The treatment of women as subhuman can also be seen in the statistics related to acid and kerosene burn victims. Young girls and women between the ag… - Tariq Ali

The same night, in a neighbouring palatial ruin, we saw a moon rise and in its light witnessed an exquisite display of Cambodian folk dancing, once again a variation of the old dances of Southern India. In the background lay the darkness of the forest. The night was enveloped by silence. The technologies of the 20th century could neither be seen nor heard. We might easily have been part of a scene from a different epoch. The image of Angkor Wat remains vivid. When I shut my eyes I can still recall many pictures of the sun setting on the delicate and graceful reliefs. I thought of them a lot in the years that followed, first when Kissinger and Nixon embarked on their campaign and bombed the country into the Stone Age, resulting in a savagery which gave birth to the deranged squads of Pol Pot. Neither variant, I am happy to say, destroyed Angkor Wat. It is still there and I have not given up the idea of seeing it again one day.

Often poor women, who go to a police station and charge a man with rape, are subjected to further sexual abuse by the police, incidents of which multiplied dramatically after the “Islamic laws” were promulgated. Neither Benazir Bhutto nor General Musharraf managed to repeal the anti-women ordinances when they were in power. This gives a carte blanche to honor killers and anyone else. As social and economic conditions deteriorate for a vast majority of the population, women become even more vulnerable.

This single event had alienated me totally from the 'new' Pakistan. In the past one had fought against the elite, but this time a large section of the population was infected with an ugly chauvinism. It was not the Baluch or the Pashtuns as much as the Punjab and, to a certain extent. Sind. The failure of the Punjabis to protest against the crimes being committed in their name made them complicit. Some were no doubt frightened, but how could they be when they had only recently moved mountains, defied fear, toppled a dictatorship? It was something else. It was Bhutto. Having followed him during the movement, voted for him, they could not betray him. They assumed he must be right and so remained silent. It was then that I made my ow-n personal decision to stay away from them. The blood of Bengal separated us. Pakistan has yet to acknowledge these crimes and apologise to the people of Bangladesh. For its own sake, not only for theirs. Official histories in Pakistan continue to lie. They write of how India had decided to break up Pakistan. Not true. It was the Pakistan army backed by the bureaucracy and the majority People's Party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who took the risk and lost. They did not succeed in implanting 'pure Muslim genes' via the 'pure Muslim sperm' of the Punjabi soldiery.