Pakistan: Altaf Bhai's abstract maths

Manzoor Ali

Everybody was outraged, I would say unjustly, with Altaf Hussein remark that refusal to divide the province of Sindh into two could lead to demand for separate state. The implication of Altaf�s statement being that the people in areas politically dominated by his party will start a struggle to carve out a separate country of their own out of some urban areas of Sindh.

The very next day his party men tried to rationalize their leaders eccentric statement by saying that it was not a threat rather a warning or a predication or even an analysis from their great, great leader on the prevailing injustices with the Urdu speaking people.

But three days later, the great, great leader came out with another puzzling demand of creating two Sindhs. �Sindh One� for Sindhi-speaking Sindhis� and �Sindh Two for non-Sindhi speaking Sindhis�. The funny part was that the great leader insisted that he was not just a great political leader but should be considered a great mathematician as well, since he came up with the formula that even after creating two Sindh�s, the province will remain one. The fact is that instead of criticising the great leader who is also a great mathematician, we should insist that Altaf Hussein be given not one but two Noble Prizes. After all, even Einstein, the greatest mathematician the world has ever known or had known before Altaf�s discovery, could not come up with a formula to prove that one plus one were one and not two. Dividing a province into two and still making it look one is the greatest scientific discovering of all ages and we should insist that while Einstein could not even prove that one atom plus one atom were one atom and went on with the old fashioned maths that these made two atoms and all he could say was that time was relative to distance and speed of light, Altaf Hussein did the same trick not just with atoms but a whole province. Altaf Hussein in his lightening and speedy speech to his fans proved that he could not only make two atoms counted as one but could do the same with a whole province. Of course, there will be people who will ridicule the great leader and mathematician Altaf Hussen but people also made fun of great scientist and mathematicians like Galileo, Newton, Einstein and many others.

Many may adopt the attitude that what MQM leader Altaf Hussein says, even on very serious issues, should not be just taken with a pinch of salt but rather in a lighter vein! And that there are reasons why people should not consider seriously Altaf Hussein�s outlandish remarks and the mind bogglingly bizarre reasoning of his apologists who are none other than the second tier of leadership of his party: Altaf�s distracter might even say that when it comes to voting the MQM leader has so arranged his maths that even those who stay at home on voting day, have their votes counted not once but two times in MQM�s favour but here he is doing the opposite dividing one province into two provinces and then making one out of it by calling the bisected portions as Sindh One and Sindh Two but counting them as one. They may also say that after failing to satisfy his voters on all issues, he has come up with this new maths about provinces to regain their favour.

I, however, believe that it was not Altaf Hussein�s purpose to divide the province; he was trying to make his mathematical discovery of counting one plus one is equal to one more memorable and this was the reason he hypothetically divided the province of Sindh into two and then insisted that we do not call it a division of Sindh or two provinces rather that these were one province in spite of the division. If you are confused, so am I! Still I think that Altaf tried to make his theory more memorable by attaching it with two Sindhs. He had seen that how most people took Einstein�s theory of relativity as about those living on this earth and their relatives living in heaven, so he chose to publicise his theory by attaching it to an irritating topic to some and perhaps very pleasing to his few supporters.

But then none of us has the mind of such a great mathematician or some might say political magician. Basically, the confusion was because of the people thinking the great leader was speaking as a politician when in fact he was addressing not just his voters or the people of Sindh, or even all Pakistanis. In fact he was addressing the whole world and he was addressing it as a mathematician and not as a politician.