sectariannism

[seep]

The State of Sectarianism
in Pakistan

Sectarian conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces. Co-option and patronage of religious parties by successive military governments have brought Pakistan to a point where religious extremism threatens to erode the foundations of the state and society. As President Pervez Musharraf is praised by the international community for his role in the war against terrorism, the frequency and viciousness of sectarian terrorism continues to increase in his country.

Instead of empowering liberal, democratic voices, the government has co-opted the religious right and continues to rely on it to counter civilian opposition. By depriving democratic forces of an even playing field and continuing to ignore the need for state policies that would encourage and indeed reflect the country’s religious diversity, the government has allowed religious extremist organisations and jihadi groups, and the madrasas that provide them an endless stream of recruits, to flourish. It has failed to protect a vulnerable judiciary and equip its law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to eliminate sectarian terrorism.

Constitutional provisions to “Islamise” laws, education and culture, and official dissemination of a particular brand of Islamic ideology, not only militate against Pakistan’s religious diversity but also breed discrimination against non-Muslim minorities. The political use of Islam by the state promotes an aggressive competition for official patronage between and within the many variations of Sunni and Shia Islam, with the clerical elite of major sects and subsects striving to build up their political parties, raise jihadi militias, expand madrasa networks and, as has happened on Musharraf’s watch, become part of government. Like all other Pakistani military governments, the Musharraf administration has also weakened secular and democratic political forces.

Administrative and legal action against militant organisations has failed to dismantle a well-entrenched and widely spread terror infrastructure. All banned extremist groups persist with new labels, although old names are also still in use. The jihadi media is flourishing, and the leading figures of extremist Sunni organisations are free to preach their jihadi ideologies. Leaders of banned groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Sipahe Sahaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed appear to enjoy virtual immunity from the law. They have gained new avenues to propagate their militant ideas since the chief patrons of jihad, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), have acquired prominent and powerful roles in Musharraf’s political structure.

The Islamisation of laws and education, in particular, graphically illustrates the Sunni sectarian bias of the Pakistani state. General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamic penal code, retained by General Musharraf, is derived entirely from classical Sunni-Hanafi orthodox sources. The same is true of “Islamic” textbooks in public schools and colleges. The Shia minority - and, in some cases, even the majority Sunni Barelvi sect - is deeply resentful of this orthodox Hanafi Sunni bias in state policies. Within Sunnism itself, the competition for state patronage and a share in power has turned minor theological debates and cultural differences into unbridgeable, volatile sectarian divisions. After decades of co-option by the civil-military establishment, Pakistan’s puritanical clergy is attempting to turn the country into a confessional state where the religious creed of a person is the sole marker of identity.

Except for a few showcase “reformed” madrasas, no sign of change is visible. Because of the mullahs’ political utility, the military-led government’s proposed measures, from curriculum changes to a new registration law, have been dropped in the face of opposition by the MMA (Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal) and its madrasa subsidiaries. Instead, financial and political incentives to the mullahs have raised their public profile and influence. The government’s approach towards religious extremism is epitomised by its deals with extremists in the tribal areas, concluded through JUI mediation after payment of bribes to militant leaders.

The anomalous constitutional status and political disenfranchisement of regions like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northern Areas have turned them into sanctuaries for sectarian and international terrorists and centres of the arms and drugs trade.

Parallel legal and judicial systems, which exist in many parts of the country with the blessing of the state, undermine the rule of law. The reform of discriminatory laws and procedures has, at best, been cosmetic - they remain open to abuse by religious fanatics. Bereft of independence, the judiciary is unable to check the rising sectarian violence. Subjected to political interference, an inefficient police has become even more incapable of dealing with sectarian terrorism.

President Musharraf’s lack of domestic legitimacy has forced the military to rely on alliances of convenience with the religious right, based on the politics of patronage. In the absence of international support, moderate, secular and democratic parties will remain in the political cold. The choice that Pakistan faces is not between the military and the mullahs, as is generally believed in the West; it is between genuine democracy and a military-mullah alliance that is responsible for producing and sustaining religious extremism of many hues.

Given the intrinsic links between Pakistan-based homegrown and transnational terrorists, the one cannot be effectively contained and ultimately eliminated without acting against the other. The government’s unwillingness to demonstrate political will to deal with the internal jihad could cost it international support, much of which is contingent upon Pakistan’s performance in the war against terrorism. The U.S. and other influential actors have realised with regard to their own societies that terrorism can only be eliminated through pluralistic democratic structures. Pakistan should not be treated as an exception. …..

International Terrorism & Its Impact
on Pakistan’s Security



Introduction

While the menace of violence is known to man since ages. The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, on 11 September 2001, shook the entire world. Where as leadership in Pakistan opted to side with US in the best national interest; vested interest pressure groups within the country started projecting it as “U Turn” amounting to sacrificing long term interests for short term gains.

Pakistan assumed the role of a front line state in the US led global war against terrorism (GWOT). The active role of Pakistan has exposed it to multifarious security challenges in light of the complex environment discussed earlier. In order to counter this threat, Pakistan has to evaluate the threat correctly to generate a befitting response, and thereby ensuring a sustainable security environment.

Aim

To analyze the effects of international terrorism on security of Pakistan in the post 9/11 scenario with a view to suggesting viable response to safeguard the vital national interests.

Terrorism — Conceptual Parameters

“Terrorism is not a new phenomenon; in one form or another it pervades recorded history’. Attempts at defining international terrorism in the past do not seem to lead us anywhere. For, terrorism as a social phenomenon has a knack of corresponding to different social contexts, and its forms, manifestations, incidence and timing have varied over time.

A number of attempts have been made to define terrorism but while defining terrorism each stake holder keeps certain issues in mind in terms of its sociological background, historical experience and sense of basic value system. State-backed terrorism of the 1970’s and 1980’s, which grew out of observable and publicized protest movements, has mostly been joined or replaced by the new terrorism. The process that resulted in the political or religious extremist evolving into a terrorist has been foreshortened by easy access to technology and the materiel required for committing the act of terror. …..

Pakistan’s
Tribal Areas

Carin Zissis

Introduction

Pakistan’s remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (the tribal lands) have been a training ground for insurgents and a focal point for terrorism fears, particularly since the 9/11 attacks. President Pervez Musharraf finds himself squeezed between U.S. demands to control militants in the tribal lands and opposition from his own army against fighting the region’s predominant ethnic Pashtuns, who have strongly resisted Pakistani rule just as they fought British control during colonial times.

Meanwhile, tensions between Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Musharraf grow. Karzai insists Pakistan increase security and stop incursions by Taliban insurgents into his country, even though the Afghan leader refuses to recognize the disputed common border, which divides tribes of the Pashtun ethnic group on either side of the frontier. As the tribal lands continue to serve as a training base for terrorists and the Taliban, deploying Pakistani troops into the region has harmed efforts to integrate the tribal areas into Pakistan. Bill Roggio, a U.S. veteran who has written from Iraq and Afghanistan, says the uncertainty over how to handle the tribal lands “makes the problems in Iraq look like a picnic.”

What are the Pakistani tribal areas?

The semi-autonomous tribal lands consist of seven parts called “agencies”: Bajaur, Momand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, and North and South Waziristan. There are also six smaller zones known as Frontier Regions in the transitional area between the tribal lands and the North-West Frontier Province to the east. The harsh, mountainous territory of the tribal lands runs along the Afghanistan border, drawn during colonial times by British Diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand as a means to divide and weaken the eleven major Pashtun tribes and turn Afghanistan into a buffer zone between the British and Russian empires. To the south of the tribal lands lies the large province of Balochistan, also divided by the border known as the Durand Line, which has never been recognized by Afghanistan and is a fluid boundary across which the Taliban make incursions from Pakistan. “There’s no border security, there’s no border guards, there’s no border control,” says Amin Tarzi, a regional analyst for U.S. financed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The tribal lands joined Pakistan rather than India after the former gained independence in 1947, but Islamabad has historically had minimal control over the fiercely independent Pashtuns.

How are the tribal agencies governed?

Although Pakistan’s constitution gives the president executive authority over the region, the appointed governor of the North West Frontier Province in Peshawar controls the tribal lands by managing the bureaus that deliver services such as health care and education in the tribal areas. The tribal lands have representatives in the national assembly, but not in the assembly of the North West Frontier Province. …..

Pakistan’s
Security Situation

Esther Pan

Introduction

Pakistan is facing a tenuous security situation. Armed militants are clashing with government security forces in several provinces. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are resurgent, posing problems for neighbouring Afghanistan. The suicide car bomb attack that killed a U.S. diplomat and four others in Karachi on March 2 underscored concern about domestic terrorist threats. President Bush’s visit to Islamabad will attempt to shore up the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, while highlighting the security challenges faced by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s government.

What is Pakistan’s Overall Security Situation?

Quite serious, some experts say. “The security situation in Pakistan has worsened very significantly over the last nine months to a year,” says Mahnaz Ispahani, adjunct senior fellow for south and west Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. She cites a litany of concerns for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s government, including armed clashes between insurgents and the government in the Waziristan tribal area; tribal unrest and conflict over energy resources in Balochistan province; massive anti-American and anti-Musharraf demonstrations in the Northwest Frontier Province; the resurgence of the Taliban; the violent demonstrations over the European cartoon controversy; and increasing sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. In addition, Pakistan has a continuing rivalry with India and a complex relationship with another country on its border, Iran. “The Pakistani government is in a difficult position,” says Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow and Southeast Asia expert at the Brookings Institution. “The country’s more insecure than it’s been for a long time.”

“The country’s more insecure than it’s been for a long time,” says Stephen Cohen.

How is Pakistan Handling these Conflicts?

Experts say Musharraf’s choice to join the U.S. war on terror has placed him in direct opposition to the tribal leaders who control the provinces mostly outside government control near the Afghan border. “Through millennia, there’s been a tradition of tribal leaders being fiercely averse to any kind of government control over their territory,” says Anupam Srivastava, director of the Asia program at the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security. The historical agreement in these areas was that if there was any kind of security problem, the Pakistani government would approach the tribal leaders and let them handle it. Now, however, Pakistani troops are stationed in the region searching for Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders pushed out of Afghanistan by U.S. troops. A recent U.S. air strike against a village suspected of harboring al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri further inflamed passions in the region and brought threats of retaliation by tribal leaders. Tensions—and fears—are high across the country. “There is an insurgency building across Pakistan in isolated parts,” Srivastava says, and Pakistanis are increasingly saying the situation is unwinnable. “Either Musharraf antagonizes the jihadis, or he’s seen as a stooge of the United States,” he says. …..

Balochistan & the
New World Order

Stan Goff

September 6th 2006, 1:25pm (PST) - on August 27, an artillery round fired by the Pakistani military found its mark on a cave in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, bordering both Afghanistan and Iran, and killed an 80-year-old man with a magnificent white beard. His name was Nawab Akbar Bugti, and he was the leader of a popular political movement in Pakistan’s largest geographical province.

Balochistan has only four percent of Pakistan’s population, though it occupies 44% of Pakistan’s land mass. Like its neighbour, Afghanistan, it is populated by religiously conservative ethnic Pashtuns living in extremely rugged and mountainous terrain. Like its neighbour, Iran, it possesses a geologic relic in abundance: fossil fuel, in this case the Sui natural gas field that produces 45% of Pakistan’s supply. It also contains a warm water port - Gwadar - only 70 kilometers from the Iranian border.

The killing of Bugti has resulted in a province-wide rebellion in the very region that is now serving as the jumping off point for a resurgent Taliban, dominated by co-ethnic Pashtuns, to retake Afghanistan. This is not happy news for the Bush administration. It may be even more disturbing to the administration’s sycophant ally, Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf.

The deeper significance of this latest blunder-catalyzed rebellion, however, must be sought in a broader, more tendential account of its history.

In 1991, after shattering the vibrant, modern state of Iraq with air power, President George Herbert Walker Bush unabashedly embraced the almost Hitlerian phrase “New World Order” as the mantra of American triumphalism. Yet NWO was merely a place marker, another cheap ruse designed to paper over the fact that the US was pursuing its own most narrow interests and suggesting to the credulous that what is good for America is good for the world. …..

Foreign Policy and
Crisis of Governance

Nasim Zehra

I. Introduction

There exists a symbiotic relationship between the foreign policy of every country and between two specific factors; the geo-strategic context (regional and global) within which a country is located and the domestic compulsions of a country which include governance issues and economic constraints that exists. Depending on the economic strength, the military power and the leadership of a country, a country’s foreign policy to a varying degree impacts upon these two elements and vice versa the foreign policy is influenced by these two elements. A dynamic connectivity is in fact constantly at work between foreign policy, governance and the geo-strategic environment. Autonomy, admittedly of varying degrees, is therefore available to all states to make their choices on the foreign policy. Their choices therefore define regional and global geo-strategic environments. Today however the supra-state actors like the United Nations, the IMF, World Bank, UNCTAD as well as sub-state actors including multi-nationals, NGOs, various shades of liberation movements, transnational militant movements and the media also define the geo-strategic environment.

Pakistan’s foreign policy has been no exception to this rule. Ever since 1947 Pakistan’s successive foreign policies have been defined by both Pakistan’s geo-strategic environment and by issues of governance, specifically economic issues. Conversely, though to a lesser degree, Pakistan’s foreign policy too has had an impact on governance-related issues. Whatever the content, orientation and conduct of Pakistan’s foreign policy it has been a policy that has been determined by successive governments who made autonomous and calculated choices.

That their autonomy initially was circumscribed by the pressures that a new born state, with a three front situation (India, Afghanistan and China) and an ill-equipped newborn state, did not completely deny them independence of choice. The nature of the choices made by successive governments can be debated upon but not the fact that each government exercised, Pakistan’s sovereign right to opt and reject allies. A review of Pakistan’s foreign policy underscores the fact that foreign policy-making has been undertaken autonomously by the state and in content has not been responsive to populist pressures.

On the key issues of Pakistan’s relations with India, it relation with the United States, the Gulf States and with China, the nuclear issue the state has consciously worked with politicians and opinion makers to create a public consensus on these issues. A balancing act has been performed by the governments to appear sympathetic to peoples’ concerns while not undermining national interests. Policy towards Xinjiang, during the Iran-Iraq war, Russia’s Chechan war etc. On other issues like the recognition of Israel, no government will change the position of not recognizing Israel until Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel. This position even if ostensibly ideological has been premised on the calculation of concrete security, economic and diplomatic advantages to Pakistan. …..

Pakistan’s Vision East Asia: Pursuing Economic Diplomacy in the Age of Globalisation in East Asia and Beyond

Dr Ahmad Rashid Malik

RELATIONS WITH SOUTH EAST ASIA

It is also an established of fact that Pakistan (then part of British India) and whole of East Asia, with the exception of Japan, remained under the imperial Western rule for a longer period of time. Pakistan gained independence much ahead of some of East Asian countries. Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore resolved their political differences by the mid 1 960s. Whereas Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that faced problems of national integration ever since their independence. Therefore, domestic and regional political environment of Pakistan and most of East Asian countries did not remain dissimilar.

Pakistan’s Role in Collective Security and Economic Integration

In terms of security considerations and economic cooperation, Pakistan found itself interlocked with East Asia, because geographically the country was contiguous to the region for historical, cultural, religious, and trade and commercial reasons. This led Pakistan to join the South East Asian Treaty (SEATO) in September 1954, hitherto known as the Manila Pact – a bulwark against the Communist threat in Asia-Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. Thailand and the Philippines were the only countries from the South East Asia region that had joined the alliance. Pakistan, being a South Asian country, became a part of the alliance to kick-start building its defence infrastructure and to modernizing its capabilities and to aggrandize its economic and commercial interests in the region. Oceanic and the Pacific countries namely, Australia and New Zealand also joined the alliance to ‘ward off any possibility of Japan’s resurgence’. United States and Great Britain were the architects of the alliance with the support of France that faced huge resurgence of Communist threat mainly in the Indo-Chinese states of Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. Leading capitalist players also wanted to stop the Chinese Communist threat in the region besides countering the Soviet influence in North East Asia, South East Asia, and the Pacific.

SEATO did not convert into a full-fledged military force. Rather, it was a political grouping of liked-minded Western and Asian countries to provide a wider spectrum of security in the greater Asia-Pacific context. Under these circumstances and considerations, there was nothing wrong but extremely beneficial for Pakistan to join this security bloc to build alliances in the wider Asia-Pacific region. However, Pakistan’s disenchantment with SEATO started after the Indo-Pakistan War of September 1965. Consequently, Pakistan formally withdrew from this security alliance on 7 September 1973 but its disengagement was started in 1968. The improvement of Pakistan’s political ties with the Communist bloc on bilateral basis in the 1970s, started deepening its ties with the former communist States in South East Asia and also generally elsewhere. The treaty itself was dissolved in 1977. As political atmosphere started changing by the 1970s, Pakistan once again naturally pushed to re-cultivate its ties with the region with the core considerations of improving economic ties as a result of the success of ASEAN. There was another factor that resulted in Pakistan’s disinterest in South East Asia and it was the emergence of ASEAN in 1967. When ASEAN came into being, Pakistan started ‘retreating’ from this region because the newly emerging regional grouping was solely from within South East Asia i.e., Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The New Engagement

As Pakistan’s devised its Vision East Asia, the importance of ASEAN has tremendously enhanced. Pakistan became a Sectoral-Dialogue Partner of ASEAN in 1993 at the instance of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Since the establishment of the Sectoral Dialogue Partnership, Pakistan has been making concerted efforts to raise the level of diplomatic and official interaction as well as trade and commercial linkages with ASEAN member states. Trade, industry, investment and environment were identified as potential areas of cooperation between Pakistan and ASEAN. Pakistan actively participated in trade fairs, business and investment seminars, held in ASEAN countries after assuming the status of the Sectoral-Dialogue Partner. This led Pakistani businessmen to Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia in 1995 and 1996 to participate in trade fairs. …..





Better Management of Indus Basin Waters: Strategic Issues and Challenges

World Bank Report

The Resource Gap

Pakistan is moving from being a water stressed country to a water scarce country— Pakistan is already one of the most water-stressed countries in the world a situation, which is going to degrade into outright water scarcity due to high population growth.

Pakistan is fast approaching the limit of its water resources. (Fig, 1) Only a small quantity o f water is left to mobilizing but Pakistan can get much more value from the existing flows.

Groundwater is being over-exploited in many areas, and its quality is deteriorating. The use of groundwater b y private farmers has brought enormous economic and environmental benefits. Groundwater accounts for almost half of all irrigation requirements. There is clear evidence that groundwater is being over-exploited yet thousands of additional wells are being put into service every year. Depletion is now a fact in all canal commands. Furthermore, there are serious and growing problems with groundwater quality, a reality that is likely to get worse because there are 20 million tones of salt accumulating in the system every year. …..

State-Formation and
the Military in Pakistan

Boris Wilke

“We will always remain committed to the Nations Building.”

Road sign of the “Frontier Works Organization “ on the way from Islamabad to Muree

1. Introduction

For more than forty years of the last century, the international system as well as the behaviour of states was determined to a large extent by the rivalry between two superpowers and their allies. The end of this era stimulated speculation on what would follow. As far as the structure of the international system is concerned, many questions have been discussed under the banner of the “New World Order”, an expression made popular on the occasion of the Second Gulf War by U. S. President George Bush. President Bush thought of a post-cold war world with a consensus among all states about “peace and security, freedom and the rule of law”. The underlying assumption probably was that after decades of confrontation between east and west, the primary source of discord, conflict and waste of human resources had gone. It was time for a change, to distribute the peace dividend in a fair manner.

Ten years later we must conclude that things have turned out a different way. The New World Order has not materialized (Jacobsen 1996). On the contrary, the ending of the Cold War has triggered an upsurge in violent conflicts, at least outside the OECD world (AKUF 2001). In some parts of the Third World enduring warfare and civil strife led to a total breakdown of legitimate authority, affecting not just (“failed”) states, but entire regions. As a result, the decay or even disintegration of states has become a new source of threat in international politics. In some cases, the weakness of legitimate authority has already provoked bloodshed, prompting the international community to step in to prevent further disarray in “complex political emergencies” (Cliffe/Luckham 1999, Gros 1996), with limited success.

Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the fate of Third World states and the international order in general seems as uncertain as more than 30 years ago, when the “political order of changing societies” was discovered for the first time as a key problem of world politics. Things may even have deteriorated, because “failed states” are by far not the most serious danger. They pose a risk, but the risk is limited in space and time. Of much greater concern is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and of ballistic missiles. At a time when nuclear war between major powers seems to be more unlikely than ever, some “rogue” states are considered to be all too ready to use these weapons, in case they can get hold of them. And rogue states are not the only problem: The proliferation of non-state actors has added to this predicament, the infamous Osama bin Laden and his “network” being the most prominent of them. Failed states, rogue states, belligerent and powerful non-state actors – a “new obscurity” seems to have taken hold of world politics.

On a closer look, however, the picture is not all bleak and obscure. Although a just and peaceful world order has not materialized, a global consensus on how state and non-state actors could achieve such a new order seems to be under way. This consensus may not be very substantial right now, but international policymakers in east and west, in north and south, are beginning to agree on how states should be governed properly: They should have civil, not military rule; democracy, not dictatorship; they should include actors from civil society into the policy process; they should respect and protect human rights; they should promote free markets over state interference in economic processes; their governments should be accountable and not corrupt, they should adhere to fiscal discipline and avoid large deficits; and finally, they should favour mediation and restraint over aggressive or belligerent postures in their international relations. …..

Report For Congress On Education Reform In Pakistan

United States Agency for International Development

BACKGROUND

President Musharraf of Pakistan has embarked on an ambitious course to turn Pakistan into a modern, moderate Islamic state. Central to achieving this goal is reforming an education system that had fallen into serious decline. Although modern educational facil¬ities were available for the elite, the vast majority of Pakistanis did not have access to functioning public or private schools. Only half the population aged 10 and above has ever attended school, and more than 50 million children and adults were illiterate. Some parents with the least resources relied on religious schools (“madrassahs”) to fill the gap; a small percentage of these schools actively promoted extremism.

An Education Advisory Board headed by the Federal Minister of Education was established in January 2000, to develop an action plan. President Musharraf approved the Education Sector Reform Action Plan (ESR) on April 30, 2001. The Board subsequently reevaluated the initial plan in light of Pakistan’s active efforts post-9/1 1 to tackle terrorism and sectarian violence and included madrassah reforms as an essential part of its revised plan.

In August 2002, the U.S. Government, through USAID, signed a five-year $100 million agreement with the Government of Pakistan (GOP) to support ESR. In 2005, additional funds were allocated to the education portfolio as part of President Bush’s FY 2005 to FY 2009 $300 million a year economic commitment. The USAID education allocation is anticipated to be about $300 million from FY 2005 to FY 2009. This anticipates roughly $67 million per year. The five-year presidential commit¬ment also includes $200 million of ESF for budget support, a portion of which the GOP is expected to use to bolster its spending on education.

This report reviews the strategies of the two governments, funding levels, and progress made in achieving education reform since January 2002. …..

The Process Of Socio-Economic Change In Pakistan

Arif Hasan

1. PREAMBLE

Social and economic change in Pakistan, as in the rest of Asia, has been so enormous that it can be turned revolutionary. However, this change has not been institutionalised or even politicised. One of the major reasons for this is that politics in Pakistan for the most part has been all about bringing politics back and freeing it from the domination of the civil-military bureaucracy.

Socio-economic changes have been different at different locations in the country depending on accessibility, social structure, clan and tribal affiliations and a whole host of macro and micro factors. However, some changes have affected Pakistani society universally. Broadly speaking these are migration from India in 1947; the introduction of green revolution technologies; urbanisation and migration to the Middle East; Islamisation of the Zia era; globalisation and structural adjustment; and more recently the Musharraf government’s devolution plan.

Much of what I am going to say is based on my earlier work, my association with the Orangi Pilot Project and the Urban Resource Centre in Karachi and their replications in other parts of Pakistan; my teaching at public sector universities since 1979; research consultancies; and diaries of my travels in Pakistan since 1968. …..

The Ghost
of Corruption

Dr Memoona Shahid

Introduction

The significance of corruption in Asia is highlighted by the fact that whenever a political regime has crumbled in Pakistan and some other countries in South Asia, a major and often decisive cause has been the prevalence of official misconduct among politicians and administrators, and the concomitant spread of corruption among businessmen. We can rightly conclude that in order to provide a stable system for the future, corruption from all segments of the society must be eliminated. This task has been identified as a priority objective and is being pursued with full commitment. Incidentally strict accountability is also a major public demand, as they believe that a good government can deliver on this issue.

GENESIS OF CORRUPTION IN PAKISTAN

Historical Perspective.

In order to develop practical anti-corruption strategies it is imperative to understand the phenomena of corruption in its historical and political context. Traditionally, the south Asian countries were/are ‘plural societies’. The colonial rule abetted in fragmenting the loyalties through all forms of corruption and nepotism. The culture of nepotism was further promoted in the colonial system of administration by award of lands, titles and jobs to the groups supporting colonial objectives.

The Post Independence Imbroglio

Land Awards. The transition from colonial rule to independent status accompanied the largest Exodus of recent history. Settlement of the millions of homeless through allotment of land/property created the first largest opportunity for corrupt practices. Fake claims were approved of the favourites.

The Bloated Public Sector. Nationalization programme in 1970s, besides being a poor economic option opened the gates of upsizing state institutions/corporations through politically motivated recruitment. Placements of party loyalists on jobs became new form of nepotism and corruption. The bureaucracy was inducted into the public corporate sector, which resulted in collusive mode of corruption both at individual and organizational levels.

The Private Sector Cooperatives. In the decades of 70s and 80s the remittances from overseas Pakistanis were misappropriated by private sector through setting up of Housing and Finance Corporations. As a result public money to the tune of Rs. 13-14 billion went into the coffers of these corporations.

Drug Money. Pakistan saw the entry of drug money into its economy in the early eighties inducing corruption and strengthening the underground economy. …..

Poverty: Its Causes and Response
by the Government

M Imtiaz Shahid

The fight against poverty represents the greatest challenge of our times. Considerable progress has nevertheless been made in different parts of the world in reducing poverty. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty on global level fell from 28 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001 (on the basis of $1 a day). In absolute numbers the reduction during the period was 130 million with most of it coming from China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the absolute number of poor actually increased by 100 million during the period. The Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS also witnessed a dramatic increase in poverty. While incidence of poverty declined in South Asia, Latin America and the Middle East witnessed no change.

The recent trends in global and regional poverty clearly suggest one thing and that is, that rapid economic growth over a prolonged period is essential for poverty reduction. At the macro level, economic growth implies greater availability of public resources to improve the quantity and quality of education, health and other services. At the micro level, economic growth creates employment opportunities, increases the income of the people and therefore reduces poverty. Many developing countries have succeeded in boosting growth for a short period. But only those that have achieved higher economic growth over a long period have seen a lasting reduction in poverty – East Asia and China are classic examples of lasting reduction in poverty. One thing is also clear from the evidence of East Asia and China that growth does not come automatically. It requires policies that will promote growth. Macroeconomic stability is therefore, key to a sustained high economic growth. Although extreme poverty on global level has declined, the gap between the rich and poor countries is increasing, even when developing countries are growing at a faster pace than developed ones – perhaps due to the large income gaps at the initial level. In a world of six billion people, one billion have 80 percent of the income and five billion have less than 20 percent. In the next 25 years, two billion more people will be added in the world we live. All but 50 million of them will be in the developing countries. In the year 2025, seven out of the eight billion people will be living in developing countries. This issue of global imbalance is at the core of the challenge to scale up poverty reduction.

Poverty Profile in Pakistan

It is generally accepted that the declining trend in poverty in Pakistan during the 1970s and 1980s was reversed in the 1990s. The incidence of poverty increased from 26.6 percent in FY1993 to 32.2 percent in FY 1999 and the number of poor increased by over 12 million people during this period. Since FY1999, economic growth has slowed further, development spending …..

Issues of Women
in Pakistan

Faiza Mir

Situational Analysis of Women in Pakistan —An Overview

T

he status of women in Pakistan is not homogenous because of the interconnection of gender with other forms of exclusion in the society. There is considerable diversity in the status of women across classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal, and capitalist social formations on women’s lives. However, women’s situation vis-à-vis men is one of systemic subordination, determined by the forces of patriarchy across classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide.

Demographic Background

Pakistan is a federation of four provinces conjoined with the federal capital area, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. According to the census conducted in March 1998, the total population of the country is 130.6 million with an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent. About 55.6 percent of this population is in Punjab, 23 percent in Sindh, 13.4 percent in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), 5 percent in Balochistan, 2.4 percent in FATA, and 0.6 percent in Islamabad. Women form 48 percent of the total population and 52 percent are men. The population of women has increased slightly more than the population of men. The latest intercensal average growth rate per annum is estimated at 2.6 percent for women and 2.5 percent for men during 198 1–1998. …..

Federalism Conceptual
and Practical Issues

Hasan Askari Rizvi

Federation is a contrived mechanism of sharing or dividing powers in a state between the government of the federation and its constituent units. It is a governance arrangement marked by unity in diversity. Diverse political entities, identities and interests see the advantage of ere ting a bigger political union but they also want to maintain their separate identities. The advantages of creating a bigger political entity include political, diplomatic, economic and security issues.

Power is divided between a national government and two or more regional governments, each of which is legally supreme within a defined sphere. An overall constitutional framework ensures inter-dependence and autonomy. The U.S., Switzerland, Australia, Canada, West Germany, Nigeria and India are examples of federal system of government.

Federation thus accommodates two conflicting trends in a shared political and constitutional arrangement. These trends are the need of eating a broad and comprehensive political order based on common political experiences and a strong desire to work together for achieving the hared goals. This trend is balanced against the desire to preserve and protect separate identities and interests of the constituent elements. While joining the bigger political and administrative entity, the constituent units do not want to be overwhelmed by any single constituent unit or the new politic and administrative authority they create. It is an arrangement bas d on interdependence and voluntary cooperation among the constituent units in a manner that each unit enjoys freedom of action, in a mutually agreed political and constitutional framework.

Federation establishes two sets of government: federal or central authority, and the government of each of the federating units on the basis of a mutually agreed formula of division of power and authority. This arrangement is reviewed periodically in order to update it for meeting with the challenges of the changing circumstances, conditions and political demands. …..

The Development of
Federalism in Pakistan

Khalid Mahmud

While it took Pakistan nine years to frame its first constitution, an interim arrangement, inherited from the British colonial rule that was based on the 1935 Act, remained in place from 1947 to 1954. Both India and Pakistan charted the same course of constitutional development from a common origin and within the framework of federal parliamentary system of government. Nonetheless, the Indians were prompt in settling the rules of the game and decided within three years the shape of federalism in their country. Pakistan, on the other hand, remained bogged down in a constitutional impasse, which, besides delaying the process of constitution making, gave rise to forces, which eventually wrecked the fragile democratic system.

The 1935 Act, which was the law of the land during the interim period (1947-1954) that was actually longer than the term of the Constitution it produced, had established a quasi-federation, since it was heavily tilted towards a strong centre. The division of powers between the centre and the provinces (federating units) was made on the basis of three lists of subjects; (i) the federal list (ii) the provincial list, and (iii) the concurrent list. The centre was given the additional power to override provincial legislation with respect to the concurrent list of subjects. The centre had a carte blanche to intervene in provincial matters to the extent that the provincial governments were nothing more than the subsidiaries of the centre. Provincial, governments were dismissed and chief ministers shown the door even more frequently at the behest of centre. Until the merger of West Pakistan province into one unit in 1955, Punjab had three chief ministers plus a span of governor’s rule, NWFP had three chief ministers, and Sindh had as many as seven chief ministers. …..

Meeting Pakistan’s
Energy Needs

Mukhtar Ahmed

Introduction

With a population of 152 million, the economy in Pakistan is currently growing at a rate of over 8% supported mainly by an expanding industrial sector that currently contributes to 38% of the economic output and is growing at a rate of 12.5%. Per capita energy consumption of the country is estimated at 14 million Btu, which is only a fraction of other industrializing economies in the region such as Thailand and Malaysia. With 40% of the households that have yet to receive electricity, and only 18% of the households that have access to pipeline gas, the energy sector is expected to play a critical role in economic and social development.

Policy Framework

Key elements of the policy response of the country to meet the energy requirements of an expanding economy are summarized below:

Adequate Energy Supplies: The energy sector plans focus on development of indigenous energy resources, import of energy at competitive prices to meet the deficits, infrastructure for delivery of energy to the consuming sectors, and systems to assure reliability, efficiency, and economy of supply. …..





State and Pakistan Economy: Where have We Come from? Where
Do We Go?

Parvez Hasan

Slowly but surely Pakistan has undergone a sea change in its policies towards a liberal economic framework, privatisation, and private sector development since the early 1990s.

In the 1990s the impact of economic liberalisation and structural reform measures on private sector development was seriously thwarted by lack of adequate stabilisation efforts, macroeconomic instability, and critical shortages of infrastructure and slow rate of privatisation.

Since 2000 the restoration of strong macroeconomic fundamentals, a determined push towards privatisation and promotion of foreign investment, and a recovery in essential public investments has greatly stimulated private sector activity. There is some debate whether privatisation has been pushed too far. But by and large there appears to a consensus that private sector development, including privatisation, has as yet a long way to go in Pakistan. A high degree of faith in the market economy is also at present the dominant economic paradigm internationally.

The private sector cannot prosper on a sustained basis and an equitable high growth rate cannot be achieved, however, without a strong and stable state, an effective government role in policymaking, essential public investments, and delivery of basic public services.

There is not enough debate on what should be the future role of state in Pakistan’s political context, its stage of development, its rather weak public institutions, over centralised government structures and a civil service that badly needs reform.

This overview paper discusses how international economic thinking about the role of the state has evolved during the last half century, stresses the importance of political leadership providing a vision, examines factors that have shaped the rate interventions and policy in Pakistan over its history, reviews recent improvements, current directions, and challenges and attempts to identify priorities for the near and longer term. The purpose is to stimulate a much needed debate on a subject which is closely tied to the governance issues being discussed in this conference and deserves more attention from our political leaders.

Conceptual Debate and Reality

Table 1 on Functions of the State below provides a convenient theoretical starting point of the why and how of the role of government. A minimalist state focusing on defence, law and order, macroeconomic management and public health is close to the ideal of the most influential economist of the last half century, Milton Friedman who passed away recently. …..





Islamizing the Economy: The Pakistan Experience

Professor Khurshid Ahmad

Islamic economics, although rooted in the values, principles and commands contained in the Quran and Sunnah, is neither a branch of theology (Kalam) nor of law (Fiqh). It represents an approach to the fundamental questions of economics—i.e., what is to be produced, how is it to be shared, and what is to be the shape of final consumption in a society?

Man’s economic problem is as old as are humans on the earth. While economics as a social science has been developed only during the last two centuries, the economic problem has always been there. Humans, in all times and climes, have strived to grapple with the economic problems at conceptual as well as practical levels in different civilizational contexts. Islamic economics is a nascent yet evolving discipline. It represents a fresh approach to economics and the economic problems of mankind.

Economic discipline and economic policy as they have developed in the West during the last two hundred years pose certain problems. All economic relationships have two dimensions: one technical, which relates to the physical or positive laws of production and consumption; and the other normative and ideological. The two are intertwined. Wherever there is a question of choice, there has to be a moral dimension. Choice can be motivated by physical and positive considerations, but choice is also influenced by our moral values and normative considerations. Over the years, economic science, even policy formulation to a certain extent, has witnessed what I call a de-linking between the positive and the normative dimensions. The founding fathers had developed their conceptual framework on certain moral and ethical assumptions, sometimes explicit, often implicit. Over the years the separation between ethics and economics has been accentuated with far-reaching consequences for the theory and practice of economics.

A second development relates to separation between economics and other social disciplines. Gradually economics tried to become a self-contained social discipline, parting ways with its integral linkage with politics, sociology, psychology and other disciplines. Obsessed by the idea of making economics a more and more positive science, an eagerness to introduce quantitative methodologies of physical sciences, particularly mathematics, is partially responsible for this de-linking from other social sciences.

Thirdly, the pursuit of efficiency and optimal allocation of resources became the central problem of economics. Efficiency is a very important concern, but over the years, considerations of efficiency have become so dominant that the equally important dimensions of equity and justice and of social and ecological consequences of economic efforts became eclipsed. Issues of distributive justice, quality of life and sustained growth were marginalized. Consequently the link between wealth and well-being was drastically weakened if not totally severed. …..

Privatization Failure of Government
to Failure of Market

Faisal Bari

Throughout the 1990s and into the current decade, the rhetoric of the various governments in Pakistan regarding economic policy and the mantra for success has revolved around privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation – the foundational pillars of the so-called Washington Consensus. Sympathetic Western economists propagated the idea that these three acts have four significant effects. First, they would unleash the potential of private initiative in areas of international trade, as well as in sectors that the private sector had previously been barred from entering. Second, they would make the public sector more competitive by privatising substantial chunks of it, by increasing competitive pressures being offered by private-sector alternatives or by introducing of corporatisation within the public sector. Third, they would limit the losses of the public sector. And fourth, doing so would hopefully allow the government to lower fiscal deficits and possible impacts of explicit or implicit, actual or contingent liabilities.

By the dictates of the Washington Consensus, the role of government is redefined. ‘Right-sizing’, ‘down-sizing’ and ‘restructuring’ would allow the government to remain only in areas where it could actually deliver something, or where its presence was necessary. The ‘commanding heights’ of the economy were to be turned over to the private sector, and the government was to become a guarantor of a ‘level playing field’, ensuring that the ‘rules of the game’ were clear and adhered to by all.

And this was not just rhetoric. The successive governments of the 1990s and early 2000s did indeed pursue these objectives enthusiastically. Trade barriers were significantly lessened: average tariffs were brought down, tariff spreads were reduced, most quantitative restrictions on imports and exports were abolished, and ‘negative lists’ were trimmed substantially. Most of the industrial enterprises in the public sector have now been privatised; banking, insurance and non-bank financial sectors are now mostly private; and many utilities were privatised. What has been left is slated for privatisation over the next few years. Islamabad has opened up almost all of the country’s sectors – barring a few related to defence, nuclear energy and other strategic areas – to private investment. Over the last decade and a half, government expenditures have been trimmed, fiscal deficits have been more than halved and even international debt has been restructured to furnish more fiscal space for the government.

The deeper thinking behind the emphasis on privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation, has been about government failure (as contrasted with market failure) and the inability of government-owned and -operated organisations to resolve issues related to principal-agent problems, high-powered incentives, hard budgets and so on. But what was not appreciated enough was that the government had entered these areas precisely because these sectors were not very competitive, had significant fixed- and sunk-cost elements, were prone to externalities and other market failures, and had elements of oligopolies or monopolies. So, while pointing out government failure was important, it did not make sense to suggest that privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation would lead to better outcomes in all sub-sectors and under all conditions. …..




This has been taken from contemporaryaffairs written by imtiaz shahid.

I found it interesting.