Mush does it

In ordering the storming of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid to get rid of the fundamentalists hidden inside, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has done an outstanding job. He has sent a signal to hardliners that the line between religious zeal and terrorism does exist.

In ordering the storming of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid to get rid of the fundamentalists hidden inside, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has done an outstanding job. He has sent a signal to hardliners that the line between religious zeal and terrorism does exist.

On my recent visit to England, I saw British newspapers full of stories that spoke of Islamic terrorism. The stern remarks by the new British Security Minister and the former navy chief Alan West, who rhetorically pledged to put an end to ‘Islamic terrorism’ in 15 years, fueled the fire. The murmurs are growing louder that the western world views

every Muslim as a potential terrorist, which is deeply disturbing to those who know and understand Islam.

This is where President Musharraf’s military action in Lal Masjid should come as a major relief to the Muslims of the world. In one stroke, the president of a major Islamic country has proved that religion cannot become the shield for fundamentalists and terrorists. He may have done this to prove a point to western governments, but we should not forget that he is the first political leader of Pakistan who has taken on the fundamentalists. The failed rocket attack on his plane last week underlines the risk he has taken in doing so.

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I hope Musharraf can stand his ground, for he has the authority and the force that can tackle the hardliners teeming in his country.

BJP’s morality play

Recently, Congress MPs across the country received a handwritten letter from Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, which urged them to heed their conscience and vote for Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in the upcoming presidential poll. The letter only puts a courteous mask to what has been an utterly slanderous campaign by the BJP to derail the election of Pratibha Patil.

The BJP must take the entire blame for turning India’s 2007 presidential election into a sordid affair. They have resorted to every trick in the book to encourage cross-voting against Patil, though not a single charge has been proved against her. Importantly, not once did the BJP raise any of these charges while Patil was governor of Rajasthan.

The writer is a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha