Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi today, flying in from Dubai to greet large crowds of supporters.
One is often cynical about Pakistani politics, but it seems to me this is a hopeful event. A lot of things have changed since Bhutto left eight years ago, and I suspect if she ever does return to power she will do things differently than she did earlier. In the short run, of course, she will be an opposition leader, and will have to contend with both President Musharraf and a not-always-sympathetic Supreme Court.
There are, of course, people who doubt this is going anywhere. One such is Adrian Levy, who has a scathing account of the evolution of Bhutto’s power-sharing agreement at Comment is Free (at the Guardian):
The deal-making continued in earnest in early 2007, propelled by Musharraf’s weakening position. Aziz and General Kiani returned to see Bhutto again in March with a dangerous proposal. If she stayed away from Pakistan during the general election, Musharraf would “adjust the vote” to favour her party. He was offering to rig the election. Bhutto refused. Instead, she penned 36 demands, including the freeing of all political workers and a transparent election, but also indemnity from all personal criminal actions, as well as a change to the law preventing anyone from serving as prime minister for three terms.
By the end of September, with her conditions met, Bhutto was presented with Musharraf’s terms. If she won the election, she would agree to support him as a civilian president for his full five-year term and cede all responsibility for foreign affairs, internal and external security, the country’s WMD programme and its armed services to him. Given that the opaque military also fixed its budget, that left Bhutto’s prospective new government with a paltry number of low-octane domestic portfolios that revolved around the gritty municipal functions of government (including education and health). All very worthy, but not where power in Pakistan lies.
For the increasingly difficult-to-read Pakistan military, this deal, which Bhutto’s return today highlights, spells salvation, continuity and prosperity. Since Musharraf came to power in 1999, the armed services have acquired spectacular wealth, investing in everything from the asphalt people drive on, to the petrol they put in their tanks. They also control the equivalent to 12% of the total landmass of Pakistan, of which only 70,000 acres is set aside for military facilities. The other 12m acres have been turned into private farmland and individual estates for Musharraf’s key generals, making them millionaires. Musharraf, too. Although he officially lives for free in Army House, in Rawalpindi, on a salary of $1,400 a month, he has somehow acquired a real-estate portfolio worth $10m. (link)
A cynic could argue that there’s a problem if laws have to be changed in order for “democracy” to return.
A cynic could also argue that Musharraf will still pull all the important strings.
A cynic could argue that the Supreme Court should throw both Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf out of office.
A cynic could argue those things. (But I wouldn’t, not today; I’m trying to be optimistic!)
[Update: A few hours after I posted this, a massive bomb went off near Bhutto’s convoy, killing hundreds of people. Her earlier statement about not being afraid of would-be-terrorists now begins to seem in poor taste: “… Ms Bhutto said before leaving that she was undeterred [by threats of attacks]: “I do not believe that any true Muslim will make an attack on me because Islam forbids attacks on women and Muslims know that if they attack a woman they will burn in hell.”
One wishes, now, that she hadn’t made such an irresponsible statement.]
Emotions are likely running high at the moment so I’ll refrain from the emotive response. She is most definitely not the victim here. No matter how hard the bombers could have conceivably tried, they would have to know that (just like every other attempt to purportedly assassinate a high-profile figure in South Asia)there will incredible amounts of casualties among the innocent bystanders. Remember that it was Benazir who wanted to return NOW–not later, but now. She, like most image-centric south-asian politicians, will always have their sections of support in the home country but it was her decision to return and greedily suckle the perpetually lactating teat of power in Pakistan. We must recognize that had she not come back, over a 100 people would have been alive today.
Nip and tuck it seems like.
Does she use fair and lovely too ?
And that is the bombers’ fault.
Okay genius, why did they set off the bombs at that particular moment? I certainly didn’t see a gay pride parade in any of the new reports.
Pakistan only got one national leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. After his judicial murder Pakistanis are divided among PPP and Anti PPP groups, there is nothing in between. Majority Karachiites are Anti PPP and they’ve voted for religious or ethnical (MQM) parties but Rural Sindhis and Punjabis still support Benazir (the daughter of Bhutto). Until political process continues we’ll keep seeing these conflicts.
Not at all.
That wasn’t a taunt to the terrorists. It was meant for would-be supporters. I’m sure she knew well enough her life was in danger, and this was her way to build grass-roots support.
Whole Northern Pakistan Area and Afghanistan is under control of Millitants and they are spreading thier venom in other cities too including Islamabad. Bnazir vowed to root out Bin Laden that’s why they targetted her procession. Now whoever tries to hurt them is their enemy. This time it happened to be PPP.
As a Karachiite I’ll echo Sin here. More dictatorship, less Benazir/Nawaz. Worst possible thing to happen at the moment.
Builder and Sin,
What do we have right now? I think it’s does call Dictatorship and it ain’t solving any problem. We need a National party who can work with all provinces including Karachi. If MQM still want to play ethnic (victim) card then they need to align with National Party to get things done in Karachi.
Terrible tragedy.
Whatever their reasons are (or whoever is behind them), they chose to do the bombing, so it’s their fault…was Benazir breaking any laws? Some fringe group may choose to bomb anything they don’t like…should we blame the targets of their ire? Try to respond politely if you choose to respond at all. The victims’ families should blame the bombing culture that has developed rather than Benazir…or the religious fanaticism or support for people like Bin Laden, if Neena is correct. Or the people behind the scenes (if maybe Musharaff or the army is behind this).
Pakistan is heading towards a cathartic civil war between liberal desi sufi types (sindhis, punjabis, muhajirs) vs fundamentalist wahhabi types (mostly west asian pushtuns). About time.
Sindh was the first region of the Indian subcontinent conquered by muslims and this was where arab islam directly encountered indian pantheism which it had previously encountered indirectly via greek neo-platonism. The result was sufism.
It some weird way is this like George Bush standing on the flight deck saying “mission accomplished”?
Didn’t hear how she said it, so don’t know if it was a taunt or plea, but it strikes me as someone who doesn’t know the conditions on the ground.
61 Amitabh
–> Even when Benazir chooses to ignore warnings that conditions are bad for her arrival currently and goes ahead with her trip anyway ? I dont think anyone is saying Benazir is the sole person to blame but she has a big share of the blame(in addition to the people who carried out the attack) for her self serving trip.
Yeah, appeasing and hiding from violent criminals has really moved Pakistan ahead.
You should also, in return, try to be a bit less glib in your reply. I feel, as Krishnan does, that she is partly culpable for the violence surround her return. Image-centric politicians of her ilk cannot resist a publicity-ops filled, grand, flag-waving return because like Bhutto, they feel as if they are genuinely heroes to ‘the people’ and that their return means an automatic improvement in the prospects of the every citizen (Pakistani in this case). They also know that without such publicity stunts, the true substance of their ‘platform’ will not be sufficient to carry them back to electoral success. Bhutto could have easily not publicized her return, found an indirect route and not flown with a large plane full of her posse and let everyone know exactly where and when she would arrive and what route she would take to her final destination. Bombings take planning, especially car bombs, and without such information, so generously afforded to whomever would care to read a newspaper, watch TV or peruse that most exclusive of news sources, CNN.COM, the bombing would have simply not been possible.
so, if I follow your reasoning Amitabh-bhai (see, i am trying to be nice here), you would excuse the Bush administration for all the ‘collateral damage’ of the Iraq misadventure for the simple reason that they themselves did not perform the many car and suicide bombings that have killed so many? There is a place for identifying direct and proximate causes of the recent Pakistani bombing and Bhutto should not escape assignment to the proximate category.
You’re comparing an invasion and occupation to a national figure returning to her home country? Even if they were comparable, and they are not, the occupation is still not an excuse for terrorists to bomb civilian markets in Iraq, so while I agree that the invasion and occupation led to the violence in Iraq, it does not excuse it, nor remove blame from the bombers themselves.
I’m glad she returned, and I’m glad she has more bravery than the cowards who quiver about arousing the ire of some backwards, disgusting idiots.
No Golfastrian, what she did was intentionally expose many hundreds of people (yes, including herself but not to the same degree) to potential injury or death. If she had chosen to enter the country incognito, and avoided the ‘violent criminals’ altogether, you would label her a an ‘appeaser’ of terrorists rather than the rare Pakistani politican who actually gives a flying f*** about their constituents? A quick question, when has political violence in Pakistan ever taken the form of a sniper’s bullet to the political figure in question? When has the violence ever not involved innocent bystanders? But no, go ahead, be a ‘bold’ non-appeaser of terrorists and announce your return–who cares if over a hundred people die for your folly?
She is people’s leader and it is her right to gather a crowd and it’s her supporters right to welcome her. BTW how else political figure will work for the benefit of one’s country men if they don’t tell them their agenda? So where does crimnal fits.
If just for a moment I use your logic then we shouldn’t be traveling by car or flying as you know more people are killed in road and air accidents than anything else.
Benazir has every right to return of Karachi in an 18 hour motorcade trip surrounded by thousands of people. But a prudent leader, considerate of the possibility of violence, and the awful cost a bombing would have on her own supporters, would have chosen a different homecoming.
I don’t blame Benazir for wanting a big “Hurray-for-Benazir” day, or for the deaths that tresutled. But it’s just another indication of her poor judgement and egomania, and why she shouldn’t be Prime Minister.
Ikram,
She was secured and there was nothing to fret over. No one knew can imagine that Sick Minds target the innocents as we all know it usually back fired but I guess we give them more credit than they deserves.
Actually Neena – “she” may have been secured but a true leader, someone who truly cared about the people of Karachi and Pakistan would be less concerned about having a 10 hour slow march through the city to celebrate her return than actually getting down to business. And she just demonstrated the typical priviledged politican’s lack of respect and understanding for the everyman – her return clogged up the city roads and just complicated things for people who live in those areas (my family included). Workers couldn’t get to work on time or get home on time, traffic was jammed. This is before the bombs went off. Instead of going straight to Bilawal House and getting down to work she’d rather have a 10 hour photo op. Typical is all I can say. Fits right into the pattern. And yes she could have had a photo-op at the airport and make a to-do about her return – but a huge slow rally? Ridiculous AND irresponsible. You can demonstrate courage in the face of threats without being stupid.
And seriously – what purpose did this type of celebration serve? she and her supporters have every right to celebrate her return – but she hasn’t done anything YET other than step foot on Pakistani soil after a self-imposed exile. You may think that’s a crowning achievement of some kind but I don’t think it is – it took some clever manipulation and the support of some in the international community but forgive me for not being proud of her for that.
Instead she’d rather party. Project herself as a savior to magically pull Pakistan out of the doldrums and the dangerous situation its in. I’m sorry but she’s going to have to do a heck of alot more than make asinine statements and have extended photo-ops, to convince me that she CAN do something productive for Pakistan (even though she’s already had two chances). And now she and her husband have demonstrated their irresponsible tendancies once again – instead of solely expressing sympathy for those who lost their lives and limbs, for the families of the victims, she’s rather start pointing the finger as to who may have committed these horrific attacks. There’s no way she knows for certain unless she was involved in the bombing herself (and I’m not saying she was). It just shows once again that little has changed as far as she is concerned. And our city and country can probably not rely on her to make any productive changes.
Apparently she had a premonition about the attack and named suspects before arriving in Pakistan.
SadKarachiite,
Moving at slow pace called political rally and all leaders do it. It’s in style in Pakistani politics remember MQM rallies. But we can’t blame political party when government gave a go for such rallies on weekdays. Still I don’t get it why political leaders choose working day. They can achieve their goal on some weekend too. Remember how Karachi was hostage to those London Hartals by Altaf Hussain when everyone was forced to stay home. Thanks goodness we passed that phase.
So what if its the style of politics in Pakistan? She SHOULD know better, esp if she is there to bring about change. We all should know better. If she is the people’s leader as she claims to be, she could easily say that she’s glad to be back but wants to get to work. And weekdays or workdays vs weekends don’t make a difference. People still need to be able to move around the city during weekends. That is a non-argument as far as I’m concerned.
And yes, I do remember the “hartals”. And it wasn’t just MQM that called those strikes. MQM, PPP, JI, Muslim League, all of them have done it. I lived in Karachi during both her tenures and Nawaz’s. I have no faith in either of them, was apprehensive about her return. And her statements and actions thus far have done nothing to make me feel confident that she can change anything for the better. She’s there for herself and no one else. I can’t imagine what will come next.
So caring about your constituents means sneaking around and hiding to avoid trouble? I think that’s exactly the problem the country has had all these years – too many people willing to back down to psychopathic religious nuts and their followers.
Mushie is obviously too much of a pussy to do the job, beyond cutting deals with the dirty bastards. At least Benazir has enough sense of self respect, and respect for the country, not to be cowed by filthy nutballs who have no respect for civility.
Nobody wants to see hundreds of people die, but blaming Benazir and her supporters is blaming the victim, and worse, it sets extremely low expectations for Pakistan, its government and its people.
Golfastrian – I disagree. If there had been a clear, constructive purpose for such a rally I’d agree that we shouldn’t cow-tow to terrorist tactics. But she wasn’t doing anything at all constructive. How is having a 10-hour slow moving rally “caring about your constituents”? It actually seems incredibly suspicious in light of her recent revelation that she had specific information about people who had been tasked with trying to kill her, that she knew she’d be facing an assasination attempt. Instead she was ok that she was in a bullet proof, blast proof vehicle – as long as she’s safe all is well. Screw the poor people in the procession. Screw the people in the surronding areas who can’t get much done b/c of the ridiculous procession.
I think that’s exactly the problem the country has had all these years – too many people willing to back down to psychopathic religious nuts and their followers
The problem with the country isn’t that at all – or at least not just that. Thats an oversimplification and it glorifies Benazir in a way that isn’t justified. She isn’t a hero, not in my book. Not until she does something constructive and positive. Making statements just doesn’t count. “Caring about your constituents” doesn’t mean these ego-feeding, let-me-take-credit-for-something-I-haven’t-done-yet acts and words.
Actually, yes I would…not that I support the Iraq misadventure. The bombings in Iraq too are the fault of the perpetrators alone.
Amardeep,
Btw, this brings to attention how insulated America is from the rest of the world. Last year we had riots and acts of terrorism in Europe and Asia. We’ve had political instability across the globe, based either on economic, ethnic or political lines.
There are folks in Karachi right now who cannot get to work, celebrte birthdays, attend funerals. There are probably patients of heart disease who want to buy medication from the neighborhood store, who will not dare to venture out. There may be pregnant mothers who are about to deliver. It is the same in some cities in India during riots as well (remember Rajkumar-Bangalore?). And all we folks in the US can do is surf the net and watch tv, and talk about all this at a macro level.
Makes me feel terribly guilty. sigh
78 Amitabh
–> That Bush administration ignored well publicized warnings before going into Iraq and has continued its bungling in a stellar display of incompetence(If you havent read ‘Imperial life in Emerald City’ by Rajeev Chandrasekaran, please read it when you have time. The incompetence, arising out of ‘noble’ intentions, he chronicles is astounding) doesnt make them enablers of those bombings ? You are comfortable pinning the blame on the perpetrators alone without assigning blame to the enablers ? I dont think perpetrators of iraq or bhutto bombings are in the camp of ‘One man/woman’s terrorist is another man/woman’s freedom fighter’. But to blame them entirely without spreading it around is narrow, in my opinion.
I’m not defending Bush or our presence in Iraq. We should not be there, full stop. And bombings aimed at our troops or other Americans are ‘our fault’ or ‘Bush’s fault’. BUT…Iraqis bombing other Iraqis based on political/religious/secterian/miscellaneous concerns, is not our fault. That’s due to the messed-up mentality of the perps.
81 Amitabh
–> I was trying to point out that the actions of Bush administration with respect to Iraq led to iraqis bombing other iraqis on political/religious/sectarian/miscellaneous concerns. And for that, Bush administration shares the blame with the perpetrators. The perpetrators didnt spring from vaccuum, did they ?
Neena, this is not to get personal, but what city/reality have you been living in? I’m not even sure what you mean about “we all know it usually back fired”, unless you’re talking about the explosions themselves, but of course the woman was in a situation over which to fret. You’re riding around in a truck, knowing full well that there’s a solid chance of someone taking a pot-shot at you…oh, and not just you, but the hundreds of people surrounding you, by default. It’d have been one thing to stay in a location or limit the time spent doing this grand strut of hers, but it’s wholly different when, given the reactions in the city to the CJ’s arrival less than six months ago, you put your ears back and blindly wander for over a dozen hours “rejoicing” to be home from, as SadKarachiite rightly points out, a self-imposed exile. And for the sake of what? What exactly did any of that meandering entourage accomplish, other than blasting tragically bad songs from the 1980s into the air and bringing the city to a standstill?
Golfastrian:
Two separate issues here. Caring about your constituents means being smart about realising the implications of your glory-hound moves, especially in light of past/recent events, and the very real likelihood of them coming to harm. Benazir hasn’t done a damn’ thing to demonstrate said concern, not in my world. Being smart/careful/cautious…hell, SENSIBLE, and kow-towing to mullahs are very separate things. Nawaz, for example, has always gone running to the zealots for his support; BB obviously doesn’t give a shit about them, if her statements pre-boarding the flight from Dubai are to be believed. So well done, we get that you’re coming home no matter what, how about you make a brief speech and head home where you can orate to your heart’s content? At best, she was careless, and at worst, callous.
Sin, I agree with you.
If the threat perception was so great that an armor-plated truck was arranged for her to travel in – and she was really particular about that, and that truck was gone over with a fine tooth comb at the airport – several times – then it is clear that people traveling with her in that cavalcade (but not inside it) would have been at very great risk.
So to have persisted in going through the city in that cavalcade was extremely irresponsible, and perhaps, as Sin says, even callous. Even if nothing ‘untoward’ had happened, she would have ended up severely inconveniencing millions of people in the city. So that was irresponsible again.
Also – are there any precedents for holding political rallies at the Mazar-e-Quaid?
Shodan-san, I am not a defense wonk, but I have wondered a lot about this myself. What I found strange is the speed with which the military moved in to take over the country: it was determined to from the beginning. I was surprised to find out that a plan for a military coup was exposed as early as 1951. In 1953 Gen. Ayub Khan was making visits to the US and dealing directly with the Washington establishment. A year later he was Defense Minister: who in their right mind makes the army chief the defense minister? Its almost begging for army rule. It might have to do with the long time Pakistan took to figure out its Constitution (not till 1956), which made the entire system more malleable.
Incidentally Gen. Cariappa casually remarked positively on Ayub Khan’s takeover, and this freaked Nehru out. After retirement Cariappa was promptly shipped out as High Commissioner to Australia.
85 sakshi
–> My speculation(which I said somewhere else on this thread): Pakistan after independence seemed to suffer from lack of bench strength in national leadership that post-independence India had. As much as Nehru/Patel/Ambedkar/Rajaji et al fights went on, they also provided a counterweight to one man’s egotism which, in pakistan’s case, never happened (as brilliant as Jinnah was). People fault Nehru for a lot of things but his vision of encouraging debate and discussion in the early days and the able leadership core made a huge difference. Plus, there was the whole cold war where Pakistan seemed to take the easy way out by falling rapidly to one side(CENTO with US) and having a military leadership proved easier for US to handle than a messy democracy. In India’s case, we vacillated, called ourselves NAM, shot ourselves in the foot, soared in idealistic misadventures, crashed and went through the growing pains of a democracy.
sakshi, funny that you mention this since i was asking a pakistani friend of mine this exact question yesterday. his best explanation was that ayub khan took over and his rule was actually great for the country economically, and that continued to be the case for a while. and then when bhutto came back, he ran the country into the ground, and hence the pakistani people don’t necessarily have a positive view of democracy because of these early experiences. this certainly helps the military to retain control over the country.
Fair enough, but what allowed Ayub Khan to take over in the first place? Was it just the force of his personality. A common explanation I have heard is that Pakistan was so scared that India will absorb it that it focused disproportionately on its military. I don’t buy that completely: it is one thing to strengthen the military, and another to allow it a place in politics.
Plus they lost both Jinnah and Liaqat really fast.
From Bourke’s Halfway to Freedom (I found this excerpt in Haqqani’s ‘Pakistan: Between Mullah and Military):
Haqqani’s book is good but not great. It’d be great if someone here who knows more about Pakistan, could recommend a book.
Sin and Chachaji,
We all know corruption is a relative term in Pakistani Politics. Benazir was sentenced to 3 years in jail that’s why she was in exile.
I still don’t get it why are we NOT BLAMING the CRIMNAL here. As by doing it we are siding with those intolerants who are famed to kill people if someone disagrees on their agenda. I’ve even seen them killed a sick man because he was drinking water in Ramazan.
According to your logic we shouldn’t be traveling by car or plane as more people die in accidents than anything else.
Isn’t the return of the same players in Pakistan all the time (Sharif, Bhutto) as sad as the fact that Rahul Gandhi will be running for India’s PM one day soon? It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Most of us forgot that we had lost a war with India and there isn’t any cash in the treasury and still he started a Nuclear program which cost money. Anyway it is only true for urban elite Pakistanis, most Rural and some secualr middle class Pakistanis still vote for Bhutto’s PPP. There are few regional parties but PPP still enjoys support across the nation.
Neena, there was a very specific threat she had received – she took it seriously for herself, custom-ordering a bullet-and-bomb proof truck with a fortified interior compartment. To then organize such a long, slow-moving cavalcade, whose route through the city was announced well ahead of time, and which, in spite of all efforts could not have been secured, was very irresponsible. It put her supporters and ordinary people at much greater risk than she herself was taking. The threat was so serious that she left all her family behind in Dubai.
VVIPs normally move through cities quickly, their exact route and schedule is not announced till the last minute, and they move in convoys only to confuse any potential attacker, not as a way of showing off. Even when there is no specific threat perception.
Amitabh I agree with you – with Benazir, and Rahul waiting in the wings – it feels like deja vu all over again.
Sakshi, Huqqani’s book is called Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military‘. I actually liked it a lot.
I would also recommend Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, as well as Cohen, Pakistan Army, though the latter is a little dated, but if it is history that you want, it is certainly readable.
Brian Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army
And a very recent book by Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy
A great read on Benazir’s Homecoming.
To start with, no one’s absolving the actual bombers of the crime that they’ve committed. However, what I (and perhaps Chachaji, but I won’t claim to speak for him) have issues with the fact that it’s one thing to put your own life at risk for the sake of…ego, pride, courage, whatever you’d like to call it, but a whole separate issue to obstinately insist/facilitate a sequence of behaviour/events that put OTHER people at risk.
Glibness is all well and good, but not when you’re missing the essential point. That’s not the logic I’m applying here–what might be more apt than your fallacious interpretation of what we’re saying is that we shouldn’t be travelling by car or plane when we know that in so doing, we’re in a position to cause harm to a number of people who have some sort of trust in us. A more apt analogy might be that of driving drunk with your family as passengers (although it’s admittedly a bit of a stretch to assume that BB considers her supporters to be family).
Lets remember that a few hundred thousand people showed up to welcome Benazir. The woman seems to be genuinely popular notwithstanding the self appointed Karachi intelligencia who seem to be unanimous in their disdain for Benazir. The center left PPP is probably the only political party in Pakistan with an actual support base in the masses and a loyal cadre of party workers.
True, and the support base probably exists across all classes, and a lot of hopes are riding specifically on her, and she is aware of it. However, a motorcade that goes through the city in say, an hour, during daylight, to acknowledge popular support is one thing. It would also have demonstrated resolve and defiance, and a refusal to be intimidated.
But a planned 14-hour drive through a crowded city – that went over into night-time hours – pushes it beyond anything that could be considered reasonable under the circs. It was a callous political calculation – she wanted to show that she could draw huge crowds just like the CJ did. Nawaz Sharif had also planned to drive ‘victoriously’ from Islamabad to Lahore – instead of landing straight in Lahore, and again to show that his support was comparable to the CJ’s. That didn’t exactly work out, but the point is – spontaneous crowds like the CJ drew are one thing – to plan things to show that you are just as popular – can be a cynical and callous political calculation – that in this case got a lot of people killed.
probably get some flack for saying this, but her speech in reaction to the bombing came across as a bit self-centered and a bit distanced from the reality of it. maybe it was shock.
Let’s face it…life is cheap in India and Pakistan…I doubt too many people care about what happened, in the bigger political scheme.
In Karachi people are robbed routinely out of their mobile phones, cash and jewelry. Few months ago when one’s motor cycle got stolen you just need to go to MQM sector in charge pay him few thousand and violla your motor cycle is back. Half of the educational Institutes are under control of JI student wing. They play a moral police role there doing routine jobs, like avoiding situations where girls and boys don’t sit together, talk, while they congregate in mosque and count their weapons. Police men being mostly out of city or province are still outsiders and we don’t tell our short comings to strangers. BTW even if we do their weapons are from previous century.
So how’s life in Mumbai and Delhi?