Another Pakistan day

March 23rd, 2012

The Pakistan day comes around each year. For most of us, it means little more than a holiday — a day off work, a time to spend with family and friends and perhaps, arrange a spring picnic. The boom of a gun salute, ringing out at dawn will remind many that it is March 23; the day the Pakistan Resolution was presented. Except today, much of the significance of that document has ebbed. As a kind of entertainment, many may watch on TV the national awards handed out on August 14, while the real meaning of the occasion has in essence been lost. The emotion that marked the 1947 creation of our state has gradually dissipated and few today, beyond the rhetoric, really share what that momentous occasion meant. Many of the reasons why the excitement has faded are clear. Little change has occurred from one year to the next. Many people are simply locked in a constant struggle to survive and put food before their children. For them, there is naturally very little to celebrate.

Given this state of affairs, the time has come for us to think harder about what March 23 is about. It is marked as a historic occasion because it set the base for a new land, a land of hope, a land with a future. The Resolution passed on that day marked much of what that land would be about. Today, given how far we have strayed from that vision, we must try and re-evaluate where we stand and why. Rather than the mere show and pomp of the occasion, perhaps we need to think about how we can resurrect a nation that needs rejuvenation and use March 23 as a time to organise a range of discussions on this. Furthermore, Pakistan needs to have a national day which every citizen can genuinely celebrate. One immediate example of an issue, that is of a national nature but over which there is considerable confusion, that comes to mind is the war on terror. Is it our war, or is it not our war? Our the Taliban our friends or our enemies, should embrace them or should we fight them? These and many other important questions need honest answers because they will help determine the path which the nation will take in the coming years.

On a collision course?

March 23rd, 2012

In the contempt case initiated by the Supreme Court against Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister’s legal representative Aitzaz Ahsan has come up with several reasons for why the case should be dismissed. For one, argues Aitzaz, the president’s immunity under the constitution is iron-clad and so the prime minister cannot ask Swiss authorities to open cases against him. Then there is the fact that under the law it is the law minister who has to advise the prime minister to write the letter to the Swiss and since he has not done so there is little that the prime minister can do in such a situation. Furthmore, Mr Ahsan’s argument, that the bench of the Supreme Court which initiated contempt proceedings against Gilani should not be the one hearing the case because of a possible conflict of interest, is also a reasonably fair one.

Even though it is not explicitly mandated by law, having a different bench hear the case would protect the Supreme Court from charges of bias and being politically motivated. The argument centres on the supremacy of parliament and the right of review of the Supreme Court. In an ideal world, both institutions — the executive and the judiciary — would work within their constitutionally-defined spheres but alas, we do not live in such a world. That said, it would have been far better and what is happening now could, perhaps, have been avoided if the prime minister had responded to the Supreme Court with these arguments back when he was first asked to write the letter. This pointless delay seems to indicate that the ruling party is, perhaps, banking on the prime minister becoming some kind of martyr and using that to good effect in the forthcoming elections by presenting itself not as the incumbent party, but one that has always been targeted by the establishment. As a political move there can be no denying its power but the PPP, along with the Supreme Court, has ensured that our politics will be extremely divisive when the need of the day is for democratic forces to cooperate and thwart threats to increased democratisation.

Stirrings of something positive

March 23rd, 2012

For an economy wracked by two devastating floods in a row, militancy, a debilitating energy crisis and an unresponsive government, any murmurs of good news are a welcome sign. The State Bank of Pakistan’s second quarterly report — one of the few regular reviews of the economy’s health — provided just that this week, when it stated that there were the beginnings on an economic recovery taking place, led by the agriculture, retail and financial services sectors. If this trend continues over time — and there is reason to suspect that it might — then that is indeed good news for the economy. Two of the three sectors identified are some of the biggest employers in the country, with agriculture accounting for about 45 per cent of the labour force and retail about another 10 per cent. Between the two of these, they account for a little over 40 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. Growth in these sectors, despite all of the obstacles they face, suggests that there is a fundamental strength in the economy that is beginning to pick up steam. Unfortunately, it has to wrestle with a government that seems to consider its economic management responsibilities as an afterthought.

While the experiment of a government-managed economy failed catastrophically in Pakistan — as it did in other parts of the world — the government does nonetheless have a significant constructive role to play in nurturing economic growth. Principally this is to be done by providing an environment conducive for investment that includes fair rules and functional infrastructure. This is the very least that the country’s citizens should expect of their governments. This is something that the State Bank’s report notes almost every single time they review the state of the economy: that anything positive happening occurs despite the government, not because of it. And more often than not, it is poorly-designed policies that are holding the economy back and reducing its ability to deal with the many external shocks that are likely to hit it over the next few months. We deserve better and we should demand better.