

Revolutionaries never die; definitely not until what they strived for is achieved. They can also reincarnate when liberation is threatened by incarceration. The cause they fought for can wake up again, the struggle they gave birth to can be born again, the noise they generated can resonate again, the slogans they chanted can reverberate again – if recent events are anything to go by, Lahore should echo with “Inquilab zindabad!” again.

Bhagat Singh’s revolution could reawaken 81 years after the British hanged him in Lahore. The indirect skirmishes between the Tehreek Hurmat-e-Rasool (THK) led fundamentalists and the Dilkash Lahore Committee, over renaming Fawwara Chowk (or Shadman Chowk) back to its pre-partition name of ‘Bhagat Singh Chowk’, is a throwback to the clash between suppression and freedom that the man gave his life for. Apparently dying for the sake of the independence of this country and its people isn’t reason enough for the square – where he was hanged on 23 March, 1931, aged 23 – to be named after the freedom fighter himself. It is a pity that people and groups, who now have the luxury to openly express themselves – something that they didn’t have back then –, choose their expression to oppose tributes to those very personalities that made this freedom possible, owing to their religious identity.

Local government backlash

Local government backlash: Amid song and dance, anti-Sindh mantra goes on

Excerpt;

…. Wearing red caps and holding placards inscribed with anti-government slogans, the protesters, men, women and children, staged a sit-in in front of the press club.

A sea of red flags of different Sindhi nationalist parties filled the roads from Karachi Press Club to Fawara Chowk and from Arts Council to Zainab Market.

The protest call was given by the Sindh Bachayo Committee (Save Sindh Committee). Different political parties, including Awami Tahreek, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Jeay Sindh Tehreek, Sindh Tarraqi Pasand Party, Sindh United Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, joined in.

And almost every leader of the party vented his anger against the government for passing the Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance 2012.

Jalal Mehmood Shah, the Save Sindh Movement convenor; Dr Qadir Magsi of Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party; Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeay Sindh Tehreek; Sanan Qureshi of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Saleem Zia of the Nawaz Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League; Masroor Jatoi of National Peoples Party; and Jamaat-e-Islami’s Asadullah Bhutto were among those who spoke.

Sindh is our motherland and no one would let the PPP and its coalition partner to divide it, said Dr Qadir Magsi. Criticising the ruling party and its leadership, he said that people of Sindh should not expect good things from the PPP any more. ….

In his speech, Jalal Mehmood Shah announced an “unending” struggle against the new local government system and termed the rally a referendum against the system. “This large gathering proves that people of Sindh will not accept the black law, which has been imposed in the province at gunpoint,” he said.

The nationalist leader reiterated that rallies, hunger strikes and all other protests will go on in the province until the law is withdrawn. ….

Read more » The Express Tribune

http://tribune.com.pk/story/449844/local-government-backlash-amid-song-and-dance-anti-sindh-mantra-goes-on/

How painfully ironical that it is happening in PPP govt. in Lyari, the hub of PPP’s vote bank

Violence revisits Lyari: Three, including PPP leader, shot dead

SINDH – KARACHI: In a showdown between police and protestors on Monday, three people were killed while over a dozen sustained bullet injuries and were admitted to local hospitals.

Violence revisited Lyari as agitated residents took to the streets and clashed with police over what they described as ‘biased operation’ of law enforcement agencies against the residents of Lyari.

PPP leader dead

According to sources, PPP leader Hassan Soomro was also shot dead in this recent bout of violence.

Hoisting flags, foisting identities.

By Urooj Zia

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) seems intent on hoisting the tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar. While patriotism might be the pretext for this ‘tiranga yatra’, the underlying narrative is vile nose-thumbing at a people who have been oppressed under distorted interpretations of patriotism and related politics. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if the BJP bigwigs either hoist the tiranga under heavy paramilitary protection and curfew, or are forced to make a run for it amidst a barrage of stone-pelting.

This entire circus of faux-nationalism, meanwhile, finds a parallel in Balochistan, Pakistan’s restive south-western province, where sighting the chand-tara means that one is either close to a Frontier Corps (FC) check-post or near the entrance of the Balochistan University campus in Quetta. The latter is guarded by FC personnel in APCs, because students have made a sport of replacing the Pakistani flag with the colours of Azad Balochistan.

Early last year, I had the chance to witness firsthand the brutalities meted out to the people of Balochistan by the same people tasked with protecting the citizens of Pakistan. Perhaps the forces in question don’t consider the Baloch citizens of this country, in which case, it is ironic how we insist on holding on to an area and a people whom we otherise as traitors. Over a kilometre on Sariab Road in Quetta, I spotted no less than 10 FC check-posts, where vehicles were arbitrarily stopped and passengers were ordered to disembark. A thorough body search was then conducted, and further treatment depended on the whim of the officer in question. Those stopped were either ordered to recite the national anthem of Pakistan, or told to chant ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. If the sloganeering was not deemed ‘patriotic’ enough, a repeat performance was ordered for as long as the officer wished. …

Read more : uroojzia

LAHORE : From Lakshmi chowk to Nisbat Road

Courtesy: GoeTV (Choraha, 22 Jan. 2011)

via – ZemTV – You Tube Link

Suicide attack in Quetta kills 55

QUETTA: A suicide attack on an Al-Quds day procession of the Imamia Student Organisation (ISO) at Meezan Chowk in Quetta on Friday killed 55 people and injured over 100 others.

The casualty figure is expected to rise due to the intensity of the explosion as around 2,500 people were present in the rally. ..

Read more >> PakistanNewsBlog

Remembering Shaheed Bhagat Singh

Lahore : Institute for Peace and Secular Studies [IPSS] organised a gathering of writers, intellectuals and activists from Lahore on March 23, 2010 at Shadman market chowk to pay homage to Bhagat Singh.

To see, a RARE document! Death certificate of Bhagat Singh » http://yfrog.com/nms709j