Karachi operation
ALTHOUGH the outgoing army chief’s counterterrorism efforts in the tribal areas have been widely cited as his biggest success, many have also lauded his involvement in bringing a semblance of peace to Karachi. On a recent farewell visit to Corps V, Karachi, Gen Raheel Sharif told his men that the results of the ongoing law-enforcement operation in the Sindh capital must not be reversed with the change of command in the army. The president also echoed these concerns on Wednesday. Indeed, most residents of Karachi will concur that ever since the Rangers-led operation began in September 2013, the levels of violence in the metropolis have come down. The number of terrorism-related incidents, extortion bids, kidnappings and political murders all appear to have dropped as compared to the days before the operation. Police officials say 3,000 criminals have been apprehended, while business activity has also picked up.
However, Karachi still has many miles to go before it can be declared a safe city. For example, despite the reduction in violence overall, street crime remains endemic — a fact that has been acknowledged in the highest echelons of government. People are held up during traffic jams and in markets and other public places by armed men who do not hesitate to pull the trigger should their victim resist the mugging attempt. Without a sustained campaign against street crime, the gains of the operation will remain limited. Also, while incidents of sectarian terrorism may be down, militant cells are clearly still active in the city, as the killings during Muharram have demonstrated. The operation then has not been without criticism, especially when there have been reports of staged encounters and the torture of suspects in custody.
To truly consolidate the gains of the three-year-old operation, the authorities — specifically the provincial government, the elected mayor, the police force and the military — must look at the bigger picture. While a militarised approach to policing — by having the Rangers spearhead the operation — may have brought temporary respite, in the long term, peace in Karachi can only be established through a depoliticised, professional local police force recruited on merit, and that knows the city and its problems. Also, law-enforcement efforts must be complemented by good governance, something the city has been lacking for decades. Arguably, Karachi’s vast ungoverned spaces and growing informality provide oxygen to a plethora of rackets, including criminal and militant enterprises. Along with a strong police force, it is critical that the elected local government — led by the city mayor — has genuine powers to govern all aspects of civic life. The provincial cabinet and bureaucracy cannot be expected to assess the conditions and needs of Karachi’s sprawling neighbourhoods; this is the job of the representatives elected from these areas. Good governance and law and order have a symbiotic relationship and cannot work in isolation.
Empowering women
GIVEN its multidimensional context, women’s empowerment in Pakistan is defined as the power to effect socioeconomic change if structures that dictate social, political and economic power-holding are altered. Because economic empowerment is intertwined with gender equality and equity, changes in policy and social structures, such as land and labour reforms, educational opportunities, and autonomous decision-making for women, are prerequisites. According to the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre’s report, Empowering Women in South Asia, two out of every 10 women participate in the labour force in Pakistan, with the majority working in low-quality jobs, unrecognised and unaware of their rights. In fact, with 12 million women home-based workers in Pakistan and more than 3m concentrated in urban areas and 8.5m in rural districts, the government’s failure to improve working conditions and workers’ rights has widened labour inequity. This gross negligence will impact economic development projects if fiscal policies do not include gender-based budgeting plans. The fact that increasing women’s pay to equal that of men would raise per capita income by 14pc in 2020 in developing countries is an interesting observation in this context. Moreover, pending issues of low wages, the lack of social security, including discriminatory laws and poor working conditions, persistently impede women’s socioeconomic indicators. In the case of home-based workers, they toil long hours at the cost of their health, and have little access to and knowledge of the market. Even so, these invisible women are unrecognised in official statistics, with no minimum wage or health benefits. Although their abject working conditions are known, the government has yet to work on a national policy that focuses on legal protections for them.
Meanwhile, with 12.5m children in the labour force deprived of an education and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, the government must develop child protection mechanisms and legislation to ensure children go to school. Child labour will only contribute to disillusionment over lost opportunities among a generation liable to go towards militancy. Allocating increased resources to support families to keep children out of income-generating activities is another recommendation. While Vision 2025 is the PML-N’s golden blueprint, it is capacity-building and implementation of ideas for inclusive and pro-poor macroeconomic policies that are crucial. Reducing the wage gap and lending directly to women will set the direction for future progress.
Pay raise for lawmakers
PERHAPS if one thinks hard about the justifications given for the recent pay increase that the government has approved for members of the National Assembly and Senate, one can see a glimmer of logic in the move — but nothing more than a glimmer. The raise is as high as 146pc of the pay they were getting until now. Most people, including civil servants, have to wait many years before their pay is doubled, let alone increased by 146pc. The government offered the justification that this pay has not been adjusted for 14 years and the lawmakers were having trouble managing household expenditures within the current salary. When asked about the wealth of these parliamentarians, the government spokeswoman said that most of them were “from the middle class” and their wealth statements were available on the ECP and FBR websites.
This last part strains credulity. If we are expected to believe that people who own multiple mansions and arrive at the National Assembly in vehicles that cost more than the houses in which most middle-class people live, own or control nothing more than the meagre wealth shown on their asset declarations then the government has clearly no confidence in the average citizen’s intelligence. In fact, the asset declarations are a joke given the visible lifestyles led by most of the members of parliament, as are whatever declarations they file regarding election expenses incurred during campaigning, and their tax returns. It is a sad fact that one can live the lifestyle of a billionaire in this country while appearing like a pauper in one’s declarations before the state. But it adds insult to injury when these same people vote for a pay raise for themselves, the likes of which most middle-class people can only dream of, and then expect citizens to believe they are using their salary to meet household expenditures. The government should have used its time to tend to more important matters that are genuinely in the public interest.
Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2016