Date: 12th Feb 2012
Baloch solution
WHAT is sadder than Jalil Reki’s story is how common a tale it is. The mutilated body of this Baloch activist was found nearly three years after he disappeared, events his father has described in searing detail for a report in this paper. Meanwhile, the interior minister was holding a ‘third force’ responsible for Balochistan’s troubles in the Senate on Friday. But external powers cannot conjure up an internal problem to exploit. Holding them responsible shifts the burden away from the state’s responsibility to answer two interconnected questions that have gone unaddressed for too long. First, who actually runs Balochistan? Certainly not the elected provincial government, which owns up to its own powerlessness. If the federal government does, the extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, terrorism, crime and lack of development point to an abysmal failure of governance on its part. And if the province is, as many Baloch and others feel, controlled by the military establishment, is the government doing anything to try to wrest away some of its power? For an administration that has recently been more than willing to take on Rawalpindi when threatened by its own removal, it is remarkably silent about the erosion of civilian authority in Balochistan.
Second is the question of a solution. Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan has proved that a top-down approach and a few development projects and jobs will not address the fundamental issues. The government could be doing a lot more just to kick-start a process of trying to find an answer, which will hinge on listening to what the Baloch want, rethinking what the government can provide, and genuinely attempting to move towards some middle ground. That would mean a broad-based, open-minded effort to hear from them, including separatists, rather than giving them what Islamabad thinks they need. It would mean partnering with politicians from across the spectrum, including the opposition, who might have relationships with Baloch leaders. And it would require a genuine effort, including pressuring the security establishment, to meet some of the key demands for justice and security.
But none of this will happen as long as politicians continue to suffer from the Bangladesh syndrome: believing that the concerns of certain Pakistanis are less important than those of others. The Awami League’s demands were unacceptable to West Pakistan’s political establishment at the time. In hindsight, after losing East Pakistan, they are no longer seen that way. The federal government needs to get its act together on the issue before we reach a point when, looking back, we wish we hadn’t been so dismissive of Balochistan’s demands.
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SBP autonomy
THE passage of a direction-setting law, the State Bank of Pakistan Amendment Bill 2011, by the National Assembly on Wednesday went almost unnoticed in the hullabaloo generated by the proposed 20th Amendment and the contempt case being heard by the Supreme Court against the prime minister. The changes in the law governing the functioning of the key regulator of the country’s financial sector are significant because they seek to enhance the bank’s independence. The bill imposes restrictions on the government’s borrowing from the SBP and makes it mandatory for it to retire the loans obtained from the bank, except for its overdraft, at the end of each quarter. It further gives the existing Monetary Policy Committee a statutory role to help the bank discharge its primary tasks, particularly the formulation of monetary policy and determination of the limits and nature of loans to the government, more freely. The government now has eight years to pay off the debt it owed to the bank at the end of April last year. In case the government fails to implement any provision it will have to justify the reasons for it before parliament. That will hold the government accountable to the elected public representatives, though only to a certain extent, for breaching the bank’s autonomy.
Hopefully, no government would want to be embarrassed publicly for its failures on this count.
The original draft of the bill was diluted on the Senate’s recommendations, which has certainly irked many. There have been calls for ensuring greater autonomy for central banks the world over to free them from political pressures and to facilitate them in their functions of ensuring price and financial stability. But no matter how independent a central bank is, it has to work under certain constraints imposed by a government’s political and development needs at the end of the day. Reform in small doses is the formula for countries like Pakistan that are not always prepared for change. Diluted the bill may be but its passage sets the tone the bank must adopt as it circumspectly pushes the boundaries for greater freedom in future.
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Protest culture
TRAFFIC jams ‘on their own’ are bad enough, and the long wait during rush hour is unendurable anywhere. However, what happened in Karachi on Friday was symptomatic of a national phenomenon, because protest rallies — often for justifiable causes — are organised in such a way that they bring misery to millions by throwing traffic upside down. This stems basically from a callous disregard for fellow citizens’ rights. The exercise of rights guaranteed by the constitution doesn’t authorise one citizen to impinge on the rights of another. All citizens and groups have an inalienable right to ventilate their grievances through parliament and the media and hold rallies to protest against a given act of injustice. The law also requires that the organisers of marches and protests obtain the administration’s permission. But this is only in theory: one wonders whether the protesters actually bother to obtain permission. This is just one aspect; the other is the denial of right of movement to fellow citizens when processions crawl through crowded streets and thoroughfares. This blocks traffic movement not only on the path of
the procession but in other areas as well because of its spill-over effect. School vans caught in traffic jams that may
last hours give anxious moments to parents.
All processions are not political; many are organised by labour and student unions, rights groups and religious organisations. That they should cause agony to millions of commuters while advancing an otherwise just cause is a reflection on society’s sense of values and proportions. In summer especially, the agony of hundreds of thousands of citizens trapped in traffic jams created by those who should have had the decency to air their dissent in a civilised way can only be imagined. In other parts of the world protesters march on sidewalks. Why can’t ours?
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