Ali Amin Gandapur is the Chief Minister of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ( KP ) in Pakistan, and belongs to former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, the PTI.
Pathans are a brave people, who cannot be hectored or pushed around by anyone. Their land was invaded by Alexander the Great, the Moghul Empire, the British Empire, the Russians, and the Americans, but they never surrendered, and instead made their country a graveyard of invaders.
About Pathans there is a saying that if you give a Pathan respect, he will jump into a well if you tell him to without a second thought. But if you do not give him respect, and try to bully or cow him down, he will not listen to anything you say.
In Rambo III an Afghan tells Rambo a popular saying : ” May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan. Do you know what that means ? “.
To which Rambo replies ” That you people don’t take any shit “.
So I often tell my Pathan friends ( and I have many ) ” You Pathans are a bit manphira ( crazy ) ”.
Ali Amin Gandapur also seems a bit manphira. But there is no doubt that he is a brave man who cannot be intimidated by anyone.
His leader Imran Khan, and his PTI party has the support of probably 90% Pakistanis ( as all opinion polls show ), but by a rigged election in February the Pakistan army, which really rules Pakistan, installed the corrupt PDM in power, with Shahbaz Sharif as Prime Minister. However, despite their best effort they could not prevent the PTI from coming to power in KP.
If the Pakistan Establishment thinks it can lord it over the Pathans and Ali Amin Gandapur, and subject them to their tyranny, they are forgetting their history. They are forgetting what Pathans did to Alexander the Great, the Moghuls, the British, the Russians, and the Americans.
6 Judges of the Islamabad High Court have written a letter to the Supreme Court Judicial Council of Pakistan, whose head is the Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, complaining of the interference in their work, threats, and snooping on them by Pakistan’s Intelligence Agencies
The lawyers have called a convention to discuss this brazen attack on the independence of the judiciary
For quite some time it has been noticed in Pakistan that Court orders are not obeyed. For instance, the order of the Supreme Court to hold elections for the Punjab Legislative Assembly on 14th May, 2023, was simply thrown into the waste paper basket.
The latest revelations in the letter of 6 Hon’ble Judges of the Islamabad High Court shows brazen interference by the executive with the judiciary.
This takes us into the question why have a judiciary at all ?
It is in the nature of things that in every society, in all ages, there were, and will be, some disputes between the people, or between the people and the authorities. Hence there has to be a forum for peaceful resolution of these disputes, on the basis of some established principles, by professional experts who are conversant with these principles, known as Judges, otherwise they will be resolved violently by guns, bombs, swords, or lathis. Hence the purpose of a judiciary is to preserve peace in society.
A person presents his case in court, as does his adversary, and then the judge gives his verdict. Even if a party loses, he has the satisfaction that he was given a hearing, and this pacifies him to some extent.
But this presumes that the Judge was honest, impartial, and independent. In Pakistan, unfortunately, these features are missing. An example of this is the clearly dishonest verdict of the 3 Judge bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court, presided over by the Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, which deprived Imran Khan’s PTI party of its symbol
A Pakistani journalist, Sohrab Barkat, of the social media forum siasat.pk, who is based in Islamabad, asked me what I would have done in this situation had I been the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
I told him I would have taken a very tough stand. I would have closed down all courts in Pakistan until the government gives a solemn assurance that it will obey court orders ( subject of course to provisions for review, or appeal to a higher court ), and will respect the independence of the judiciary.
I would have also sent to jail for contempt of court those who defied court orders, however high the person or persons may be
Unfortunately the former CJP Bandial, and the present CJP Qazi Faez Isa, have proved to be spineless in this regard, and the latter has proved to be servile to the Pakistan Establishment, and a disgrace to the judiciary, like a modern Judge Jeffreys.
Ever since he was arrested on 21st March in connection with the massive liquor scam he was expecting millions of people to turn out in protest by holding massive demonstrations in the streets of India, particularly in Delhi. But no one seemed to be interested. No one is happy at the prospect of becoming a shaheed ( martyr ) for this modern ‘Stalin’ ( I call him that as he has said in his message delivered through his wife Sunita ” Aapka bhai lohe ka bana hai ” ), who has since long departed from all his professed principles of integrity, etc
In the above message of 23rd March Kejriwal appealed to people to go to temples to pray for him. None did. They preferred celebrating Holi with gusto ( despite appeals by AAP leaders not to celebrate it ).
In his message Kejriwal also said ” ” Whether inside or outside, every moment of my life is dedicated to serving the country. Every drop of my blood is dedicated to the country,”
This was laughable. The public has understood by now, after bitter experience, that every moment of Kejriwal’s life is dedicated not to serving the people, but to his idea how he can remain in power by hook or crook, and even become Prime Minister one day, for which he regards himself fully deserving. He has mastered the art of Machiavellian ‘realpolitik’.
Even Anna Hazare, on whose ‘imaandaari’ movement Kejriwal rode piggy back, now condemns him.
Kejriwal added in his message that no bar could keep him inside, and he would soon return. He probably imagines he is a Lord Krishna, who after his birth was miraculously taken out of the jail of his mama Kansa. Or perhaps he believes that the jail walls will be stormed and he will be rescued by a huge crowd, like the revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille in Paris on 14th July 1789.
None of that will happen. Kejriwal seems to be in for the long haul
But here is a suggestion for AAP leaders and members who want Kejriwal to be released soon :
When I was a lawyer in Allahabad High Court, and there was a threat that a Meerut Bench of the High Court may be created ( thus drastically reducing our incomes, since Western UP districts were relatively affluent compared to eastern UP districts, and its people good paymasters ), we lawyers of the High Court went on a long strike.
Among the things we lawyers did was to dig a huge ‘agnikund’ ( pit of fire ) inside the High Court premises, into which we threw a lot of wood, set it on fire, and when the flames were leaping high, threatened to collectively jump into it, like a ‘jauhar’ committed by the women of Chittorgarh.
This did the trick, and the government, frightened out of its wits, announced that it had withdrawn the proposal to create a Bench.
I am sure Kejriwal will be released soon after AAP folk do the same ( but I advise them not to actully jump into the bonfire, only keep giving threats ).
The Allahabad High Court, by a verdict given on 22.3.2024 has declared the UP Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004 to be unconstitutional, being against the principle of secularism.
I agree with the verdict that madarsa education violates the constitutional principle of secularism. It also violates Article 21A of the Indian Constitution which declares the right to get education upto the age of 14 a fundamental right of every child.
Education, to my mind, means modern, secular education, not the largely theological education imparted in madarsas or saraswati shishu mandirs, which inculcate bigotry, and brainwash the tender and susceptible minds of children with religious extremism.
No doubt in para 100 of the judgment the Court observed :
”Since there are a large number of madarsas and madarsa students in the State of U.P., the State Government is directed to take steps forthwith for accommodating these madarsa students in regular schools recognized under the Primary Education Board and schools recognized under the High School and Intermediate Education Board of State of U.P. The State Government for the said purpose shall ensure that as per requirement sufficient number of additional seats are created and further if required, sufficient number of new schools are established. The State Government shall also ensure that children between the ages of 6 to 14 years are not left without admission in duly recognized institutions ”
However this is easier said than done. Already the existing government secular schools are overcrowded ( some have 200 students in one section of a class, as I have myself seen ), and private schools are extremely expensive.
It is estimated that there are 25,000 madarsas in UP, of which 18,500 are recognised by the UP Madarsa Education Board. There are about 25 lac ( 2.5 million ) students in these madarsas,and thousands of teachers.
So before closing down the existing madarsas, thousands of modern secular schools will have to be built, with proper classrooms, laboratories, libraries, etc and competent teachers and other staff appointed. This will require a huge outlay of funds, and careful planning, and cannot be done overnight..
I would also like to suggest a way to accomodate the thousands of teachers who will be rendered unemployed by the closure of madarsas.
I have delivered a judgment in 1993 in the Allahabad High Court, Ramesh Upadhya vs State of UP, in which I have recommended that Sanskrit and Urdu, our two great cultural language, should be made compulsory in every school in UP for 5 years upto class 8.
If this judgment is implemented a large number of posts of Urdu teachers will be created, and the teachers presently teaching in madarsas ( who would all be knowing Urdu ) can be appointed on those posts.
Also, on the same logic, saraswati shishu mandirs run by the RSS should also be closed down, and the students transferred to modern secular schools
Bill Tammeus is my American friend, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. USA with his wife Marcia.
He had come to Allahabad with his parents and 3 sisters in 1957. Bill’s father was an agriculture expert from Illinois University who had come for 2 years to India to teach modern methods of agriculture in the Allahabad Agriculture Institute.
Bill was admitted to Boys High School, Allahabad (where the famous Indian filmstar Amitabh Bachchan had also studied ), and we were classmates from 1957-1958. He was then about 12 years old.
Later, he went back with his parents to America, and became a journalist in the Kansas City Star (where the great writer Ernest Hemingway had once worked). However, we remained in touch since then, through letters which would take 10 days or more to reach ( there was no such thing as email then ).
Thus, we have been friends for about 66 years, quite a record !
Bill has since retired, and does social work, including serving as a part time preacher in his Presbyterian Church ( for which reason I call him ‘Reverend’ ).
I had requested Bill to be one of the speakers in the recent Christmas special global online webinar of the organisation Ibaadatkhana, which promotes inter faith harmony. I am the patron of this organisation, Tasawar Jalali, who lives in San Jose, California is its Chairman, Irfan Ali, who lives in Princeton, New Jersey is its Vice Chairman, Naren Singh, who lives in California is its Gen Secy, and Ritu Jha who lives in California, and is the editor of indicanews.com, is the head of publicity and public relations.
The video recording of the webinar can be seen on my facebook page.
Bill had to decline my invitation due to prior commitments. He explained that this is the holiday season in America, and everyone’s calendar, including his own, is jampacked well in advance.
However, he sent this video recorded Christmas and New Year greetings.
This is the story of how and why I granted bail to Dr Binayak Sen in May 2009
Dr Binayak Sen was a Bengali medical doctor who was an M.D. from Christian Medical College, Vellore, one of the foremost medical colleges in India.
Dr Binayak Sen
He could have easily gone to USA or some other Western country and earned tons of money there. Instead he chose to serve the poorest of the poor, the tribals of Chattisgarh state, charging nothing from them for their medical treatment. His friends and relatives ( including his younger brother Dipanker Sen, a businessman in Antwerp, Belgium ) provided him the funds for medicines and medical equipment.
Dr Sen lived an austere life amongst the tribals while serving them medically. This probably created a belief in the Chattisgarh government and its police that he was secretly a Naxalite ( Naxalites are a group who believe in armed revolution ). At that time Naxalite activities were going on in the state of Chattisgarh, and any outsider who entered the state and started doing any social work among the tribals was immediately regarded a dangerous person, branded as a Naxalite, and arrested on trumped up charges.
Consequently, the Chattisgarh police, at the instance of the state government, arrested Dr Sen in 2007 on the charge of being a secret Naxalite, and apparently manufactured/fabricated all kinds of false evidence against him, as is often the practice of police in India.
Dr Sen was in jail for 2 years, with seemingly no chance of release for many years, when fortunately for him his bail petition came before my 2 member bench, in which I was the senior judge, along with Justice Deepak Verma, in the summer of 2009 when I was a vacation judge in the Supreme Court.
The Court was closed at that time for summer vacations, but there are vacation judges during court vacations who hear urgent matters, and I had been designated by the Chief Justice of India as a vacation judge.
Dr Sen’s earlier bail petition had been dismissed by another bench of the Supreme Court after long arguments ( after it had been dismissed by the district court and the High Court ), and had the Supreme Court been open his second bail petition would have gone to the same bench, as is the practice of the Court, which would in all likelihood have rejected it, as it had done to the earlier petition. But the judges who had heard the earlier petition were on vacation, so the second bail plea came before my bench, in which I was sitting as the senior vacation judge.
It was my practice as a judge to read the files of cases in the evening previous to the day when they were to be heard. Among the files I read was that of Dr Sen’s case. After going through the record in great detail I was prima facie convinced that the evidence against him was concocted.
Here was a doctor who could have gone to America and made a lot of money, as many Indian doctors have done, but instead he chose to serve the poor. If I had been the Chief Minister of Chattisgarh I would have called him and said ” Dr Sen, I have heard of your selfless work among the tribals of the state. Please prepare a scheme for medical service to the tribals throughout the state, and my government will give you all financial and other support to implement it”.
Instead, it was decided to jail him, and he would in all probability have remained in jail indefinitely, but for his good fortune that his second bail petition came before my bench.
I was always a strong supporter of individual liberty
Also, I was known to be a judge who disposed off cases quickly, since there was a huge pendency of cases in the Supreme Court, and I wanted to do my best to contribute to their early disposal. So I would often tell lawyers who appeared before me ” Be brief, be quick, and be off ”.
When the case was taken up in Court, the courtroom was packed with a large number of lawyers, including senior counsels like Mr Shanti Bhushan, Mr Soli Sorabji, Mr Ram Jethmalani, etc present, along with many supporters of Dr Sen. Before the arguing counsel, Mr Shanti Bhushan, could begin his arguments i said ” Dr Sen has already been in jail for 2 years. The normal rule is bail not jail, as laid down by Justice Krishna Iyer in State of Rajasthan vs Balchand. I think bail should be granted. After all, bail is not an acquittal ”.
My brother judge on the bench, Justice Vema, agreed with me.
At this, Mr Mukul Rohatgi, the lawyer for the state of Chattisgarh, stood up and said he wants to go through the evidence in the case.
I interrupted him, and said I had spent 2 hours the previous evening going through the record of the case, including the evidence,.and was well acquainted with it, so he need not take the trouble. And saying that I told him to sit down, and promptly granted bail to Dr Sen. The entire hearing lasted less than 2 minutes.
A few people later criticised me for not permitting full arguments, but most people, including former Chief Justice of India, Justice J.S. Verma, hailed the verdict
Dr Vatsa and Valli have unscientific understanding of religions.
I recently saw this interview of Dr Aviral Vatsa, who is a medical practitioner living in Scotland, by Valli Bindana, a film maker who lives in California. Both are of Indian origin.
Dr Vatsa and Valli are both self proclaimed atheists ( as I am too ). However, there are two kinds of atheists, viz scientific atheists and unscientific atheists, and to my mind Dr Vatsa and Valli both belong to the second category. In other words, while they condemn religion, they have no scientific understanding about it, and the views they expressed in this interview are superficial, and lacking in any depth.
I have briefly expressed my views about religion in the articles below :
The first question that arises is how did religion come into existence ? Dr Vatsa attributes it entirely to fear and anxiety, and he rightly condemns ‘Babas’ who play on people’s anxieties and fears, and politicians who exploit religion for getting votes.
However, that is an oversimplification. No doubt fear and anxiety played a part in creation of religion, but one has to go deeper into the matter.
Religion arose initially as nature worship, and came into existence when humans evolved from lower creatures.
Animals do not have religion. But what differentiates a human from an animal is the faculty of reasoning. The early humans were surrounded by forces of nature, e.g. the sun, wind, fire, rain, etc which they could not understand. Hence they started believing they were supernatural beings e.g. Surya, Indra, Agni, and the other Vedic gods ( and similar nature gods in ancient Greece and Rome, among native Americans, who were earlier called Red Indians, etc ), These natural forces could benefit people, or harm them. Hence they had to be propitiated.
It is true that all religions are superstitions and unscientific, and obstruct critical thinking. But even today, despite all scientific advance in the world, most people are still religious. Why ? Let me explain.
Even today perhaps 75% people of the world, particularly in underdeveloped countries, are poor. Poor people need religion as a psychological support, as their lives are so miserable that they would go mad without this psychological support.
And even most of the better off people are also religious because the chance factor is still very powerful in their lives. They plan something, but very often something else happens. For instance, a businessman can start an enterprize, but despite all his planning it may fail ( due to a variety of reasons ). In other words, we often cannot control our lives.
The chance factor is powerful because of the low development of science even today, compared to what it will be in say 100 years from now. Then science will have developed so tremendously that poverty will have been abolished, and we will able to largely control our lives, and then there will be no need of religion.
Dr Vatsa says that if one is religious he/she has a licence to be immoral. I do not know how he has come to this conclusion. I know a large number of religious people who are also highly moral.
However, there are more fundamental objections to religion.
In his famous novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ the great Russian writer Dostoevsky asks ( through one of his characters ) if there is a God, why do so many children in the word suffer ?
If there is a God who is all powerful, merciful and all good, then why do millions of children in the world suffer from hunger, cold, lack of shelter, disease etc ? Why does God, who is said to be merciful, not have mercy on them and give them food, clothes, shelter, medicines, etc ?
Why is there so much poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, sickness etc in the world ? If God is powerful and merciful, why does he not abolish these and give everyone a decent life ?
When 6 million European Jews were being sent to gas chambers by the Nazis, why did God not save them ? Religious people have no answer.
As regards the dispute between creationists and evolutionists, I have already dealt with it in my article above. Religion is based on faith and divine revelation, science is based on observation, experiment and reasoning. Religion says there is a supernatural being called God, who is permanent and immortal. Science does not believe that there are any supernatural beings, and does not believe that anything is permanent. Science believes that the only reality is matter ( or rather matter-energy, as Einstein proved by his formula e=mc2 ), which is in different forms, and is in motion, in accordance with certain laws which can be discovered by scientific research. If one asks where did matter come from, the answer is that matter came from matter, in other words it always existed. If it is assumed that everything must have a Creator, then God too must have a Creator, i.e. a super God, and he too must have a Creator i.e. a super super God, and so on. This is known as the fallacy of the infinite regress.
Religion will disappear when the social basis which gives rise to religion, i.e. poverty, ignorance and exploitation of man by man, disappears. But that is still a far way off.
Though a confirmed atheist, I read books like Mahabharat and Ramayan not as religious books but as sociological ones. For instance Draupadi had 5 husbands ( the Pandava brothers ), which proves the existence of polyandry at that time. Now Draupadi is a respected lady, but when her ‘cheer haran’ was taking place publicly in the durbar, Karna says there is nothing wrong in disrobing her since she is like a prostitute, having 5 husbands.
This shows that at that time society was passing through a transitional stage, since polyandry is a feature of matriarchal society, but is abolished in the subsequent patriarchal society, which has polygamy ( i.e. a man can have many wives, but a woman can have only one husband ). So when that portion of the Mahabharat was written ( Mahabharat was evidently written over centuries by many persons, collectively known as Vyas, which only means a writer ) remnants of matriarchal society still existed, though it was rapidly being transformed into patriarchal society. So social values were clashing ( as they are today ).
I have also explained that Ram was a human, not a god, in the original Ramayan of Valmiki, but becomes a god 2000 years later in Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas. Unfortunately most people have not read the former, which is in Sanskrit, which most people do not know, and have only read the latter.
This shows how religion evolves according to people’s needs.
To give another example, Indra was a war god, and was the most important god in the Rigveda, which was written probably when the Aryans were entering India as warriors, and Indra was their chief. Later, he became a rain god, when Aryans had settled in India, and agriculture, not war, became their main activity. Indra then became a minor god, the more important becoming Ram, Krishna, Hanuman, Kali and Durga ( in Bengal ) and Murugan ( in Tamilnadu ), none of whom find mention in the Rigved
I conclude by showing how I am a confirmed atheist and yet a Hanuman bhakt
Ever since Israel declared itself a sovereign state on 14th May 1948, Israelis, knowing they have the backing of Western powers, have been kicking around the Palestinians, as if the latter were dogs.
Earlier, over 90% people living in the territories of Israel were Arabs. After creation of the state of Israel, many of them ( including women and children ) were killed, and most fled in panic and fear, and now only about 20% population of Israel is Arab. Those who fled are still living in horrible and squalid conditions in Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, etc.
I had a long talk about the present Israel Hamas conflict with a friend living in UK. These are the points we discussed
1. He said that Israel had a right to defend itself if attacked.
I replied that if someone forcibly occupies my house after throwing me out, and I fight to get it back, will you support me, or the person who forcibly occupied my house in the first place ?
2. He then said that Jews in Europe and elsewhere were always longing to go back to Palestine. I said this was rubbish, and I referred him to my two articles, given below :
The Holocaust was not perpetrated by the Palestinians Arabs but by Germans and their European collaborators. So why should the former be punished for the fault of the latter ?
3. He then said that the Jews have converted a desert into a green, blooming paradise.
I replied that if you forcibly occupy my house and throw me out, how does it matter to me that you have converted my house into a luxurious mansion ? I am still living on the road.
The Jews who came into Israel were mostly Europeans, who brought their advanced technical skills with them. This made the desert bloom, and was like the European immigrants pouring into North America from the 17th century onwards, bringing with them their technical skills, which led to rapid development of North America.
But this does not resolve the plight of Palestinians rendered homeless, and living in horrible conditions, just as it does not resolve the plight of the native Americans, who were displaced by European immigrants, and many of whom are still living in reservations in bad conditions.
4. He then contested my thesis that Israel was created by Western powers to control and safeguard the oil supplies for Western industries from the Middle East region. He said that the Israeli army has rarely invaded other countries near Israel which have huge oil deposits.
I replied that armies everywhere in the world are rarely fighting all the time. But they have yet to be maintained, just in case a need arises at a particular time.
The situation in Arab countries is that though the people are mostly anti-Western, the rulers are pro-Western ( in fact Western puppets ). So there is no need of sending the Israeli army into the oil producing countries, because even without that the rulers of these countries ensure oil supplies to the West. When Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in March 1951 he was promptly deposed by the CIA, and the puppet Shah Reza Pahlavi installed.
5. He then said that many Arab countries have recognised Israel, and Saudi Arabia is about to do so.
I replied that the rulers of Saudi Arabia and most Arab countries are Western puppets, and so is Israel. So this was only to be expected. But has the wish of the peoples of these Arab countries been taken into account ?
6. He lastly said that Israel has a right to exist. I said that I am not against Jews, and I am not in favour of expelling Jews from Israel. After all, the Jews presently inhabiting Israel are not immigrants ( like their grandparents or great grandparents ) but were born and brought up in Israel.
But I believe that the only just solution to the conflict is creating a secular, democratic, State of Palestine, uniting Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon, where Arabs, Jews, Christians, etc can all live peacefully, amicably and in harmony.
There is no other way, and unless this is accepted there will be no peace in the region.
The godi media says ‘Hindu, Hindu, Hindu’, while Arfa Khanum Sherwani says ‘Muslim, Muslim, Muslim’, all the time. Thus they are two sides to the same coin, dividing and polarizing society, like the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League before Partition.
Neither godi media nor Arfa talk much of massive poverty in India, record and rising unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition, almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, etc.
Arfa says that the voice of 20 crore Muslims in India has been suppressed.
She does not add that the voice of 100 crore poor Hindus has also been suppressed, because poverty is destructive of all rights.
Please see these videos of Arfa. Is there any mention of the massive socio-economic evils which plague 80% of our entire population of 1400 million people, not just Muslims, like poverty, hunger, unemployment, etc ? No, Arfa only highlights and focuses on the plight of Muslims, which is a half truth ( or rather a one sixth truth, because Muslims are only one sixth of the population of India ).
I too condemn atocities on Muslims. But I believe that there are people other than Muslims who also live in India. And the solution to the basic problems of all ou people is a mighty united people’s struggle led by modern minded leaders determined to give our people a high standard of living and decent lives.
I wonder who finances Arfa’s foreign trips ? She may say they are some foreign organisations. But what is the real aim of these foreign organisations ? Is it to keep India polarised so that India does not emerge as a modern Indian giant, like China, as explained in this video ?
When she goes abroad Arfa keeps ranting about atrocities on Muslims ( which no doubt is the truth ), but never about poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, etc which afflict all in India, not just Muslims ( which is a far greater truth ).
Is she not behaving like Jinnah, who was a British agent responsible for Partition ? And are her financers not like the British who relentlessly pursued a divide and rule policy ?
I have the highest respect for former Prime Minister Imran Khan‘s wife Bushra bibi
But first I must make a confession. I had in the past ridiculed her on twitter etc by calling her ‘pinky peerni’, who does ‘jaadu tona’, and by saying that she has two djinns in a bottle which she takes out at midnight to feed meat to them, that she roasts live chicken at midnight to feed these djinns, that one cannot see her face in a mirror ( implying she is a vampire ), and similar poppycock.
Though all this was said as a joke, yet I am ashamed of saying such nonsense. I am guilty of throwing mud and casting aspersions on the character of a noble lady, which I should never have done, and I can never forgive myself for saying all this rubbish and baloney..
The media, which only seeks ‘mirch masaala‘, made all sorts of false and fantastic allegations to malign her, alleging that she was controlling her husband, and that he only does what she orders ( as her diary allegedly revealed ).
It was alleged that she married Imran Khan before completing the perid of iddat following her divorce with her previous husband ( an allegation she denied in her interview by Nadeem Malik, to whom she said she married him 7 months after her divorce ).
Even allegations of corruption have been made against her
There were even allegations that she had deserted her husband and has left her home
I have carefully considered all these allegations, and I agree with senior advocate Sardar Latif Khosa that Bushra bibi is a very good woman, and all these allegations against her are false and figments of the imagination of some people, particularly mediapersons who only want to melodramatize and publish ‘mirch masaala’.
I am convinced that she is a simple housewife, loyal to her husband. Of course it may be that on some occasions she may have given advice to Imran Khan, but which wife does not ? This not mean that she controls him. Her interview to the eminent journalist Nadeem Malik reveals her devotion to her husband, and her desire to serve the poor
I believe she is a pious lady and would not do wrong things, and that is why Imran Khan married her after meeting her in Baba Farid dargah. Imran Khan is a mature person who has seen the world, and would not have married her unless he found her a lady of high character. Imran Khan has said that
“the character of a person and the mind is much more important than the physical aspect, because in my experience that has the smallest shelf life ”, and he has referenced his respect for his wife based on her intellect and character.
Bushra has been described as an introvert who maintains a low profile, and prefers to stay at home rather than attending social functions and gatherings ( though she often visits hospitals, orphanages etc ), to which Imran Khan admittedly has no objections, as he said he is himself “past the age of socialising”. According to Khan, his two sons have met Bushra, while he has also had time to get to know Bushra’s children following their marriage. Bushra has also clarified that she is not present on social media and any accounts attributed to her are fake.
Even her previous husband said after their divorce in 2018 “I want to clearly state about my former wife, Bushra Bibi, that I have not seen a woman as pious as her in the world”
Bushra bibi has been loyally standing by her husband in his hour of trial, and has protected his honour. This is proved by the fact that when some guards at Attock jail asked her ( when she came to meet her husband ) to give them money and they would supply good food to Imran Khan, she refused, knowing that this would later be played up as an attempt of bribery.
I salute this noble woman. Shame on those seeking to assassinate her character
