Date: Friday,November 4th, 2016
Core issues unresolved
The Supreme Court broke the logjam that threatened to cause mayhem in Islamabad, but the logs thus unblocked are still very much afloat. The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan far from dialing back and letting events take their legal course was in full voice at the ‘Thanksgiving’ event held at the Parade Ground on 2nd November. He demanded that the PM Nawaz Sharif step down in view of ‘a case being currently pending’. Mr Khan needs to be a little more careful with his words. There is no case pending against the PM and he has not yet been indicted for anything. The proposed Commission to enquire into the Panama Papers has yet to finalise ToRs — and the government has already said that it will stick to a ‘generic’ line — and once ToRs are agreed (or imposed by the SC) the Commission will go about its business. At the end of that process there may or may not be a recommendation to indict the PM, and Mr Khan needs to understand the difference between unsubstantiated allegation and criminal charges that are evidence-based.
There was also criticism of the government for blocking motorways and road, arresting PTI workers and using teargas, in which there is a grain of justification in that the crowd control techniques used by law enforcement agencies are decades behind that of many other countries, with brute force being the primary tool. That said, the government was duty bound to protect itself against the threat of a disabling and targeted influx of hundreds of thousands into the capital. Its methods may have been crude, excessive even; but they were only tools in the kitbag.
The PM is not going to step down voluntarily and legal process has now to run its course. The SC in the past has proved unwilling to be pulled into the Panama Papers affair; and in the event of a likely impasse over the ToRs it is going to be sorely tested as are the PML-N and the PTI both of which are on record and saying they will comply with the SC no matter what. Floating logs still present a considerable hazard to political shipping.
Spies and yet more spies
Even in the dark world of international espionage there are rarely seen or discussed protocols. The recognition that nation spies on nation irrespective of whether they are friend or foe is one of those; and India and Pakistan have spied on one-another since Partition. The machinery of spying is not dissimilar to that employed in the Cold War, but with the more aggressive interventions that go beyond the mere gathering of intelligence being weighted to the Indian rather than the Pakistan side. There appears to be no hard evidence in the public domain that Pakistan is actively seeking to destabilise the Indian state as a whole — but an emerging body of evidence that that is exactly what India is doing in Pakistan.
The latest in the round of mutual expulsions of Indian diplomats accused of espionage is unusual for the attached detail of their alleged activities. Eight Indian diplomats are said to have been engaged in illegal activities counter to their diplomatic status.This is indicative of a sophisticated network of agents targeting a broad swathe of activities focused on social and economic instability and a baseline weakening of the state of Pakistan. It is vital that India and Pakistan maintain diplomatic relations, and as noted above it is accepted that within the diplomatic cohort there are going to be intelligence gatherers on both sides. Gathering intelligence is one thing, seeking the destabilisation of the state quite another.
This latest set of expulsions is another indicator of the steepening slide in bilateral relations between Islamabad and New Delhi, and symptomatic of the brinkmanship being employed by Narendra Modi that is pushing both countries into a spiral of confrontation. This needs to stop before the brink becomes the void and both sides need to apply the brakes before neither is able to. It is apparent that our intelligence agencies were aware of the activities of these eight men and now judge the time to be right to expose and expel them. This is entirely right and proper and India cannot cry ‘foul’ when its agents are caught in flagrante delicto.
The Landhi train tragedy
Pakistan has an incredible history of learning nothing from completely avoidable loss of lives. The Landhi train accident is another reminder of this, and how little human lives are worth here. It does not necessarily take a train accident to remind us that though, the state of the carriages can tell that story any day.
By the time this editorial was written, at least 20 people were reported to have died and over 40 injured. Initial reports stated that railway officials gave a green signal by mistake to the train coming from behind and Zakaria Express hit Fareed Express, which was standing at rest at the Karachi station. This is at least the third accident in 12 months. In September, at least four people were killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided near Multan. Last November, 19 people were killed in Balochistan after a train’s brakes failed and it sped down the side of a mountain. Yet, there is little thought given to improving our current state. This is completely unsurprising. After all, this is the country that has witnessed two major air crashes in recent years, yet things barely changed, if at all, to make air travel safer. This is the country where hundreds of factory workers were burnt to death, but there is not even a sustained effort to ensure that there are fire extinguishers or emergency exits, let alone a care for labour laws.
In the chaos that is Pakistan, many things seem beyond repair. It is impossible for instance, to change people’s civic sense overnight or go from times of conflict to peace, but there are, surely, various things that can be changed. Government after government has been pleaded to improve the over 150-year-old train system, but it slowly keeps chugging into decay. This is the same system that just across the border in India, is a lifeline for its citizens.
If only time was spent building institutions and infrastructure instead of wasting it on ideological absurdities and power tussles, Pakistan, like its railway system, would not be a country eroding itself.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2016.