The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat December is the month when Pakistan lost its eastern half of  East Pakistan  which became Bangladesh in 1971. The cold chilly nights of December send shivers down the spine of Pakistanis forcing them to contemplate about what went wrong. Why our brothers who created Muslim League, who suffered partition of Bengal , who were at the forefront of the movement for the independence of Pakistan felt so angry that they decided to part their ways from the rest of Pakistan. I do not want to blame our brothers from Bengal (East Pakistan) for wanting to secede as they gave us 24 years to correct our wrongs but leaders of West Pakistan, the intelligentsia, the elite and the general public attitude never considered East Pakistan as their integral part. There was a hint of racial, intellectual and martial prejudice and then there was a feeling in Eastern Pakistan that West Pakistan considered them the insignificant other. It has been 37 years but the wounds are still not

By Sikander Hayat Why is everyone so hell bent on removing a democratically elected president by any means possible. Is it not the job of the people of Pakistan to give their verdict on the performance of this president. Zardari has made mistakes but has spent eleven years in jail and nothing has been proved against him yet. Please give democracy a chance so that people from Sindh , Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan can keep their trust in the federation. PML (N) is asking for Zardari's resignation on moral grounds but what about houses in Park Lane London and businesses in Spain. Now Nawaz Sharif is trying to pretend that he is the cleanest person in Pakistan. They are all corrupt but it is only the job of the people to tell who should be running the country. I am not a fan of Zardari , I know that he is president because all notable Bhutto’ s are dead but I cannot second guess the choice of Pakistani people. Army, if it is putting pressure on Zardari to resign, mu

By Sikander Hayat I am writing the following lines to refute the biggest fallacy associated with Pakistan Army that it is actually a Punjabi Army which takes care of the interests of the Punjab and does not take care of the other federating units. It is outright false and wrong to say such a thing because from the time of Pakistani independence 14 Generals have commanded Pakistan Army. Out of these 14 Generals 2 were British , 4 were Pakhtun, 1 was Hazara, 1 was Baloch, 1 was a Rajput, 3 were Mohajir and 2 were Punjabi. In 64 years after independence, Pakistan has been ruled by 4 Generals for 32 years. These Generals are General Ayub Khan (9 years), General Yahya Khan (3 years), General Zia Ul Haq (11 years) and General Pervez Musharaf (9 years). Not a single one of these Generals was a Punjabi. So much for the myth of a Punjabi dominated army. Here is the list of all the Generals who have lead the Pakistan Army: 1. General Sir Frank Walter Messervy was born in 1893 in

By Sikander Hayat Multan is my city and my favourite place in the world. It is situated in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. It is located in the southern part of the province. Multan District has a population of over 3.8 million and the city itself is the sixth largest within the boundaries of Pakistan. It is situated on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about 966 km (600 mi) from Karachi. There is a strong desire in the people of Multan to be declared a separate province of Pakistan as it is the heartland of the Saraiki speaking people. The new Multan province will have all of South Punjab included in it with the city of Multan declared the capital of South Punjab. Majority of Punjabi & Urdu speakers in Multan also support the demand for new province as well. Multan is known as the City of Sufis due to the large number of shrines and Sufi saints from the city. The city is full of bazaars, mosques, shrines and ornate tombs.

By Sikander Hayat Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the founder of Pakistan and today on 25th of December is his birth anniversary. From the day one, there has been an argument in Pakistan about what Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be. A secular state or a theocracy. I believe he wanted neither because Pakistan got its independence from the British in the name of Islam so Islam cannot be sidelined but also it cannot be a theocracy. A theocracy stops the practice of other religions but Pakistan allows it. So what is Pakistan these days. Before the reign of terror by Zia Ul Haq, who used Islam to prolong his dictatorship, Pakistan was quite a liberal country at its heart but Zia robbed Pakistan of her traditional tolerance and instead tried to turned it into a factory for producing Jihadis to fight in the Afghan Jihad against the Soviets. A whole generation of Pakistanis grew up thinking that they are the sole protectors of Islam in the world. They have to fight every oppressor of Muslims in

By Sikander Hayat Asif Ali Zardari is the democratically elected president of Pakistan. People of Pakistan knew about the NRO but still voted for his party. People like Khwaja Asif of Muslim League (Nawaz) are being hypocritical by asking for Mr Zardari’s resignation because his own party leaders were dismissed twice for corruption in the importing of scrap metal and unfair use of power. The same Nawaz Sharif who is untiring in his demands for the rule of law ordered the attack on Supreme Court of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah when his party member on his orders attacked to stop a hearing of a case about the misuse of powers. People like Khawaja Asif must understand that even though his party leader is a billionaire, he still pays about 5000 rupees worth of tax. If Zardari is a crook, than they all are and Sharif brothers are anything but innocent. People who talk about the removal of Asif Ali Zardari must understand is that they are playing with fire by making demands of him and his party w

By Sikander Hayat The areas comprising the state of Pakistan have a rich history and are steeped in the traditions of martial kind. Tribes which are the foundation stone of Pakistan come from all ethnic groups of Pakistan either they be Sindhi, Balochi, Pathan or Punjabi. One of these men of war & honour were Mir Chakar Khan Rind. He is probably the most famous leader coming out of Baloch ethnic group of Pakistan. Mir Chakar Khan Rind or Chakar-i-Azam (1468 – 1565 ) was a Baloch king and ruler of Satghara in (Southern Pakistani Punjab) in the 15th century. He is considered a folk hero of the Baloch people and an important figure in the Baloch epic Hani and Sheh Mureed. Mir Chakar lived in Sibi in the hills of Balochistan and became the head of Rind tribe at the age of 18 after the death of his father Mir Shahak Khan. Mir Chakar's kingdom was short lived because of a civil war between the Lashari and Rind tribes of Balochistan. Mir Chakar and Mir Gwaharam Khan Lashari, hea

By Sikander Hayat These days it is becoming fashionable to invoke East Pakistan every time someone talks about Balochistan . Now I am all for learning from history but there are some comparisons which cannot be made basically because of facts related to such situations. Here are some of the major differences between East Pakistan &  Balochistan : 1. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh it had greater population than West Pakistan whereas Balochistan is 5% of Pakistan’s total population . 2. Population mix is an indicator as well because East Pakistan was nearly 100% Bengali while the population mix in Balochistan is 50% Baloch and the remaining 50% is made up of Pashtuns , Brahwis , Sindhis   and some Punjabis. 3. Capital of Balochistan Quetta is a Baloch minority city as it dominated by the Pashtuns in addition to a sizable Sindhi and Punjabi population. 4. Dhaka which was the Capital of East Pakistan was never a Bengali minority city and it does not bode well

By Sikander Hayat I am against everything that General Zia Ul Haq did in Pakistan during his reign of terror but I must give him credit that he has come out as the eventual winner in Pakistani history and the history of the region. We are reaping today, what he sowed. He made sure that there are so many indoctrinated young minds that can perpetuate his agenda of islamism in Pakistan and I must admit that he has won the war. He has achieved his goal of making Pakistan a factory of terrorists. We must take Pakistan back but it wont be won back by democratic means anymore. It will only be won back by violence of equal magnitude as perpetrated by the terrorists. Pakistan army must kill the terrorists on the streets without any trials as they are doing to us. Pakistanis must not deny that they are at war and they will have to take sides. I know which side I am on, and I ask people of Pakistan to help Pakistan army in ridding us of this evil. It is time to take sides.

It is one of 26 in that province, and encompasses an area of 6,621 km². The population of the district is estimated to be over 400,000 in 2005. The district is governed from the city of Kalat. Kalat was notified as a district on February 3, 1954. At that time Khuzdar and Mastung districts were sub-divisions of Kalat (which then also included Bolan, Jhal Magsi and Naseerabad (Dera Murad Jamali); these were separated in 1965 as Kachhi District). Khuzdar became a separate district by notification of 1 March 1974, while Mastung was announced to be separate district on 18 February 1992. The district draws its name from the ancient city of Kalat. The old name of the district headquarters was Kahan. The current district consists of two sub-divisions, i.e. Kalat and Surab, five tehsils: Kalat Mangochar, Johan, Gazgz, and Surab, 81 patwar circles and 614 mauza (villages). The climate is arid, hot in summer and cold in winter, with most rainfall occurring in the winter. The terrain is mountaino

By Sikander Hayat December is the month when Pakistan lost its eastern half of East Pakistan which became Bangladesh in 1971. The cold chilly nights of December send shivers down the spine of Pakistanis forcing them to contemplate about what went wrong. Why our brothers who created Muslim League, who suffered partition of Bengal, who were at the forefront of the movement for the independence of Pakistan felt so angry that they decided to part their ways from the rest of Pakistan. I do not want to blame our brothers from Bengal (East Pakistan) for wanting to secede as they gave us 24 years to correct our wrongs but leaders of West Pakistan, the intelligentsia, the elite and the general public attitude never considered East Pakistan as their integral part. There was a hint of racial, intellectual and martial prejudice and then there was a feeling in Eastern Pakistan that West Pakistan considered them the insignificant other. It has been 37 years but the wounds are still not anywhere near