Despite the media hype pertaining a doomsday scenario for Pakistan--fuelled as it is by our proven links with the Taliban, AlQaida, Kashmiri militancy, international terrorism, domestic intolerance and the monumental Qadeer Khan fiasco--the 21st century has started admirably for human rights in Pakistan. Never before have they received such incredible support in the country's chequered history as they are receiving today, and the future looks exceptionally promising. Notwithstanding alarmist reports of the US State Department and international and local organizations to the contrary, whose data is exclusively based on newspaper reports. They fail to understand that more reports of atrocities do not mean more atrocities.

A revolution has started in human rights in Pakistan. It is pre 9/11, not West inspired and, incredibly, being pushed by a military leader. A moderate, devout nation was revolted by the spread of intolerance, bigotry, lawlessness and the extremist antics of the Taliban, which engulfed the region in the wake of withdrawing Soviet troops. A deep revulsion was surfacing against this drift towards the extremist cult of madrisas funded by the Saudi Royals and the American CIA. Scrawny, disheveled, bicycle-riding mullahs were transformed into obese, gun-toting, war mongering politicians riding Land Cruisers. Their protégé, the suicide bombers blow themselves up, expecting to enter Paradise. How shocked they must be to find themselves in hell instead, because such acts are totally alien to Islam, as every Muslim knows so well.

Madrisa funding began for a very good cause--support for the gallant war of the Afghans, backed in their freedom struggle by Muslim foreigners, some mercenary, others romantic soldiers of fortune. The Soviets were defeated. But for another two years the Americans and the Saudis pumped in a billion dollars each into the coffers of the warring Mujahedin. Out of this emerged the Taliban, students of madrisas dotted along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. There are about two hundred thousand schools, including twenty thousand madrisas, in Pakistan. The vast majority of the madrisas have, over the centuries, done a yeomen's job of caring for poor and deprived children and providing them basic education free of cost. Only about a thousand or so foreign funded madrisas preached violence and became virtual Taliban factories, with direct links to several hundred similar madrisas in the US itself.

In October 1999, General Mushraf removed the elected governments and imposed a military dominated regime. Such regimes historically indulge in extensive human rights abuse. So it came as a major surprise when, in early 2000, General Mushraf desired holding the first-ever major Convention on human rights and human dignity. Despite the inevitable skepticism, the Convention took place in April.. Over six hundred stakeholders participated, including ministers, bureaucrats, diplomats and local and foreign civil society organizations. Unlike most Conventions this one produced results.

A media blitz began. Thousands of radio programs were broadcast and scores of T.V programs aired, including highly successful series like "GHAIRAT" and "SAHAR HONAY KO HAY". More and more articles appeared in the print media. Where hundreds were victimized in the past, unnoticed and unheralded, courageous journalists now began to write extensively about such cases. The Mirwala case would have gone unreported, its perpetrators continuing their shameless deeds unchecked. But after a week or so of its occurrence a local newspaper printed the story, which was promptly picked up by the national and international media, causing widespread outrage. The President and the Punjab Governor sent a ministers to Mirwala to lend support to the victim. Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo moto notice. The criminals were arrested, prosecuted and convicted, with several now on death row. Each time such incidents are reported, the government and judicial machinery, under public pressure, have responded as happened recently with the Shaista case in Karachi and the case of the two minor girls Hajra and Sassi molested and murdered by policemen in Gadap.

Changes have been made in the much-maligned national education curriculum to introduce human rights from class 1 to high school level.. There are 20 million students in Pakistani schools and their mandatory exposure to human rights education will undoubtedly have a major impact on society in the years to come, as is already happening. Human rights courses are being conducted for teachers, 13,000 of whom have been trained. Six hundred master trainers have attended diploma courses. Provinces are incorporating the revisions in their new textbooks. Sindh has started teaching the subject from the current academic year.

Police officers, bureaucrats, judges, media men and others are being taught human rights in institutions like NIPAs, Administrative Staff College, and Civil Service, Police and Judicial Academies. The Public Service Commission has introduced compulsory questions in CSS entrance and promotion examinations of officers up to Grade 20. No wonder, then, that now one regularly sees sights unheard of even a couple of years back, Typically, last December, Islamabad's Inspector General of Police held a full day human rights program at a police station where his officers were explained the police's duty to protect the rights of citizens. Similar programs have been conducted in all the four provinces, with participation of thousands of Police officers. Punjab now has an Advisor on human rights. Parliamentarians have formed their own human rights commission, with membership from government and opposition parties. Radio and TV have opened up to the private sector. Print media is totally free, barring the occasional shabby acts of media managers.

Positive development in Pakistan went unnoticed during 2000 and 2001. Except for the Swiss and the Norwegians who funded a modest human rights awareness program, one positive outcome of which was the establishment of a human rights center at Peshawar University, no one else bothered. A year and a half after the Pakistani initiative began, tragedy struck America on 9/11. American policies changed overnight. From direct support for the Saudi-American cults called AlQaida and Taliban, the US turned against their erstwhile protégé and aggressively focused on combating the terror espoused by them. The common perception is that General Mushraf joined the American war against terror, although his own war had already begun in April 2000. But then there were no takers in the international community. 9/11 brought the horror of extremism into the American heartland and into American homes through graphic television footage, the same horrors so familiar to us and to other victims of violence in the Middle East. Today there is universal understanding that extremist cults cannot be tolerated-----be they Saudi AlQaida, Afghan Taliban, American Ku Klux Klan, Japanese Aum Shinri Kyo, Irish IRA or Indian Shiv Sena.

A great start has indeed been made, perhaps a unique one. But we are nowhere there as yet. While a lot is being done to bring about respect for human rights, the country continues to be led by a dominant military, backed by a fledgling civilian government. There never can be a substitute for democracy, which itself is the majestic culmination of respect for human rights. Democracy and human rights go together. The greatest violations of human rights occur in wartime. History reveals a startling fact: that in the last several hundred years no two working democracies have ever gone to war against each other. Our own two wars in 1965 and 1971 took place with democracies in India and military dictatorships in Pakistan. The Americans have now recognized this. Removing Saddam and Mullah Umar is not enough. The minds of people have to be changed. Their new policy, to be announced at the G-8 Summit, is to bring democracy to all the monarchies and dictatorships from Morocco to Pakistan, much to the horror of autocrats who have survived mostly through support of the Americans themselves. By so doing, they hope to end terrorism by restoring the rights of citizens--the very basis of terrorist movements born in the region.

Sustainable measures to strengthen human rights in Pakistan are already having a noticeable impact. They will undoubtedly lead to a more tolerant order and a better deal for the common man. But the road is long, with many an obstacle yet to be surmounted.