The Review - 15th May, 2011 - Pakistan Today

Sunday, 15 May, 2011

Pakistani Army While the character of civilians has been questioned by the men in khaki throughout Pakistan’s history, let civilians now question the character of the men in khaki

F

By Hashim bin Rashid

or the second time in Pakistan’s history as a State its armed forces have come to be roundly criticised amongst mainstream discourse.

The first time was after the East Pakistan debacle in 1971. This second time it comes after Osama bin Laden was allegedly killed in a one-sided US operation in Abbotabad in 2011.

Both times it has been criticised for the wrong reasons. Each of the debacles it was criticised after it should have been criticised for.

Whence it was criticised in the former East Pakisan for an operational failure, a failure to protect national borders, it should have been criticised for a strategic failure, causing the East Pakistan debacle.

Similarly whence it is being criticized in the Bin Laden debacle for an operational failure again, the breach of national borders, it should be criticised again for a strategic failure: the alleged harbouring of militants within its borders by the US and others.

We have turned to criticise the Pakistan army under the very frames of reference it has pushed down our throats. We have criticised the armed

to Pakistan) were bound to put it on a tight rope if it contradicted US interests.

Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s promise to the US, “Our army can be your army,” before entering into SEATO and CENTO, before being ignored during the 1965 war, was a promise that the army overtly remained uncomfortable with.

But it continued to tow the American line to secure the massive grants of aid which allowed it, in its own words, to equip itself.

Others remained more skeptical of the behemoth the US was actively aiding create in Pakistan, a behemoth whose crudest and most confused form took root in the Zia era.

Since then (but not strictly then) the army has fostered and nurtured Islamist militants – albeit for the first half under US funding and for US strategic interests. At that time they were the ‘mujahideen’ or freedom fighters.

These relationships were cultivated to, overtly, provide ‘strategic depth’ (General Musharraf ’s

The threatened cutting off of aid by some US legislators may well (over the long run) prove a blessing in disguise – very well disguised, no doubt – but it will allow the country to be rid of this ‘opium of the elite’

By Khawaja Manzar Amin

T

he most discerning ob ser vat io ns on the latest (till last reports) crisis confronting us are to be found not in the oped pages of the leading national newspapers, but in their letters to the editor section. That does not paint a very flattering picture of the level and quality of our anthill of experts, political analysts, politicians with ghost writers and the president himself. As

much aware of the grave perils threatening their birthplace as their somewhat somnolent brethren back home, Pakistani expatriates from all over the world are making known their strong views, fears and general dissatisfaction at the way events are being handled in the homeland.

In fact, the unilateral targeted assassination of Bin Laden well inside Pak territory and its fallout on future Pak-US relations remain the focal talking point, both here as well as in the Diaspora.

One writer, while favouring the incompetence over complicity argument, compared Bin Laden’s

undetected concealment with the US intelligence failure in Iraq over the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction, upon which the Coalition of the Killing fell upon that unfortunate country and destroyed its infrastructure, even watching passively as priceless artifacts were looted from the museums of this mother of all civilizations. How many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis perished in that premeditated venture, built on a false premise, and fed voraciously on lies, with the help of willing ‘poodles’ and on the orders of hatchet-faced profiteers of the military-industrial complex and

As for US-Pak relations, it is clear that the end is nigh, or at least the end of the ‘highs’ their contractors.

The question naturally arises, how could the numerous US and the European secret services (not to forget the murderous Middle Eastern one), with all their Humint resources, sophisticated gadgetry on earth and eyes in the

skies and in space, fail to get their facts right (as indeed also in the curious case of 9/11), thereby causing death and destruction on a Chingizid scale?

Or was it all done at the behest of the ‘chosen people’, one of whose ex- prime minister, since long in a coma, on being asked when action should commence against Iran, answered without a seconds pause ‘the day after Iraq’.

Another writer rubbishes the ‘graphic picture’ fable of the dead Osama by recounting that when Saddam Hussain’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed in 2003 by

Illustrated & Designed by Babur Saghir

Off with their Aid

2 Of outstanding fiction and prose 4 The Saint’s Caldera

Criticism within the army’s frame of reference:

forces under the ‘discourse of national security’.

It is good. It is in fact the best thing that could have happened. The one refrain those of us who were critical of the army’s economical and political muscle would get was: who else can secure our national borders?

This was the same refrain used to justify our exploitative relationship to the US and the same used to justify the massive budget allocation to the armed forces of Pakistan.

The generals have rested their own case.

And the verdict, from the civilians, is clear.

But this is not just a falling apart of the discourse of national security. It is also the falling apart of the military’s 60 year strong relationship with the United States of America, a relationship it has sustained consistently to the extent that it has been accused of offering itself as a mercenary army to the US. Despite the attempt by the army to constitute and argue for a set of interests separate from American interests, the army’s real paymasters (asked in the Musharraf period to directly pay for army wage for maintaining an army presence in Waziristan) and hardware suppliers (the US has historically and still is the major supplier of arms

the review

Taking stock of the

the review

Of outstanding fiction and

By Syed Afsar Sajid

A

sad Muhammad Khan (b.1932) is a distinguished Urdu fiction writer.

His new short stories have appeared under the title Aik Tukra Dhoop Ka Aur Doosri Kahanian. The evergreen Pitras Kay Mazameen (Author: Ahmad Shah Pitras Bukhari – 18981958) has been reprinted and published recently by the Oxford University Press, with an introduction by Dr. Muhammad Raza Kazmi.

Afzal Ahsan Randhawa (b.1937) is an eminent Punjabi writer. A concise collection of five of his unpublished Punjabi short stories has lately seen the light of the day in the form of Elahi Mohr Tay Dujiyan Kahanian. A cursory appreciation of these publications follows.

Aik Tukra Dhoop Ka Aur Doosri Kahanian

Asad Muhammad Khan is an eminent short story writer of Urdu. Twenty-one of his short stories have been rendered into English and published under the title The Harvest of Anger And Other Stories. The characters and locales of his stories are uniquely diverse. His fiction presents a panorama of human situation delineating our yearnings and woes. The similitude between what is imagined and what is real in these stories is amazingly

so precise that the reader readily succumbs to the ‘reality’ of the makebelieve.

The present collection comprises some 12 pieces of fiction encompassing a journey into history, an adventurous excursion into the forests of Burma (now Myanmar), a reminiscent voyaging across the rural landscape of the Indian state of Bhopal (the author’s birth-place), a combing of the underprivileged brothel area of Karachi and an interaction with the underworld of criminals and law-breakers.

Asad treats his characters with sympathy. As a positivist, he would love to eradicate the crime, not its perpetrator.

Asad Muhammad Khan’s fiction demonstrates his skill as a narrator besides his intimate understanding of the issues besetting our part of the world.

Pitras Kay Mazameen

Title: Aik Tukra Dhoop Ka Aur Doosri Kahanian Author: Asad Muhammad Khan Published by: Ilqa Publications, Readings,12-K, Gulberg 2, Lahore Pages: 196; Price: Rs.375/-

Pitras (Ahmad Shah Bukhari) is one of the most outstanding humourists of Urdu. His light essays, numbering only eleven, feature the ageless socio-cultural milieu of the sub-continent. Pitras had an extremely perceptive eye for the incongruous which is the fountainhead of his irony.

As an idealist he was acutely conscious of the yawning gap between the ‘actuality’ of life and its ‘ideality’.

He writes in an inimitable style. The spontaneity of his expression coupled with the raciness of his prose would be the envy of many of his peers and successors!

His scholarship and felicity respecting the language and literature of English besides a deeply observant eye, in effect, groomed and matured him for the vocation of a humourist in Urdu. He does not mock human follies as an austere but self-righteous observer of the ‘vanity fair’ that life is. Instead it is a sympathetic view of the deviant behaviour of his characters engrossed in their highly

Title: Pitras Kay Mazameen Author: Ahmad Shah Pitras Bokhari Published by: Oxford University Press, Karachi Pages: 109; Price: Rs.295/-

exacting but insipid routine of existence.

Pitras lives in his work albeit it’s a relatively smaller volume which accounts for his high intellectual acumen and artistic accomplishment.

Elahi Mohr

Afzal Ahsan Randhawa is a veteran bilingual writer.

Apart from his massive contribution to the Punjabi fiction and verse, he has to his credit a very prestigious collection of Urdu verse titled Ek Suraj Mera Bhi. His literary work bespeaks the intensity of his creative verve.

Endowed with a remarkable insight into the human psyche backed by a sound socio-political vision, his fiction encapsulates a multiplicity of themes drawing on the rich cultural heritage embedded in the fertile soil of the land of the five rivers, Punjab.

The present book amply exemplifies this trait of his

Sketches to savour

02 - 03

Sunday, 15 May, 2011

If you want to savour sketches that are a thing of beauty, it is highly recommended you take a look at this

By Behjat Tahir

E

jaz Galleries, Lahore currentlyis hosting a solo exhibition that is Saeed Akhtar’s comprehensive collection including his recent drawings and sketches – the sum total of his work spanning the last five years. Prolific as he is, the exhibition encompasses over 150 works on paper in graphite, pastel and charcoal out of which only 37 were up for sale.

Saeed Akhtar is one of the most

sensitive and intense painters of our time. For him, drawing from life has been an essential tool of exploration in preparation for his oil paintings. “If I was to grade myself, I would only grant 10 out of 100, for I feel I still can do better”, says he, with the selfawareness of a perfectionist whose creative instincts get satisfaction only seldom .

It wouldn’t be wrong to state that he takes drawing as an inspiration. It seems that with him, drawing comes fast and furious, and one tends to think of the medium as a window to an artist’s soul.

Through this exhibition we see detailed study in the form of his sketches before he transfers colour

on the canvas to finish the painting.

This carefully distilled selection of drawings demonstrates the range of his genius and his emotional sympathies.

A small but absorbing segment focuses on a different aspect, his study of human form and love of horses. A lucid perception of the relationship of light with the structure and texture of the human form enables Akhtar to express with immediacy and freedom: a pictorial interpretation of the human spirit.

Saeed Akhtar is a master of converting a plain piece of paper into a subtle image full of life and light. Whereas his paintings transforms the world that he knew

into a succession of bittersweet fantasies, his drawings capture that world in a series of compelling fragments. He can make a brilliant drawing out of almost anything. He can capture the sequence of motion on a single sheet as if measuring, in these fractured movements of just one part of the human body – the motions of thought.

Each sketch is eye-catching and the technique used is authoritative and free. The most breathtaking sketches are of the fiercely woven wings stretching out from the back of ‘The horse’ and the woman with a horse’s lower body – both possessing equal strength. The wings soar and the woman and the horse rise

prose

Title: Elahi Mohr Tay Dujiyan Kahanian Author: Afzal Ahsan Randhawa Published by: Suchet Kitab Ghar, Chowk Ganga Ram, Lahore Pages: 128; Price: Rs.200/-

penmanship. The five short stories in the collection written in an un-skimmed native Punjabi idiom characterizing his prose depict the life of a people who are simple, sincere, hard-working, courageous and self-respecting.

Renowned Punjabi scholar (late) Dr. Attar Singh remarked that the literary persona of Afzal Ahsan Randhawa emits the odour of the soil and that the latter is a genuine heir to the true Punjabi cultural tradition.

His writings have profusely enriched the Punjabi literary tradition. This is a tribute that Afzal Ahsan rightfully deserves.

Off with their Aid From Page 1 the US Special Forces, their bullet-riddled bodies were widely splashed all over the western media. Why such demure bashfulness now, when Osama took, in the everchanging story, ‘only’ two bullets in comparison with the brothers, and especially after the Abu Gharaib videos or the soldiers casually posing with their murdered victims in Afghanistan after collecting their body parts as trophies.

However, most people are of the opinion that the US and its functionaries (covert and overt) are running amuck in Pakistan due to their leverage of loans and aid, which ironically only end up in the lap of the favoured few. To this one may add that any national leader with assets abroad (and herein lies the most obvious chink in our armour) is especially vulnerable to foreign blackmail.

‘They’ simply send an e-mail to the target, containing a list of all his properties and assets held abroad, implying thereby, ‘we know all’, and that these would be frozen if he does not toe the line.

This happened in late 2009 in Bolivia, when some units of the army strangely failed to take effective action against armed protestors, mostly rich farmers, angry at President Evo Morales land reforms favouring the landless Indian peasants. It was later revealed that a senior official of the Bolivian army as well as the former attorney general, both keeping accounts abroad, were warned against carrying out the clear governmental orders by those supporting the rebellion (no marks for guessing who that was!).

One major weakness emerging lately in international relations is the diminished UN image as a truly independent organisation. Its role has apparently been restricted to rubber-stamping the edicts of the USA, backed by the UK and France through highly selective resolutions. These are rammed through the Security Council (or otherwise, if a resolution from the Assembly pertains to the Palestinians). The totally uncalled for bombing campaign against Libya (whatever the argument against Col. Gaddafi) by stretching the interpretation of UN Resolution 1973 (2011) is a case in point. The resolution ‘approves a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya authorizing ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians, by vote of 10 in favour with five abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India and the Russian Federation).

Abstentions, like silence, mean consent, and should not

be allowed during the passage of controversial Security Council resolutions so that the requisite unanimity is not achieved and the meaning of the resolution is not garbled later on to serve someone’s ‘regime change’ and ‘light crude’ agendas.

Instead of the unlamented (but ‘somehow’ filthy rich) Tony Blair before Iraq, the trigger happy lackey on this occasion was the French president who started aggressive military operations straightaway, even targeting Gaddafi and his family. What a fall: the rich, proud French civilization reverting to a Texas-style Wild West ‘culture’!

If some nations, using their international clout and superior technology, successfully implement their policies by force under UN aegis, the latter might well go the way of the old League of Nations, which showed a similar weakness (and double-standards) against the aggression of the big powers of those days. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ceaseless threats and UN sanctions against Iran, the battle for Libya and the actions inside Pakistan territory have resulted in a return to the law of the jungle, which threaten to put the world on the road to total war, chaos and anarchy.

As for the US-Pak relations, it is clear that the end is nigh, or at least the end of the ‘highs’. That the ‘partnership’ (if the alliance between an increasingly arrogant sole superpower and a vassal can be termed as such) lasted as long as it did comes as somewhat of a surprise and can only be explained by the events of 9/11. With the US media, raucously dominated by you know who, and the US Congress, to whom my former ‘riddle’ remarks also apply, it was inevitable that the Israeli-US-Indian nexus or ‘Axis’ was the natural union in the new global environment. It came as no surprise that the first salvoes fired at Pakistan post-Abbottabad were by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, Chairman Senate Armed Services Committee, both of the tribe.

These people simply cannot stomach the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power, with an increasingly potent and sophisticated arsenal.

The threatened cutting off of aid by some US legislators may well (over the long run) prove a blessing in disguise – very well disguised, no doubt – but it will allow the country to be rid of this ‘opium of the elite’, which has

kept a few wallowing in luxury and corruption for the past six decades and the vast majority in a perpetual state of backwardness. It may even be a harbinger of true instead of ‘true’ democracy, as those who previously entered politics for its power, perks and privileges, may well opt to stay away, with the burgeoning middle class filling the vacuum (and about time too).

From the constant stream of hostile statements emanating from the US corridors of power, including the President’s office, it is clear that a major policy overhaul regarding Pakistan may be on the anvil. Unless of course our present ‘leadership’ kowtows and grovels in the dust before it, and fails to wake up even now to its all-pervasive dominance in our internal affairs.

Especially galling was the revelation that President Obama had prepared for a Pak-US skirmish, if the former had miraculously, it seems now, intercepted the invading force in Abbottabad.

Pakistan must turn East towards the Chinese, and also look towards Iran and Turkey. It has to learn to do things by itself, to live within its means. And with Chinese help the means, by exploiting our vast natural resources, can be vastly multiplied. Austerity is the key to progress under the present circumstances. And China too must recognise the threat or rather threats, to our sovereignty and territorial integrity and ensure that the lukewarm role it played in the crisis of 1971 to our extreme detriment is not repeated.

As for our timid, greedy, corrupt and power-hungry leaders, one can only reproduce a few verses of Chairman Mao Ze Dong’s inspiring poetry: ‘Only in wind and thunder can the country show its vigour Alas, the Ten Thousand horses are all muted.

O Heaven, bestir yourself, I beseech you And send down men of many talents.’

‘This land of bewitching beauty Has bred numberless heroes to do her obeisance, But to find those who truly serve her Seek them today’.

If only our slave-dynasty type of leaders, while deciding whether ‘I can be rich or my country can be rich’ opt for the country like the Singaporean leader Lee Kwan Yew – even, or especially, at this late stage.

Taking stock of the Pakistani Army From Page 1

s Saeed Akhtar collection

weightlessly in joy, representing strength.

When the Ejaz Galleries opened its doors, ushering the eager guests intending to view the exhibition and perhaps take home a Saeed Akhtar sketch or two, they were bitterly disappointed to find out that the show had been sold out prior to its opening.

Their frustration aside, Akhtar’s commercial success is also a reflection of his class.

Saeed Akhtar’s next exhibition will be in Karachi, in 2012. Since that is a year from now, if you want to savour sketches that are a delight, it is highly recommended you take a look at this collection.

favourite word) in a conflict with India. But it was clear throughout the 1980’s and 90’s that these forces were being used to fuel political rifts.

The army and intelligence agencies’ relationship with militant groups was to destabilize the political process within Pakistan. As Nawaz Sharif complained upon his recent return, “Our secret agencies chase after politicians but could not see what was happening right under their noses. They continue to play political chess.”

But, even, he returned to the army’s frame of reference to critique it, saying, “The incident has … also caused resentment and demoralization in the cadres of the armed forces.” Nawaz, finally, has been more brazen in his early attack on the army. The rest, especially the PPP, have, however, adopted a political, pro-army’s stance.

The problem is inherent in following the terms of reference of the army. If national security is the goal of all politics then who better to handle it than the army?

And we have no option but to submit.

How do we respond?

One, we must remember Clemenceau’s maxim, “War is too serious a business to be left to the generals.”

Two, we must deconstruct the discourse of national security and situate the end of politics outside it.

Criticising outside the army’s frame of reference: That is what need be said of critiquing within the army’s frame of reference. But that is something which almost everyone has done at this moment. We must, however, be bolder still.

This is a historic opportunity in our possession. An opportunity for civilians to firmly take stock of the army they call their own.

I have always considered jokes more serious than people think them to be. Each joke conceals a value and contradicts it. Similar is the set of values concealed within the jokes. ‘Horn na baja, fauj so rahi hai’ (Don’t honk. The army is sleeping.) This joke pokes humour by

contradicting a value – but subsequently re-enforces it.

And if at the level of jokes, which speak to subconscious values, our critique re-enforces the values which refer back to the army, then, there is not much hope for the future.

Let me be candid: I think the Bin Laden operation is one of the least serious offences committed by the Pakistan army.

There are many much more serious offences that it has committed and we have let them pass blindly. So what I suggest, is that is it us, civilians, who need to take stock of the principles by which we judge the armed forces of Pakistan.

How do we judge the three operations in Balochistan? How do we judge the 1985 operation in Sindh against the Movement to Restore Democracy?

How do we judge the alleged anti-dacoity operation in 1988? How do we judge the two operations in Karachi?

How do we judge East Pakistan? How do we judge the operations in Waziristan?

How do we understand that Hafiz Saeed is able to take out rallies at Lahore’s Mall Road on Kashmir Day and the entire road is filled up with flags of the Jama’at ud Dawa – supposedly banned? How do we understand when the Sipah-e-Sihaba is able to stand for election?

How do we understand that when we protest against a military dictator anti-terrorism FIRs are registered against us? How do we understand that when we stand up for an oppressed group, the army is the arm of the State we battle? How do we understand the tight checks and censors on information on army-related matters?

How do we understand the army’s land-grabbing?

How do we understand its role as a landlord and land developer? How do we understand its entrenched economic empire – which spans from fertilizers to cornflakes?

And within this: how do we understand its failure to counter the US operation on Abbotabad?

Some, including myself, would like to suggest it is a wholly consistent pattern of behaviour.

The military has entrenched itself as an agent of

internal control. It has designed itself in such a way.

The OBL matter is the first where the close control of press it developed in the Ayub era (with the foreclosure of Pakistan Times) has failed, thanks to the media revolution.

The British Indian army’s primary orientation was always to control internal revolt. The same psyche has been bred into the armed forces of Pakistan. But why did the Indian Army not adopt this mindset?

So, today, as before, the armed forces are still better at controlling internal events and let the nation down in border protection.

A need for reappraising the armed forces of Pakistan: So now having constructed a long, winding discourse, let us speak about today and the opportunity gifted to us.

The Pakistan army has failed to live up to its own word and been caught napping during a helicopter raid into its own heartland.

It has failed to conjure a half-decent defence of how Osama bin Laden, to find whom it has fought a war against its ‘own’ people for a decade, was found a kilometer away from the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.

And so, at this critical moment the turn by Prime Minister Gilani to ask a serving Lieutenant General to run the inquiry on the OBL raid is out of line. It is a reproduction of civilian subservience to the military.

The opportunity to return the guardians to the garrisons is in the hands of this civilian government. It must not let it slip away.

The return to the barracks shall begin with either parliament or the judiciary being entrusted with the inquest into the OBL raid. This civilian government shall be vindicated if it can only leave the people of Pakistan this legacy.

It is unfortunate that it has decided to take a step back, again.

Sunday, 15 May, 2011

O

ut in the backwoods of Balochistan, on the old trade route connecting the Balochistan plateau with what was once called Siestan (in Iran), lies the dusty little town of Nok Kundi. The place became famous after the second decade of the 20th century when the government of India laid their ‘Lonely Line’ from Quetta to Zahedan – railway track of over seven hundred kilometres that passes through one of the most desolate areas of the country.

Over a century later, Nok Kundi is still hardly a destination; it is just a way station one passes through.

And if on a clear day one pauses in the passing to glance around, one cannot miss the purple outline of a range on the distant northern horizon. This is the Koh e Sultan whose highest peak crests at 2332 metres (7650 feet) above the sea.

The mountain commemorates a mythical character named Sultan e Pir Kaiser also known as Pir Sultan regarding whom no fabulous tales are told. And yet he is venerated as saint.

The one thing the Baloch honour the saint for is his power

Despite the desolation and remoteness, if school children need be taught what a volcanic caldera looks like, Koh e Sultan is the place they ought to be taken to

day’s trek to the north. But now the alum harvest is fitful with some Baloch occasionally coming around from towns to the south of the mountain. This mineral might be handy for several things, but it fouls water badly enough to make it unpalatable: the water is acrid on the palate. Indeed, the McMahon expedition required a few hundred camels just to carry their drinking water.

As a volcanic range, Koh e Sultan may not be unique in Balochistan which boasts of a couple more, but Pakistan not being a land of volcanoes, it is a bit of a rarity. What makes it evermore curious is that the entire range, some forty kilometres in length from west to east and about one-fourth in width, had three separate centres of eruption. The last explosion took place so long ago that the event has passed from human memory and lore. In fact, in the centuries, perhaps even a millennium or two, since the eruption; erosion has completely denuded the calderas of traces of lava. And long ago when it did erupt, Koh e Sultan then known by a now forgotten title spewed forth lava and ash of sulphur, potassium and copper for the mountain is rich with these minerals.

Such an output would mean a caldera painted with the multicolour signature tints of each mineral. There would be, I knew, yellow and brown for sulphur; reddish for copper and white for the potassium that constitutes alum.

And so early one morning, when the horizon had not yet delivered the quivering sun, I was being driven north of Nok Kundi. With first light, Koh e Sultan became visible: a chiaroscuro strung out along the northern horizon, its ridges sharp as butchers’ knives honed by the sun’s rays and the dells mysterious in deep shadow.

There being no untainted water around the mountain, there are naturally no villages where an ordinary mountain walker could stop for the night. I had imagined a hard trek of two days with a camel

View to the south from the lip of the caldera

By Salman Rashid

over snakes: snakes as a matter of course do not bite near his tomb.

And to prevent snake bite as well as to ward them from one’s home, all one needs do is collect a pinch of soil from the tomb to keep on the premises.

In the 1890s Henry McMahon was assigned the task of delineating the border between British Balochistan on one side and Afghan and Iranian possessions on the other. In the course of this mission McMahon and his team spent a good few years in this region.

McMahon later wrote that this pir was the patron saint of Baloch robbers and that this was the reason Koh e Sultan had ‘a very bad reputation as a robber resort.’ There might have been something to this accusation because a member of the survey team, G. P. Tate, also had a similar report to make in his book The Frontiers of Baluchistan (sic).

Then as now, it is always blackguards that need patron saints!

But one wonders how that could be true, because there is not one source of palatable water in the entire range nor too in the miles and miles of sandy waste around its base.

The mountain being composed largely of sulphur and other minerals, all its sources of water are tainted: espy a rill tumbling down the bright khaki slopes, the sparkling water glinting invitingly in the slanting rays of a rising sun, only to see at close quarters that the sides of the flowing water are thickly spiked with alum crystals.

In McMahon’s time the alum was regularly harvested by Pushtun tribesmen coming down from what are now villages in Afghanistan, a

carrying the party’s water and other supplies, but then I was informed by the Nazim at Nok Kundi that I could actually be driven right up to the lip of the caldera. In terms of size, the largest caldera lies near the western part of the range.

That one, according to a geologist on the McMahon team, is fully seven kilometres in diameter and surrounded by an amphitheatre of heavily weathered spires. The one we were heading for has pride of place for its height: it nestles under Miri, at 2332 metres the highest peak of the range.

McMahon and his team had commented on the grotesque shapes they encountered in the folds of Koh e Sultan. And we were not disappointed. Here was a bearded man with crowned head and cowl flowing to one side of the face; a woman and child at the head of a family procession; tall pillars nicely fluted in Grecian style as if by the hand of the master stone-mason and not by whimsical erosion. And there were whole hillsides spiked with spires and serrations streaked by the flow of rainwater, carved by wind and painted in shades of reds, sienna, olive greens and pale pastels.

On a moonlit night march

through the mountain, McMahon and his team heard what sounded like the incessant roll of kettledrums. His Baloch guides told him it was the saint himself at it. We being there shortly after daybreak heard nothing. My guide, a local levies man, said he had never heard of the beating of drums. Time passes and even saints weary of monotonous activity. Either that or we had caught him slumbering.

Deeper into the mountain, the shrine of Pir Sultan lay just off to the left of our trail. Inside the narrow cleft, at the bottom of which potassium and sulphur-tainted water glinted in the sun, the shrine lay on a high ledge. It could only be attained by climbing a ladder and I could not help wondering what lunatic of a saint driven only by a morbid death wish would desire reparation in a place like this.

We paused only briefly to climb the ladder that sagged alarmingly under the combined weight of our team. The levies man said this might not actually be a grave, merely a tumulus to mark the spot where the saint had done penance before moving on. And then it occurred to me that it may not after all have been a death wish and that perhaps

Pictures by the Author

A view of the caldera of the extinct volcano of Koh e Sultan

The Saint’s Caldera

the mortification of the soul that saints real and phoney desire can only be fulfilled in places as wild and desolate as this gorge. The superstitious amongst us gathered their pinches of soil to keep the snakes away. I pretended I needed it for analysis.

We drove on until the bulldozed path petered out at the bottom of a ridge of pale cream colour. There were remnants of old brick buildings that the levies man said were from the British times when they mined for minerals. Earlier in Nok Kundi an octogenarian had told me that back in the mid-1940s he worked for a British company extracting copper in this area. He too had stories to tell of the water that had to be carted in from Nok Kundi.

The scramble to the top was over crumbly scree and took less than ten minutes to a view that I had never seen before: a perfect bowl hemmed by a pastel wall on the west, dark crags on the north that stretched in an arc through the east and south side to suddenly take on a startling pink shade at our feet. In the caldera to our right were large streaks of scarlet. Smack in the middle were the remnants of the last eruption: two cones, one larger than the other, that survived the collapse after the explosion. Beyond the mountain, to the north, lay a great mass of crescent-shaped windsculpted sand dunes through which the Pak-Afghan border ran.

Not a blade of grass grew anywhere, nor even the lowliest animal or insect stirred on the ground and the blue welkin above was utterly devoid of birds of the wing. It was like being on a mountain of the moon.

If there was a country that could match the terrifying sterility of the salt flats of Mashkel only a hundred kilometres due south, it was Koh e Sultan. Even so, despite the desolation and remoteness, if school children need be taught what a volcanic caldera looks like, Koh e Sultan, thirty-five kilometres north of Nok Kundi, is the place they ought to be taken to.

–Salman Rashid, rated as the best in the country, is a travel writer and photographer who has travelled all around Pakistan and written about his journeys.