Day 2 Karachi Forum : Identity, Nations, NGOs, and Kashmir
Madhuresh Kumar | Sun Mar 26 16:18:56 UCT 2006
March 26 2006
Greetings from Karachi Forum !!
Today was the second day of the Forum. Today being Sunday, it was not very surprising, according to many here that all the morning sessions (9:30-12:00) started around 11:30 and many didn't even start. People here are still expecting that event will gather momentum as the days pass but it doesn't seem to happen. Most of the meetings here are being poorly attended, except for those on Kashmir, Balochistan, issues of livelihood, poverty and few others.
One of the big events today was the WSF Plenary organised in collaboration with Dawn Group of publications on the "Pakistan India Process, What is in it for Kashmir : Public Debates between Civil Society and Political Actors" held in the main stadium lasted for good 4 hours at a stretch, interrupted by the slogan shouting and mud slinging by supporters of various political actors. Prominent speakers were Yasin Malik, from Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (All Party Hurriayt Conference), Yusuf tarigami (CPI M), Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan (Pakistan Peoples Party, ex- Chief Minister of Pak Occupied J&K), representatives of National Conference, and Peoples Democratic Party and Anuradha Bhasin, Sonia Jabbara, Nirmala Deshpande and others. There are one or two more events coming on Kashmir in subsequent days. The meeting saw various parties propagating their ideas at the platform and their supporters shouting for them and playing down others whom they opposed. In all the leaders agreed on the fact that it was good of WSF to have initiated the process and thanked for bringing all the voices on one platform. However, Yaseen Malik, who spoke last compared his presence at the Mumbai Forum and here said that this Forum seems to be a flop with respect to Mumbai. He said that it is becoming the congregation of intellectuals who are conformists and the gap between the political resistance is slowly and gradually widening. WSF need to reinvent itself and try and be more inclusive of political resistances. He quoted his own conversation with Arundhati Roy regarding her not coming to Karachi. According to him Arundhati said, "I am tired of WSF because it has become an event for 3-4 days and after that there is nothing happening to sustain all the energy generated."
Apart from Kashmir hogging all the limelight, the various autonomy movements in Pakistan are using the Forum as a platform to campaign for their cause and draw support. The meetings on human rights violations in Balochistan, a province in Pakistan, was well attended and saw support from communities who are generally against them, then the people from Gilgit in Pak Occupied Kashmir who are demanding separate Balawaristan were also seen campaigning. The Sindhis are also making their demands known more widely here. In fact the situation is as such that these movements are going to meetings which are even remotely connected to the issue and making their voices heard and drawing the attention.
Big NGOs are coming here for a lot of flak from Pakistanis who have come from interior parts of Pakistan here and they are seen as diverting the attention away from politics, as was reflected by Tariq Ali in an interview in TerraViva newsletter. The Big NGOs here seems to be more active mainly in urban centres and not rooted in interiors, and are blamed for not doing enough in promoting democracy and are seen more as agents of Bush and multinational capital. These questions are being raised in almost all the meetings now and then.
More later
Madhuresh.
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