Former Indian Union Minister and deputy high commissioner to Pakistan Mani Shakar Aiyar has lamented that for the second time in two months his plans of visiting Karachi have been thwarted. According to him, the Pak authorities have withdrawn permission to the organisers of the Indo-Pak Faiz Centenary Conference to celebrate the Centenary at Hotel Pearl Continental on Friday, 21 May.
The following is the text of his email that he purportedly widely distributed among his friends: "The organisers are still hopeful that the required permission will be given sooner or later. I will certainly let you know when the visit is rescheduled. My apologies to all of you, especially those who had planned various get-togethers both last time, when the private plane in which I was travelling to Pakistan was denied permission to land even as we hovered over Karachi airport, and now again. "But may I avail of this circular email to say in a few words what I had hoped to spend some time talking about at the Indo-Pak Faiz Centenary had it been held.
"I am deeply convinced that at this juncture when the people of Pakistan are suffering both the shock and the humiliation of discovering that Osama bin Laden had been hiding amidst for several years and the violation of their sovereignty which they suffered when the Americans undertook their clandestine assault in Abbottabad, that this was the moment at which to express sympathy and even empathy but not to resort to tub-thumping or glee or, worst of all plots to imitate what the US had done.
"I am convinced Pakistan will ride out this crisis as it has several others and the most sensible thing we could do would be to persist with the dialogue that has been resumed to explore avenues of living with Pakistan in peace and in amity. So long as there are divisions between us, there will always be others around to exploit these differences and keep us pitted one against the other.-PR
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