Time for truth

IT is only as information has leaked out in bits and pieces over the years that we have understood how Kargil came to be what it really was: a poorly planned and badly executed operation that put hundreds of our soldiers at risk, and not the mujahideen-led jihad initially sold to the nation. New revelations paint an even bleaker picture of this gamble that Gen Musharraf took as army chief. One man’s testimony cannot provide a complete picture of a controversial armed conflict. But when the head of the ISI’s analysis wing at the time says he only found out about the operation after it had been launched — and that the same was true for most of the corps commanders and senior army staff, including the head of military operations — his words should prompt yet another look at the Kargil fiasco. Not taking the senior leadership into confidence, both within the army and in the other armed forces, had obvious consequences: the lack of a viable strategy, inadequate logistical planning and a poor calculation of the Indian response, all of which cost Pakistan the lives of hundreds of soldiers, further damaged relations with India and contributed to the political upheaval that followed.

And yet aside from occasional insights provided by those who are relatively well-informed and have chosen to speak up, there is no objective public record of what took place. Gen Musharraf had reportedly banned discussion of the topic at the National Defence University, where military operations otherwise form important case studies. And while it eventually surfaced that scores of Pakistani soldiers had died, the lies the media was fed in the early days of the conflict indicate that misinformation was a critical component of this operation. Told in daily press briefings that this was a mujahideen struggle and shown what appeared to be mujahideen training camps, reporters were blatantly used to mislead and rally the public.

Many questions still remain, including about the role of the political leadership. Was the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, aware of the plan? Was he ordered to seek out American help for a ceasefire, or was he responsible, as Gen Musharraf has claimed, for the operation’s failure? A decade and a half later, it is time for an objective, official examination of the facts, and for making them public. If Lt Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz and others who have spoken up are wrong, they should be contradicted. Even though preventing future mistakes is all that can be done now, the country deserves to know the truth.

Another round?

ON and on it goes, the endless sparring between the judiciary and the government, and the government’s proxies sometimes. Fasih Bokhari, chairman of the National Accountability Bureau, has written an extraordinary letter to President Zardari and very deliberately made its provocative contents public. The Supreme Court, Mr Bokhari has alleged, is grossly interfering in NAB’s workings and its actions may even amount to “pre-poll rigging”. Separating the substance of the chairman’s accusations and the likely intentions behind them present two very different pictures. First, the likely intentions behind the letter. In writing to the president, Mr Bokhari appears to have cast aside all semblance of neutrality and independence. It is not so much the thrust of the NAB chairman’s complaints against the superior judiciary but the person he has addressed them to that is deeply problematic. Is President Zardari somehow supposed to come to the rescue of the allegedly besieged Mr Bokhari and NAB? In writing to the president, was Mr Bokhari evoking shades of Naeem Bokhari’s open letter to Gen Musharraf that led to the dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in 2007? That these questions need be asked at all in this moment of growing controversy and crisis is itself a testament to the unnecessary and regrettable politicisation the NAB chairman has stirred up.

Unhappily, and not unusually, the Supreme Court itself is not entirely blameless in the present situation. The RPP case has emerged almost from nowhere to threaten a fresh political and constitutional crisis. The timing of the verbal order — followed by a less clear written order — to seemingly arrest the prime minister while Tahirul Qadri and thousands of his followers were calling for the ouster of the government a few hundred yards away was tone deaf, to say the least. The chief justice tasking a two-member bench of the Supreme Court to look into the death of NAB officer Kamran Faisal before even the basic facts are established seems unnecessary and premature. The only positive so far: even as the sparring has picked up again, neither the government nor the court appears to be truly spoiling for another major fight.

Shabby report card

AS the results of a recent survey show, the state of education in Pakistan quite expectedly continues to be abysmal. Indicating that the ‘education emergency’ is not over (indeed it may be getting worse), the Annual Status of Education Report 2012, launched at the Planning Commission in Islamabad on Monday, throws up a number of depressing facts. For example the survey, carried out in public and private educational institutions across the country, shows that the number of students who drop out of school before reaching class X is staggeringly high at 75 per cent. What is more, Pakistan’s students are underperforming even when it comes to the basics. The survey says that 81 per cent of class III students could not read class II-level English sentences. The figures for students who could not do simple sums much below their grade level were similarly disappointing. At the provincial level, Balochistan and Sindh have the most worrisome set of indicators. With the province already plagued with violence and lack of governance, the future of Balochistan’s children looks increasingly bleak; 34 per cent of youngsters are out of school. Sindh follows close behind.

The problems on the education front are multifarious: while a disturbingly large number of children are out of school or habitually absent, those who do show up are not learning much. Surveys like these are instrumental in producing solid data that identify the problem areas. The next, more difficult, step is implementing long-lasting solutions. It is hoped that those in power, and those who will follow them, take note of these dangerous portents and devise sustainable strategies that can reverse the decline, and ensure that these are immune to political tinkering. The unfortunate reality in Pakistan is that the real issues — education, health, economic planning etc — get lost in the hurly-burly of politics.

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Yes We Can Do It!