No capacity to govern
Friday, 24 Jul, 2009


FOUR seemingly different news items over the past 15 days or so caught my attention. Pertaining to the conduct of the civil bureaucracy and the government’s handling of it, these news items etched an interesting picture of the government’s capacity to deliver good governance.

The first dealt with the appointment of a DMG officer as ambassador to France. The second focused on the shelving of a madressah-reform programme conceived by the education ministry in 2002 and involving a budget of billions out of which the department was unable to spend more than Rs333m and reaching a little over 500 madressahs. Although the economic affairs division refutes the claim that the education ministry received any funding from the US to carry out madressah reforms, the source of money is a tactical matter. The more important issue is that a certain, critical objective was not achieved.

The third issue concerns the behaviour of Pakistan’s consul-general in Los Angeles who wasted the taxpayer’s money to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco to welcome politician Babar Awan who was on a private visit. Finally, there was the story a BPS-20 officer dragging his boss to court alleging misconduct, something he himself was accused of. The officer apparently used high connections to have himself absolved in another matter.

How are these stories connected? Each case is a comment on why and how Pakistan suffers from a lack of capacity to deliver good governance. As I asked some senior bureaucrats whether the civil bureaucracy was capable of delivering services to the people one retorted: “If those who made sacrifices for Pakistan were to return today and be given another chance, they might not do it again.” Bitter, but very true!

Today, we do not have a system which can deliver good governance to the people although the country does not lack capable and well-trained bureaucrats. It is quite amusing to hear senior bureaucrats talk about how things were put right under their individual charge. One is always tempted to ask why the country is in such a condition if so many individuals were doing things right. Is good governance deliverable anymore when we have officers who render personal services to politicians at the taxpayer’s expense, or when there are officers who use links with top politicians to hide their misconduct?

Do we wonder why people in Pakistan are not keen to pay taxes? Why should they pay the government when they have absolutely no control over the allocation of resources? It is an open secret that despite being elected through popular ballot most politicians tend to serve their own interests or those of domestic and foreign power centres.

Any government that fails to demonstrate legitimacy in its actions will find it hard to convince the people to agree to pay taxes or declare their assets. The bureaucratic system is such that while there is no punishment for law evaders, there is no prize for those that honour the law either.

Focusing entirely on their individual acumen bureaucrats tend to disregard the argument that they suffer from an incapacity to

deliver governance. Most senior civil servants are suave people who know how to conduct themselves in different environments. For instance, our diplomats have done quite well in competitive environments such as the UN. However, how can they be expected to perform when policymakers at the top are hell-bent on compromising national interests? Bureaucrats would rather lay the blame at the door of the political or military leadership.

Can civil servants really be blamed when there are flaws in policymaking? For instance, should one blame the bureaucrats when policymakers appoint the worst bureaucrats to oversee critical ministries like health and education, even agriculture? And how can the government be expected to carry out madressah reforms when there is a partnership between the PPP and the JUI-F at the top?

However, intellectuals such as Dr Mubashir Hasan argue otherwise. He is of the contention that it is the civil bureaucracy that rules the roost in Pakistan. Being one of the strongest institutions of the post-colonial state, civil bureaucrats are the ones that guide, or misguide, the political class. Indeed, there are many in Pakistan who believe that even sharp politicians like Bhutto were led astray after they fell foul of the bureaucrats.

Civil servants would challenge this contention. One of the arguments is that today’s politicians are not simpletons. In fact, those that manage technical ministries such as finance are quite well-trained and have input from multiple sources including multilateral aid donors and others.

However, the reality is that bureaucrats are as much stakeholders in the system as politicians. The country’s governance is poor because neither of these two key stakeholders (and others that are not discussed in this article) have the capacity to see the larger picture which includes the cost and benefit of any tactical move or strategic policy action. The civil servant, who said that no one would now be willing to sacrifice when others don’t, is not wrong.

The real problem is that the systems in Pakistan’s polity have completely come apart. Individuals want to outperform each other to score individually. Even the senior judiciary appears to have acquired a passion for publicity. There are no signs of building systems that deliver to the general public. So, no matter how tall the claims, the fact of the matter is that what we lack today are systems that can deliver and make brilliant individuals perform.

The blame for this absence must be pinned on the key stakeholders who are driven by their individual greed, resulting in the death of a viable system meant to deliver good governance.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Why an arms race?


by Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 31 Jul, 2009


MONDAY night is sure to have caused anxiety and excitement among certain sections of those who received the news of India’s launch of its first indigenous nuclear submarine.

The Foreign Office denounced the development as something that could start a nuclear-arms race in the region, and Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar awoke from his slumber and lambasted the Indians.

The Pakistan Navy’s admirals spoke about the need to respond. The question is: will the launch really trigger a nuclear-arms race in the region and destabilise Pakistan’s security?

First, the term ‘nuclear submarine’ does not mean a submarine loaded with nuclear weapons. In fact, it would be appropriate to say a ‘nuclear-powered’ submarine that can stay submerged for a longer period of time. This capability alone makes a nuclear submarine an extremely lethal weapon because it could sneak beneath a country’s territorial waters and fire a conventional or nuclear warhead. Also, since they are longer, nuclear subs can carry larger torpedo tubes that are useful for firing nuclear warheads.

India’s launch shouldn’t come as a surprise because New Delhi had been working on this project since the end of the 1980s when it had hired a Charlie-class Soviet nuclear-powered sub. This was basically to familiarise itself with the use of a nuclear sub. Even at that time, senior officers in Pakistan were upset and desirous of obtaining similar technology for Pakistan. Luckily, we did not embark upon an expensive project. Later, during the 1990s, the Indian Navy exercised with the Israeli Navy in the Indian Ocean practising on Israel’s Scorpene subs of French origin, learning how to fire nuclear warheads from conventional subs.

We don’t need to copy the Indians because the Pakistan Navy already has the French Agosta 90B subs with an air-independent propulsion system that allows it to remain submerged for longer periods than the older subs. This means that if the navy could miniaturise nuclear warheads, it could sneak into Indian waters with the Agosta 90B at a time of extreme crisis and threaten the Indians. Technically speaking, the job is done. Now, we don’t have to follow the Indians who probably wanted the new submarine for a feel-good effect and to join the league of the ‘bigger boys’ including China, the US, Britain and France.

The real danger of the launch of a nuclear submarine by India is that it might force us to follow suit. If our admirals close their eyes they might just see their counterparts sticking out their tongues at them. This could prove to be a dangerous bait and bleed us financially. A nuclear submarine is an extremely expensive project. The Indians have managed to do it because they had more cash and a lot of Russian help. Pakistan, that had toyed with the idea of hiring nuclear submarines during the 1980s in response to India’s action and had failed to get one, might want to buy one from China. It does not seem likely that Beijing would give this technology to Pakistan at this stage.

An arms race is not the best formula for Pakistan. We will probably want to force ourselves to acquire this or that technology within a short span of time. There are two possible options. First, we could covertly

buy the technology from someone and end up with the kind of bargain we did with North Korea — this might give us a bloody nose. The second would be to start on an indigenous product.

Although we secretly claim to have the capability to adapt our Agosta 90Bs to carry nuclear warheads, the French designers deny that we have the capacity to alter the basic design of the torpedo tube. But this might just be the extent of our naval engineering work. Despite our claims to have made the Agosta 90B subs under a transfer-of-technology deal with the French, our agreement with Paris for the subs and the mine-hunters was so wishy-washy that we really cannot go beyond assembling these naval platforms or integrating the systems on these machines.

This is one of the basic steps in the development of indigenous production. We have never gone any further due to a lack of research and development, the absence of offset arrangements with original weapons manufacturers and a weak vendor industry. The defence industry, which is in the public sector, and its vendors, who are mostly private entrepreneurs, represent two diverse cultures. Mainly due to organisational-cultural problems there has never been a healthy interface to allow the public-private defence industry to carry out value-added work.

In comparative terms, the Pakistan Ordnance Factories and the Heavy Industries Taxila have taken bigger strides. But this is also because the technology is less complex than what the air force and navy require. The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex was catching up a few years ago when it had signed an offset agreement with Boeing. However, there are problems in its Karakoram-8 and JF-17 Thunder co-development, co-production contract that must be eradicated if the air force is to get maximum benefit. The navy lags behind.

Indeed, if any lesson is to be drawn from the Indian nuclear sub launch it is that Pakistan must revamp its entire defence production policy that rarely gets attention because those at the top are interested in buying weapons off-the-shelf. We have to develop our engineering and technology base, which in turn means greater education. And better education will mean setting our priorities straight. (One is reminded of a poster inscribed with the hope that a day would come when schools would have ample money and the air force would have to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.)

In the meantime, let’s leave the nuclear-powered sub competition to China. In any case, having acquired an indigenous nuclear-sub-building technology India has not really acted wisely, for this has been at the cost of millions of dispossessed and hungry. Why would we want to take that route?

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Peace with India

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 07 Aug, 2009

‘But why do we have to talk to India?’ was a line echoed by many on television screens in Pakistan with similar sentiments being expressed on the other side. The national security community on both sides suddenly sees no value in building peaceful relations.

Under the circumstances, it is very clear that the romantic notion of peace is now defunct. Ordinary people probably get excited when conservative rightwing leaders come on television and say that talking to the other side is of no use. The sad reality is that the days of desiring a great friendship are over.

Indeed, the post-Egypt meeting days did not bring a lot of joy to the Indian and Pakistani premiers. Both were lambasted for sacrificing vital national interests. While the Indian opposition and rightwing media criticised Dr Manmohan Singh for compromising on key principles, those in Pakistan were angry that Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani appeared to sacrifice Pakistan’s key interests in Kashmir. After all, why didn’t the joint statement mention the disputed territory? So, right now there is a crowd on both sides that would rather experiment with the missiles.

Historically, the governments in both countries have been belligerent towards one another. But the people wanted peace. Now, the tables have turned and while there are always those that understand the worth of peace in the neighbourhood, the rightwing national security community dominates the present discourse. Since the Kargil crisis in 1999 followed by tensions in 2002, both governments have adopted a reasonable stance in handling tensions.

We are at a stage where talking peace is becoming boring. Indians ask why peace should be discussed when Pakistan keeps shipping terrorists to their country. Why, they ask, should their great country that has prospects of becoming a regional and global power come down to the level of a small neighbour that cannot match India’s capacity. Moreover, many in India believe that Pakistan will exhaust itself in this competition. For this category of Indians, Pakistan’s collapse would be something to celebrate.

However, they might be disappointed to know that Pakistan is not about to collapse. It may not have the capacity to fight and faces countless challenges but the national security community can think of many ways to stay alive, at least to fight their rival.
What a sordid state of affairs. It is a fact that the days of bonhomie are over. Peace does not seem possible mainly because there are parties on both sides that benefit from conflict. The Indian prime minister was both wise and rational when he explained to his own constituents that they could not wish away Pakistan because it is a neighbour. The problem lies in thinking in terms of a best pal or worst enemy. A friend from South India labels this a Punjabi fixation. I am always tempted to remind her that South Indians too suffer from the syndrome!

Even the most intelligent Indians get angry when confronted with the question of Pakistan saying that the country is inconsequential where India is concerned. Surely, these people would react differently if they were not bothered about Pakistan.

The Pakistani government might have a myriad problems but it is being prudent in desiring good relations with its next-door neighbour and in saying that India is not a primary source of threat to the country. This certainly does not mean that we surrender our key interests. It means that we recognise that military conflict will not bring any solutions. How do we expect our neighbour to talk about concessions when we continue to allow non-state actors to use our territory to launch attacks on it?
It is also a reality that since the end of the 1990s it was twice that we came close to embarking on the path of peace. Had this venture not been upset, we could have moved to a better level of understanding. The beneficiaries of conflict ask why India should be spared when it used similar tactics against us. The defeat of 1971 is still fresh in the minds of many — especially those who derive benefit from conflict.

The much-despised Gen Pervez Musharraf, who still claims that Kargil was a brilliant idea, later understood that the only viable option was to make peace so that Pakistan could be put on the road to harnessing its human resources and concentrating on socio-economic development. This is when he began to think of and suggest ‘out of the box’ solutions. Had it not been for the laziness and lack of imagination of India’s strategic community, the problem might have been solved then.

New Delhi can always argue that quick action is not possible in the backdrop of its coalition politics and so it could not move fast on resolving minor issues like Siachen or the more doable Sir Creek border issue. The fact of the matter is that the thinking of its national security and political community is almost as myopic as that next door.

One wonders what it would take for strategists in India to realise that the troubled Pakistan has nine lives and will always be there. In fact, a weaker Pakistan will be detrimental to India’s security. So, not talking is not an option that either side has. In fact, not talking is not going to solve any problem at all. It is foolhardy to imagine that there could be a way to block out the bothersome neighbour as the rich do with the poor. Or imagine that the problem will wither away on its own. It would be wise to pray for sanity to return to the strategic community on both sides. Since neighbours can’t be wished away, a better future can only be constructed through cooperation and not ‘mutually assured destruction.’

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Terrorism and the police

The greatest strength of the police is its tremendous intelligence network. Police know what is happening in an area and who the crooks and the good guys are.

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 14 Aug, 2009

IN a recent letter to the editor in this paper, a reader has expressed surprise at a perception contained in columnist Ahmad Faruqui’s article Talking to India (Aug 3) that no assurance can be given to an “apprehensive Indian population that Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence agencies are serious about cracking down on the zealots…”.
It has also been pointed out in the letter that “it is the law-enforcement agencies, not the intelligence agencies, that are supposed to take corrective action against anyone who breaks the law”.

This shows a lack of understanding of how law-enforcement agencies in Pakistan are less powerful than the military and its intelligence agencies. In a country, which has been ruled by the military for half of its history, it is strange, that some people should still not be able to comprehend the fact that the armed forces or any institution attached to them are more powerful.

However, the more pressing question remains of whether the police can fight the terrorists. Experts believe that the police do not have the capacity to fight terrorism. Surely, the police could never deal with the Taliban in the tribal areas which in any case have never been under state control.In fact, control over places like Swat in the Frontier province was also lost as weapons flowed into these areas. Once the police found itself out-manoeuvred because of better equipment in the possession of the other side, fighting became difficult and Fazlullah and his group got out of control. Such circumstances also lead to a lack of motivation. How can a numerically inferior and ill-trained and under-motivated force fight the highly motivated jihadis? It is no secret that the police in most provinces are busy protecting the numerous VIPs.

However, its strength, especially in areas where the state has some marginal writ, lies in its institutional network which is extremely sound when it comes to gathering information at the local level. For instance, the police can tackle the Punjab-based jihadis. This is not because these different groups responsible for deadly attacks inside and outside the country are weak. In fact, they are deadlier than a lot of Taliban groups as their force is driven simply by ideology and they are not tied down by ethnic and tribal affinity. In terms of their lethality, the Punjab-based groups are on a par with the Jemaah Islamiya of Indonesia or the Uzbek warriors.

Here, the argument is that the greatest strength of the police is its tremendous intelligence network. Police know what is happening in an area and who the crooks and the good guys are. Many must have heard of the joke about the search for the British queen’s lost dog. While the British, German and American police were unable to find the canine, a Pakistani police official went into a nearby forest and returned with a cow who ‘confessed’ to being the queen’s dog. This reflects the institution’s brutality and its penetration.

So, it is impossible that the local police had no idea about Master Riaz (linked with the Mian Channu blast) and his ac tivities. In fact, police in Punjab, like their colleagues in the Frontier, know exactly where the culprits are.

Problems occur when they are ordered not to touch unsavoury characters or there is intervention from the authorities considered more powerful than the lowly police official. In a socio-political system driven by sheer authority, a police SHO or ASI knows fully well that saying no to someone who claims to be a military intelligence official might have extremely unpleasant consequences. There are many instances when the police are unable to carry out their duties due to outside interference. There have also been many instances in the past when jihadi groups proved effective in tackling extra efficient police officials and officers.

Some might argue that such intervention happened during times when most or some of the jihadis were state assets. Nevertheless the problem is two-fold. First, it is still not clear if all state elements have completely withdrawn their support for certain jihadi outfits. For instance, in numerous cases journalists try ing to study south Punjab were warned off not by jihadis but by military intelligence. So, are these militants assets?

Clearly, the Pakistani state seems to be sending mixed signals. There is the political state which wants to solve the problem; thus we have the interior minister submitting a list of 25 banned organisations. But then secondary verification shows that even organisations like Al Qaeda are not banned (this was admitted in the Lahore High Court) which means that covert state elements may well be continuing their support to groups.

Second, with such confusion police officials find it very difficult to tell if the more powerful part of the state continues to support the militants. After all, intelligence agencies never publish an announcement saying that they are withdrawing support.Perhaps police officers should be held responsible for not raising a hue and a cry when they see things going wrong. The majority constitute those who are afraid for their lives con sidering that the police are in the direct line of jihadi fire. In the words of a police officer, “Why should I put myself in the line of fire when all that I will get for sacrificing my life is Rs100,000 and a state funeral? I go after the shooting is over.” Incidentally, the officer cited above is truly one of the most professional, committed, honest and well-trained officers. But the bulk of police officers give in to pressure be it from politician, the army or military intelligence. The pressure from above and irresponsible policing then results in poor handling of situations as we saw in the case of Gojra. The bottom-line is that while the government goes around asking for better training and equipment for its police force, it must also attend to internal systemic problems.

While the police needs clarity regarding state policy, it would help if the lawenforcement agencies were empowered to carry out their duties without any interference. It is also high time that we understand that covert states have a high opportunity cost and hamper peace and stability in the country, the region and the world at large. ¦ The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

EMAIL -ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The capital rumour mill

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 21 Aug, 2009

The capital is abuzz with rumours of a minus-one formula. Some are suggesting that there is a minus-three formula. Such destabilising stories were confined to the grapevine until the information minister, followed by the Sindh chief minister, spoke about them.

One must never undermine the power of the rumour mill in the capital. It works efficiently, especially when there is a weak political government, and causes nervousness.

Perhaps, the intention is to make the government tense. This would result in further weakening it and pave the way for its possible collapse. So why does the rumour mill work and who are the forces that are part of it?

The minus-one formula refers to the topmost leadership of the present government and the minus-three, according to the grapevine, pertains to the topmost leadership plus the top leadership from the primary opposition party. Some even suggest that the minus-three formula refers to the top man in government and his two close cronies. The bottom-line is that both formulas are about the ouster of people that are despised by alternative power centres.

It is apparent that a powerful establishment will not allow a political dispensation to settle down comfortably especially if it is suspected of expanding its writ at an extremely fast pace without any regard for the core interests of the establishment. Historically, the corruption and inefficiency of the government comes in handy in generating propaganda that can weaken it and lead to its ouster.

The misfortune of the present government is its inefficiency which has hurt people more than its alleged corruption. In fact, corruption in a developing country becomes problematic when it is accompanied by inefficiency. For instance, in the past two decades one has rarely come across an example of an agri-based economy running out of fertiliser. Poor farmers, who consequently had to purchase the commodity from the black market, can hardly think in positive terms about the government’s capacity to deliver.

However, it is far more interesting to see how different segments of state and society seem to be conspiring to restructure the government. At this juncture, we can see two governments in Pakistan; one headed by the president, the other by the prime minister. While the president appears to have a poor perception of the people’s needs and aspirations, a shortcoming that is a result of him being confined to the presidential palace, he is also not conscious of appreciating the line between the areas that belong to the establishment and issues that he could deal with.

There are two issues worth mentioning. First, all previous governments of the 1990s fell because they were not careful when it came to assessing their limits. Civilian rulers often come under the misperception that they have more power than the establishment. Second, this is not something peculiar to Pakistan. A glance at numerous Latin and Central American states shows that the empowerment of democratic institutions and the strengthening of civilian rule in those countries were obtained through years of careful negotiation with the establishment. The problem in Pakistan is that there is never a plan or a method to do so.

Clearly, national security is an area that represents the military’s corporate interests (the term must not be confused with commercial interest though these too are now part of the military’s larger corporate interests). Any leader seen as intruding in such affairs or as changing the general drift of policy in matters critical to the military’s interest is considered a huge challenge.

Unfortunately, the present government at the topmost level has depended excessively on external help at the cost of not creating institutional support to negotiate power with the military. The president’s misperception of being more knowledgeable and experienced than others in running affairs of the state will prove costly. His attitude has already resulted in a necessary rearrangement at the top level which compromises his control.

So, if members of the government feel that there is some vicious minus-one formula in place, this is not their wild imagination. It is very difficult to run after hard evidence because most of the functioning and management in politically unstable systems is done through word of mouth rather than employing institutional mechanisms. In fact, if such societies begin to have institutions they would not be weak any more.

This is not to suggest that the alternative powers are close to making the desired changes in the government. A drastic change might be envisioned but is difficult due to the lack of clarity regarding the PPP’s future. The issue with dynastic politics is that changing the party leadership takes a long time.

The history of the Muslim League is a case in point. Since being taken over by the establishment the party underwent many drastic changes and splits. However, time is a critical factor if the same is to happen to the PPP. There is none in the top leadership of the party who has the capacity to become its alternative guardian. The party might be hurting but is not about to break.

Under the circumstances, the grapevine will be used effectively along with some elements in the media that are acting as the establishment’s fifth column to keep the top leadership on its toes. For sceptics, this sector has become a critical part of the discourse between different power centres due to the absence of any institutional mechanism for a dialogue.

Meanwhile, the assault on this government is different from the one of the 1990s because the top leader appears to be no easy prey and is intent on fighting. If he doesn’t realise the necessity of creating institutions and improving his efficiency at talking and delivering, the government and resultantly the state will become highly unstable.

The issue of power politics is that power centres which have a stronger institutional base are extremely rigid and difficult to fight back. Moreover, the onus of not destabilising the government and state falls on the civilian regime, the political parties and the establishment. None can be absolved from leading the state towards another crisis.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Capital games

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 28 Aug, 2009

People wonder why the present government is not trying Gen Musharraf. Is it just due to its goodness of heart or is there something else that might be the cause of this apparently cautious behaviour?

Actually, there are two issues at hand here. First is the evasiveness of the prime minister. While not making any move to bring a case in court against the former general, Mr Gilani appears to be raising hopes by giving the impression to the people and various political parties that the former dictator may actually be tried in a court of law.

Second, perhaps the prime minister is not pursuing the case because he understands that there is far more to be lost than gained by any action against Gen Musharraf. We always tend to forget that there were actually three parties to the deal that allowed Benazir Bhutto and her spouse to return to Pakistan: (a) the Bhutto family and party, (b) the US and British negotiators and (c) the Pakistan Army which was ruling the country through its chief.

The former general left the seat of power with great reluctance and later the country as a free man — surely there must have been some guarantees allowing him to do that. The role played by his organisation in providing him an easy passage cannot be ruled out. Unfortunately, whenever democracy passes through a transition period we tend to forget, at least in Pakistan, that the army is a powerful force and negotiating power in the long term is not an easy task.

The organisation would certainly not want one of its own maligned and castigated publicly. After all, a public trial of one of its members is an embarrassment that no general who might consider taking over the state in the future would want. An institution which believes that it alone knows how to rule and has the best interest of the state at heart will never give up the option to return to power directly.

For all of us, who are constantly unhappy with the president, perhaps he is far more intelligent in understanding the power of the army and the wrath that the mention of Musharraf’s trial might invoke. One has to behave sensibly especially when there are skeletons in the cupboard that could be discovered. It takes only a few disclosures or controversies to malign a politician.

Just take the example of matters that are being brought up on the media in the past couple of weeks. First there was the controversy relating to the 1992 army operation. Why worry about Kargil when stakeholders are also accusing Nawaz Sharif of his involvement in the 1992 cleanup operation in Karachi? Has the MQM leadership brought this up so that the May 12, 2007 killings in the metropolis are disregarded, even though at this point there weren’t too many people questioning the MQM?

Perhaps, the idea was not so much about obfuscating its alleged wrongdoings as highlighting what could be questioned about Nawaz Sharif’s political behaviour.
The PML-N leader has the option of going public with what exactly happened in Karachi and disclosing the extent of the army’s involvement. However, he could also get bogged down in further controversy. In any case, the Karachi story is not the only one. There are others which involve financial scandals as the list of politicians, some of them very high-profile, who allegedly received funds from the ISI indicates.

Although this list has been published a number of times before, the issue here is why it has been brought up at this point. Interestingly, a revelation made more than a year ago by the US-based Pakistani author Shuja Nawaz in his book Crossed Swords that included names like Hafeez Pirzada did not get much publicity.

This is not to argue that politicians are not corrupt. In fact, the problem is that politicians in this country, like the military leadership, have engaged in questionable and compromising behaviour. However, the point being raised here is that it is only the stories of unfriendly politicians that are leaked or brought up again from time to time and then built upon in the media. So, the present PPP leadership understands the cost of exposing Musharraf who will certainly be protected by his own institution, a facility that others in this polity do not have.

A better option would be to get all politicians to clean up their act. For instance, the MMA government in the Frontier province used religion as a ploy against the federal government every time it had to bail itself out of a tough corner.

Clearly, there is always a list of favourite versus not-so-favourite politicians. The list, which is pulled out for the public eye, depends on who is not in favour with the establishment at a given time. This is a sad state of affairs where neither the establishment nor the politicians can be said to be above board. All that is left is for the stakeholders to play the game of survival.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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River of fire

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 04 Sep, 2009

LISTENING to criticism and appreciation of Jaswant Singh I was reminded of a conversation I had a few months ago with a Baloch nationalist who was trying to explain to me how an independent Balochistan would happily build links with the independent states of Punjab, Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa.

I was amused to see his calm expression as he talked about post-independence interaction in a civil manner. He did not seem to appreciate for a minute that there would be rivers of fire flowing any new partition in the region. Perhaps, the Baloch nationalist leader was forgetting that 62 years after partition people have still not managed to avoid the pitfalls.

The story of Jaswant Singh’s book exposes the mindset of the people. I do not plan to comment on the book. Instead, this is a commentary on attitudes observed after the book’s publication. The Bharatiya Janata Party threw out one of its key members and there were many others in India who reacted sharply to Jaswant Singh’s analysis. Obviously, the BJP and others in the same mould didn’t even read the book else they might have seen that Singh was, in fact, being fair in analysing partition.

Equally quick were those in Pakistan whose commentary was that Singh’s fate depicted Indian imperialism and intolerance. One would like to remind such people of two other books that received similar treatment. The first one, which is closer to Jaswant Singh’s book, is Ayesha Jalal’s The Sole Spokesman about Jinnah and partition. This book had generated controversy. I distinctly remember angry reactions from some who thought Jalal had committed sacrilege by arguing that Jinnah did not have a grand plan for the partition of India.

Ayesha Jalal was luckier than the great Urdu novelist and short-story writer Qurratulain Hyder. The reaction to her novel Aag ka Darya from certain rightwing quarters was severe. Pro-establishment intellectuals were upset that her novel did not take a position for the Muslims. Her narrative included the lives of both Hindu and Muslim characters — the way they lived, their sociology and politics — who were not very different from one another. For the rightwingers, it was atrocious for Qurratulain Hyder not to have described the Muslims as the ultimate victims.

It is apparent that many, especially the religious and political right, are not able to cross the blazing rivers of imagination to a place where the ‘other’ cannot be described as a victim or praised. It is difficult to admit but a lot of us in South Asia are extremely intolerant when it comes to the ‘other’. Partition was a collective experience in which all sorts suffered.

I remember chatting with the Sikhs in Amritsar, hailing from my mother’s neighborhood. In 2006, I sat chatting with men and women about Muslims who lived there before 1947. They had fond memories. The reality is that the Hindus who migrated from Pakistan to post-partition India were actually the foreigners with behaviour patterns that the people in this neighbourhood were not used to. The story on the other side of the border was similar. People had to learn to live with total strangers!

During our conversation I asked one old Sikh gentleman why then was there such killing and bloodshed. It all seemed like an accident to him. According to him, the carnage was the reaction of a mob to the news of the arrival of trains from across the border full of dead bodies of Sikhs and Hindus. I am sure the gentleman, his family, elders, friends and neighbours did not know then that people on the other side had heard similar tales and had reacted in the same fashion.

Collectively and individually, people from the northern tip of the subcontinent engaged in mass killings that they then tried to explain away by making demons out of the other side. I am reminded of the story of a calm and collected gentleman with an extremely gentle appearance. In the last days of his life he confided to his family how he had killed a family hailing from a different faith.

In our six-decade history, we as a people on both sides of the border have not managed to face the reality regarding our involvement in acts of brutality, nor have we tried to investigate where and how the carnage started. Such a historical inquiry, which is still possible, is necessary for a closure of our past bitterness — imperative for crossing the river of fire.

Some of us might even wonder if it is any use conducting such an inquiry as we might have crossed the Rubicon and may no longer be in a position to bring about peace in the region. A phenomenal development in the past couple of decades has been the transformation of the Indian-Pakistan dispute from a territorial to an ideological one. The new generation on both sides has been fed on the belief that the ‘other’ never intended any good. So, while there still is some fascination to visit the other side — places one has seen in films or heard about — the divide has now become almost impassable.

I can speak about the experience of teaching in at least one public-sector university in Pakistan where children did not even think it necessary to build cultural ties. We have to admit that in these so many years we have managed to extend the river of fire rather than build a bridge across it. And so, what some writers have to say might create temporary excitement but it later falls on deaf ears. I wonder whether the Baloch leader would appreciate the loss that nations and civilisations create for themselves.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The Steel Mills case

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 11 Sep, 2009

SO, the media has now become a tool for better governance. At least this is the impression one gets from the prime minister’s recent sacking of the Pakistan Steel Mills’ (PSM) chairman for his alleged corruption and making the concern lose Rs21bn.

Interestingly, Moeen Aftab Sheikh was removed even before an inquiry was instituted or a report submitted about his supposed wrongdoings.

Legally, this hurried action would be considered mala fide since no charge-sheet was brought against the gentleman and the decision was taken before the inquiry report. The case raises two fundamental questions: first, does the decision indicate the government’s concern for accountability, or does it indicate its inability to run a business and appreciate the problems caused by economic recession?

Or perhaps the objective was merely to get rid of the chairman, an officer with an unblemished career in government for 35 years. Second, was the media fair in embarking upon a witch-hunt without ascertaining the facts of the case?

The government still does not know the exact losses, as there are varied figures. It’s the PSM management which estimated the concern’s losses at Rs21bn. However, the estimate given in the special report of the auditor-general gives a lower figure of Rs9bn. Also, why did Mr Gilani not wait for the report from the PSM’s auditors?

This was the prime minister’s opportunity to earn kudos from the public for taking someone out without taking the trouble to explain to the media that the huge loss was not caused by individual corruption but was a result of global economic recession.

This is not the first time that PSM has incurred huge losses. The organisation had run an accumulated loss of over Rs20bn for the period 1985-90 and 1993-99, which could have been paid off when the mill started making money from 2001-02 to 2008. Unfortunately, PSM fell on bad times again due to a slump in the international market after April 2008.

Another misfortune was the absence of a national steel policy, which meant that there was no plan to bail out the national steel-making concern. The government did not make any effort to stop the customs department from allowing private importers from importing secondary steel at the lower import price meant for primary steel. This scam meant that the private sector could undercut the PSM as they managed to import and sell low-grade steel at around Rs40,000 per tonne compared to the PSM’s Rs42,000 per tonne, thus earning a mark-up of at least Rs10,000-12,000.

An additional problem was caused by the dumping of 0.5 million tonnes of steel by the ship-breakers and electricity loadshedding, which forced numerous downstream industries dependent on PSM to close down. So, orders for about 300,000 tonnes of steel were cancelled. The Steel Mills’ management was stuck with an inventory of Rs9bn, which it tried to dispose of by altering the marketing strategy.

The decision was taken during a meeting attended by the chairman and members of the finance and accounts, commercial and marketing departments, the minutes of which were duly recorded. Instead of selling according to a quota system, a policy of open sales was introduced. This meant that major investors could pick up large quantities of steel and help PSM stay afloat.

The main beneficiaries of the new policy were five different concerns: Metropolitan, Amreli, Abbas Engineering, Al-Abbas Steel and Abbas Steel. Contrary to the belief that the lowering of prices was meant to benefit one of President Zardari’s close friends, there were a total of 232 beneficiaries. Interestingly, the friend (Riaz Lalji) continues to be a significant buyer even after Aftab Sheikh’s sacking due to his greater production capacity rather than anything else.

The decision to lower prices was meant to save the mill. Industrial experts are of the view that shutting PSM is not a possibility because restarting it would not only be technologically difficult but also cost approximately Rs20bn. Meanwhile, the government would have to foot the bill for PSM’s 17,000 employees, which stands at about Rs600m per month.

In any case, the open sale policy was meant to solve the liquidity problem for which the management also used workers’ gratuity. This is not odd since all public and private sector firms do so. The Karachi shipyard under the navy’s management had also done the same in the mid-1990s to stay afloat. Using funds like gratuity or the contractor’s seed money is a done thing for a business concern, especially for the PSM, which badly needs funds for its modernisation.

The Steel Mills is 25 years old with a limited production capacity of a million tonnes. Its British consultant Corus had advised its increasing capacity to about three million tonnes for the concern to become profitable. Resultantly, the management signed an MoU with the Chinese firm MCC which would not become binding unless approved by the ministry of industries and production. It is a misplaced accusation that the government was being forced to incur a debt of Rs2.2bn since no final agreement was signed and there was nothing binding on the government until MCC produced a feasibility study. Had the media seen the MoU, they would have found that the document was not binding on the government until certain conditions were met. In any case, investment for development purposes is not money lost.

Equally baseless is the accusation about the management making money from a contract with the Railways since nothing was signed.

There is also no evidence of corruption since all procurement was done in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) regulations and implemented by the committee formed by the government. The accusation of higher prices being paid for raw material and freight is a fallacy since the price of coal, iron ore and coke varies in the international market and the management had to adapt to the changes, which it could not do all the time being a public-sector organisation.

Perhaps what is needed is an inquiry into what the government achieved with its sudden and artificial show of justice. More importantly, is the media above board and should it be allowed to lynch people without a proper hearing which is the norm in civilised societies?

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Corporate farming

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 18 Sep, 2009

RECENTLY, a controversy has emerged regarding the government’s plan to lease or sell land to foreign clients in order to increase agricultural productivity and earn money. Both the federal and Punjab governments seem keen on the plan.

But what this entails and what the likely cost of such a move will be is worth assessing. In principle the idea seems fine. Conceptually, it would bring greater investment, especially development of agricultural infrastructure, create more jobs in the rural areas and contribute to the country’s economy. It would probably be better than begging before the ‘Friends of Pakistan’ or other donors. However, the extent of benefits that Pakistan will accrue from this proposal depends on the management of the concept.

The government plans to offer about 700,000 acres of land to potential investors probably from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At the moment it is not clear what methodology will be used for the purpose. Will it just involve state land or include private land as well?

This is not the first time the idea of corporate farming has been floated in government circles. Reportedly, it was discussed during Pervez Musharraf’s time with the option of leasing land to the Chinese. Beijing had proposed that it be leased 2,000 acres of land for a period of 10 to 15 years with the agreement that China would make technological and financial investments in the land, invest in newer forms of seeds and other products and leave the new infrastructure to the state or the owners after the termination of the contract.

Further changes were recommended by people in the government, suggesting that the investors sign agreements with individual owners guaranteeing their continued ownership with the additional advantage of an annual share in the profits. This would be in addition to providing them with the existing level of income at the time.

While the negotiations with China fell through, the present government seems to have moved to other potential clients like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. There are different stories regarding the formulas being offered to foreign investors. The first story is about the government leasing state land in Cholistan (Punjab) and Balochistan to foreign contractors. Apparently, the Punjab agriculture minister confirmed that about 600,000 acres of land was offered in Cholistan, which was rejected due to brackish water in the region.

There are also stories of the government helping private companies from the two aforementioned countries acquire land from private owners to grow vegetables and other crops, which would be exported to their own countries. It was suggested that the government could provide some sort of tax holiday and have security units protect the leased/sold land.

Such suggestions raise questions. First, why would the government provide any financial concessions to these investors, especially if it plans to make money? It doesn’t make any sense, especially when they will take away the produce to their own countries. Second, why would the government need to have security contingents if there is no contestable claim over the land or if the entire arrangement is reached amicably? Or is it that land would be taken forcibly from at least some people, which would make both Islamabad and the contracting countries anxious about retaliation?

There is a basic problem with leasing or selling land to Middle Eastern or Gulf states – these countries already have stakes in Pakistan’s real estate. For instance, for years large tracts of land in Cholistan have been earmarked for different rulers from the Gulf, who use the land as hunting grounds and have built mansions in the area.

The story doesn’t end here. These rulers are said to have developed their own set of cronies in the host state and one wonders what influence they would exert with greater involvement in Pakistan’s real estate. The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia now seem to have the capability to remote-control events in Pakistan as we saw recently when King Abdullah comforted Pervez Musharraf and gave an audience to Nawaz Sharif.

Political economy also has to do with these linkages, particularly at the lower level. The capital and political influence brought in by these rulers creates local-level partnerships as well, many of which can be seen in south Punjab. In one case, for instance, a Musharraf-regime minister for state from the area partnered a main agent of the Abu Dhabi ruling elite to set up a sugar mill.

The relationships between the ruling elite of these states and their links in Pakistan are generally so secretive that it raises concerns about what would possibly come out of the deal. The deal itself could create a cartel in agriculture, which might only benefit the bigger or politically significant landowners.

With so much secrecy surrounding negotiations there is a possibility that smaller or mid-level farmers may not benefit. The politically influential landowners would not only get better arrangements but also become partners in the deal. This would also include the numerous military generals who have land in and around Cholistan. Not familiar with farming and probably not making a lot of money at the moment, these individuals would be only too happy with such an arrangement.

Equally happy would be bigger landowners of the area, who, in any case, capitalise on available resources and use contacts to maximise profits from their land. For instance, fruit export is a profitable venture, but its greatest beneficiaries are the bigger landowners who also seem to be pushing the idea of leasing land to foreign firms.

Currently, the problem is that the resources to develop agriculture are monopolised. Perhaps creating a system where most farmers have access to resources would benefit agriculture more than the formula under consideration. Leasing land in this fashion may just add to Pakistan’s reputation as a banana republic.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The military’s ideology

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 25 Sep, 2009

The country’s ruling elite and the military have traditionally used a particular aspect of religion to gain strategic dividends. —File Photo PAKISTAN observers often wonder what the Pakistan military’s primary ideology is. Is it a secular institution or one which is high on religious values? Since the military is considered the strongest institution of the Pakistani state, the question becomes critical in determining what direction the country will take or how its armed forces will fight the war on terror.

One particular perspective is that the military is essentially a secular institution which got transformed temporarily under Gen Ziaul Haq, who made sure that his officers had a religious grounding. He had allowed the tableeghi jamaat to penetrate the armed forces and introduced a religiously conservative current in society. Subsequently, the Zia era was blamed for the continued links between certain military personnel and the Taliban post-9/11.

Later, it was argued that Gen Pervez Musharraf put the military back on the secular track by weeding out religious-minded, senior officers replacing them with others who were socially acceptable to the international community. In fact, senior officers now claim that the military is highly professional and secular. This is correct in that ‘secular’ in this case means that the army is not driven purely by religious instincts in pursuing its goals. But then ‘religious’ or ‘secular’ are not the right terms to describe the organisation.

Indeed, if one is searching for the correct term, it would be pragmatic-nationalist. This means that instead of sticking to one ideology the institution can shift between a couple or more ideologies at the same time. So, when it was convenient to turn religiously ideological during the 1980s it could do so. Even Gen Zia was not solely driven by his personal inclination to support the Afghan ‘jihad’; the geo-strategic and geopolitical environment was important in the framing of decisions. There was no dichotomy between pursuing jihad and having a strategic alignment with the US even then.

Zia also found religious ideology handy in pursuing other military-strategic goals. Deploying non-state actors was financially, politically and militarily cost-effective. Hence, all generals maintained links with the jihadis despite the fact that they were different from Zia.

The pragmatist-nationalist character of the military also explains why it was able to swiftly shift between ideologies, especially after it had to undergo a change in the wake of 9/11. This also means that maintaining links with the different jihadi organisations, as explained by Arif Jamal in Shadow War: the Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir, does not necessarily depend on having a religious ideology.

The author’s interesting conclusion is that even seemingly ‘secular’ generals like the present chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, could pursue the same policy as the generals during the 1990s. Jamal claims that a lot of jihadi organisations were thrilled to hear of the appointment of Gen Kayani as the new chief and many reopened their offices in 2008. He also argues that several meetings were arranged between the various Afghan Taliban groups and the Kashmiri jihadis in 2007 by the ISI to help them with a strategy to stop Indian help from reaching Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul and placing more sleeper cells in India for possible activation at later dates.

This argument explains the character of the Pakistan Army and its use of religion or at least one aspect of it, namely jihad, for its strategic advantage. There is nothing odd in the argument since the military was part of what was described by Hamza Alavi as the Muslim salariat class, which used religion to motivate a movement for an independent state.

The fact is that this class was always linked to the use of religious ideology. It might not want to adopt a Saudi model for state-making, though the Pakistani state has gradually moved closer to Saudi Arabia, but religion has always remained central to the fulfilment of the strategic goals of the salariat, which later evolved into the ruling elite.

This basically meant that while the Islamic norms of social justice might not be adopted, religious identity would be used in some form to meet political and military-strategic objectives. Jamal’s argument is that like all such plans that generate opportunity costs, the jihadis of today, who seem to be challenging the Pakistani state, are inadvertently a product of a specific plan to fight the war in Kashmir.

The camps where Ajmal Qasab and others were trained by the Lashkar-i-Taiba to carry out the Mumbai attacks, the author claims, were set up by the ISI to win the war in Kashmir. Even if the attack was not ordered by the intelligence agency, it indicates a situation where the jihadis trained for a particular purpose might have used their training to carry out attacks on their own or gone beyond the brief.

Obviously, the military always had to use religion as a motivating factor from the time when Col Akhtar Malik planned the first offensive to capture Kashmir in 1947/48 to the 1980s and 1990s when, according to Jamal, a lot of new jihadi organisations were established. Gen Ayub Khan adopted a similar approach while planning the historic but failed Operation Gibraltar in 1965. However, the military was not the only force which used the above-mentioned approach.

Even seemingly liberal-secular leaders like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto favoured the policy of using non-state actors to the country’s perceived military advantage. For instance, Bhutto personally came to congratulate the hijackers of an Indian Airlines flight in January 1971. It is important to remember that the use of non-state actors was part of a larger package of mixing religion with state strategy.

In adopting this approach Bhutto might have not been too far off from Ziaul Haq who, as Jamal argues, developed an alignment with the Jamaat-i-Islami to support the Afghan jihad and to use that as a cover for strengthening the army’s war in Kashmir.

The country’s ruling elite and the military have traditionally used a particular aspect of religion to gain strategic dividends. While they can conveniently claim to have retained their secularism and saved one organisation from turning ideological, a similar claim might not be made for society at large. The proliferation of ‘jihad’ in mainland Pakistan is but the opportunity cost of strategy.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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