“NO relief for the poor of society” was the instant reaction of most of the Pakistanis after hearing the budget speech on June 13. The figures released by the government prove beyond any doubt that we are heading towards more economic chaos; the poor will have to face more hardships and unbearable tax burden.

On the contrary, the rich and the mighty once again have managed to escape taxation on their income and wealth. The bureaucratic apparatus is given 15 per cent pay raise but no effort has been made to curtail their wasteful expenditure and monetise all their perquisites and benefits received in kind.

Independent economists are of the view that the government of Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition has failed to meet the economic challenges of the day in its second budget. Is it the budget of the PPP — once a social-democratic party? Certainly not, it is, in fact, as a cynic friend aptly said, “the 10th Citibank budget and the 64th bureaucrat-controlled budget”.

What should have budget 2009-10 been like? This question was never discussed by the elected government inside or outside the parliament. Resultantly, the annual budget, as usual was prepared in the same old mould — bureaucratic-controlled, IMF-sponsored and pro-rich. Nobody has realised while preparing this important document that at this juncture of history, Pakistan needs class harmony to avoid chaos, civic strife, lawlessness and religious obscurantism.

The tragedy of 2.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), burgeoning debt servicing, increased military budget, high inflation, unjust tax system, wasteful expenses, industrial slowdown, recession, state inefficiency and bad governance pose serious challenges to our economic survival. But, the budget reflects no serious efforts to meet these challenges; the budget-makers were more interested in balancing their books through foreign and domestic borrowings. But the question is where the stalwarts of PPP — people like Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad and Sardar Asif Ahmad Ali who claim to be champions of pro-poor socialist economic policies — were when the budget was being prepared?.

It is apt to mention that only two months after coming into power, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party hosted the meeting of the Socialist International Asia-Pacific Committee in Islamabad on May 30, 2008. While opening the meeting, the PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, thanked the Socialist International (SI) for the steadfast support shown to the PPP and its leadership during its difficult hour. The SI Secretary General Luis Ayala in his remarks, honoured the memory and leadership of Benazir Bhutto, for whom democracy was a cornerstone of her struggle.

The meeting of the SI, attended by representatives from Myanmar, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and also from France, Germany, Greece and Sweden, reaffirmed “the support of the global international social democratic movement to new Pakistan, with peace, stability and democracy at the centre of its political agenda”.

What has happened to that “new Pakistan” of the PPP after the SI meeting? How has the PPP forgotten what SI stands for? Socialist International, a conglomeration of social democratic, socialist and labour parties, has its origins going back to 1951 when it was re-established at the Frankfurt Congress.

The PPP, being part of the SI, should have reflected socialist-democratic thinking in its budget. But, it has betrayed the mandate of the people of Pakistan and violated its own manifesto by submitting before anti-people and pro-rich lobbies and individuals for its budget making.

The PPP has sanctioned only Rs31.6 billion for education and merely Rs6 billion for health in the budget. Can this be called a pro-poor budget? The burden of indirect taxes, constituting nearly 70 per cent of total taxes, stands shifted to the poor, yet, the ruling party claims it has pro-poor economic policies. It is a farce! Have the party stalwarts studied the model of greater social mobility in the Nordic countries? They could have adopted that model with some modification in their tax and welfare systems.

The systems of these countries, unlike that of America which we follow with pride, deliberately try to help the children of the poor to do better than their parents. This is what pro-poor polices imply.

The budget makers have not tried to study why the bigger continental European countries, notably France, Germany, Italy, are not as mobile as the Nordic ones. With relatively poor education systems, they are bound to perform more like Britain. But that still makes them socially (if not economically) more flexible than the land of the free — the USA. The secrets of greater social mobility are, first, tough redistribution policies that particularly benefit those at the bottom.

Our economic wizards could learn something from this but for them it is more important to go for the American economic model. Education in Pakistan is not only very expensive now but it is also pathetically poor in quality.

It is more than obvious that budget 2009-10, is totally oblivious of redistributive fiscal policies and social welfare programmes for social mobility. Our poor have been given a so-called “economic relief package” by way of mercy — Benazir Income Support Programme. The relief (sic) is only of cosmetic nature and there is nothing in the policies or the budget that aims at helping the poor to move upwards.

Education is still at the lowest level of priority in our state policies. Our education system is worthless. The federal and provincial governments must realise that they are not spending more money on education that matters but are also not using the entire system as an effective tool for social mobility. There is a complete lack of understanding of this perception on the part of our rulers and the result is that poor segments of society are condemned to remain mired in abject poverty and their children have no chance to move up as education is either not available to them or is of no practical use.

By all standards, budget 2009-2010 is yet another routine exercise of balancing the books (that too by window dressing). We need meaningful redistribution policies that specifically benefit those at the bottom.

AS the gradual elimination of the Taliban in Malakand division by the Pakistan Army enters its decisive phase, Waziristan braces for a much-awaited showdown following Islamabad’s decision to finally destroy Baitulla Mahsud’s terrorist infrastructure which is after all the principal source of the nation’s current woes.

Militancy in the NWFP is sustained by competing powers seeking to secure their strategic and energy interests in the complex milieu of South and Central Asia. The question arises that if this insurgency happens to survive a few more years, will Islamabad be able to keep the Pukhtun nationalist elements on its side against the religious militants. It is crucial to assess the political capacity of the ANP government to successfully deal with the present conflict. According to a senior NWFP government official, over three million people are already internally displaced. This is in addition to the Afghan refugees who are still in large number and a great burden on the establishment.

When a full-scale military operation is launched in Waziristan, more people will become displaced and the government of the NWFP will have to grapple with an inflated humanitarian crisis. It will be of essence to watch how long the military action takes to achieve its objective and what tactics the enemy adopts to escape the firepower how much political support it gets from the population of the affected areas.

There are lessons to learn from how the Indian army successfully dealt with the Khalistan movement. Though dealing with a small-scale uprising in Indian Punjab plains, compared to hilly and forest terrain of the NWFP, six factors which contributed to the success of Indian army operation in quelling the separatist movement were quality intelligence; diplomatic and political isolation of the terrorists from international and domestic support base; timely elimination of their leadership; element of surprise; ruthless elimination of the terrorists without any remorse, and finally effective management of the humanitarian crisis.

A decisive factor in the strategic matrix of the conflict in Waziristan would be the response of the civilian population of the tribal areas. How well the government is prepared to tackle the eventuality of mass exodus from Fata and how much resources it has to properly organise IDPs’ interim shelters will equally determine the end-result of the military operation which in itself is a much delayed action. Then, the government will need to arrange cash money to offer to the displaced families. These factors will be of utmost importance to keep the uprooted population of tribal Areas satisfied and on the side of the government and to prevent them from succumbing to temptations or coercion of the Taliban and the Baitullah Mehsud gang with a view to demoralise the Pakistani troops.

Conservative Pushtun families may find it difficult to cooperate in the house to house search by troops given their cultural and traditional sensitivities. The government will have to draw up a comprehensive political and economic strategy to isolate TTP leadership before it launches a military operation in Waziristan. Despite hectic high-level diplomacy, US has not been very successful in gaining substantive military and economic support from its European Nato allies for expanding military operations in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the US and Nato are fighting the war away from their homeland whereas the stakes for the state and military of Pakistan are much higher while fighting on its own territory and to win the war it cannot rely on promises of external financial help alone. US aid pledges aside, the government will need to raise resources on its own as well. We have to get rid of our dead wood, tighten belts, possibly postpone some developmental plans and probably increase defence budget and cut corners where we can.

Political expediency and localised politics based on ‘baradari’ will have to be shelved if the state of Pakistan has to survive this decisive battle for its identity. It is not a war like 1965 where the military could stop Indians from advancing on Wagah and Chawinda fronts but a war in which the enemy is invisible and has already penetrated deep inside our territory; not just the resorts of Swat and Malam Jabba but the streets, homes and markets of Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar have become battlefronts.

The leadership must realise that the success and sacrifices of our troops can go waste if we do not succeed in winning hearts and minds of the large displaced population. Any lapses in timely, effective and efficient relief and rehabilitation of the continuing streams of the displaced persons could ignite the Pukhtun nationalist sentiments in those areas with long-term adverse effects to the objective of this war.

On May 2, 2003 George W. Bush in a speech from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln proudly declared victory in Iraq war but six years later Washington still remains mired in the quagmire that Iraq has become.

A study of the Irish guerilla war shows that the Irish Republican Army was never really a major strategic threat to the British military in Ireland. Nor were they ever in a position to engage them in conventional warfare. IRA leader Richard Mulcahy deplored the fact that they had not been able to drive the British "out of anything bigger than a fairly good size police barracks.” But they had made Ireland ungovernable except by military means. The political, military and financial costs of remaining in Ireland were higher than the British government was prepared to afford. This fact forced it to enter into negotiations with the Irish political leaders.

Similarly, Taliban by engaging Pakistani military forces are diverting its resources into an internal war rather than let it be prepared against any potential external threat. Today the stakes of this conflict in Fata and the NWFP are higher for Pakistan’s security than they have ever been before. This could be the decisive battle for the identity and future of our nation and like 1965 or 1971 we should not totally depend on the US alone for winning it.

Time to re-examine our history
By Shahzeb Khan
Sunday, 28 Jun, 2009

IF a creative writer were to pen an allegorical story of Pakistan from 1940 to date, ‘quest for purity’ could have been his only option to render thematic unity to its plot. Historical narrative is not very different from a story — at least the one that is propagated officially by a state. It is not always very objective and, hence, never absolute. It always is open to new interpretation.

Many nations of the world have diametrically changed their historical perspective in the wake of some paradigmatic political shift. Societies also have altered their collective view about certain events and personalities of their past. They are known to have transformed their traitors into patriots and vice versa. This change becomes essential for a nation if its past begins to stifle its present. A society, then, has to reconfigure its relationship with its past to breathe again. In Pakistan the time has come to reorient ourselves towards our history.

Consider, for instance, our gravest problem, terrorism. A lot is being done materially to deal with it, yet any serious attempt to understand its genealogy stops short of identifying indigenous factors which might have aided this menace to take root. The most crucial of these factors has been our propensity as a nation to hate human beings on one pretext or another. The most obvious of which is manifested in our collective subconscious hatred of the religious Other. One wonders, why is it that Islam which, through its history, has always been an inclusive force, appears to be jealously guarding its exclusivity in our historical narrative.

If we read the history of Muslim League, which later became the official version of our history and was propagated by the state, we find rhetoric promoting the doctrine of Islam’s exclusivity as a belief system. First to achieve and then to justify its political objectives, the Muslim League and later the state of Pakistan trumpeted it so much that in this country the adherents of Islam have since suffered from a collective delusion which convinces them of their superiority and has made purity an object of their desire. Their quest for purity has sped them towards the precipice where they now stand teetering on the edge of doom.

The intricate detail of Pakistan’s history is reduced to a story of pure versus impure in our Pakistan Studies textbooks. One can find a repetitive discourse in these textbooks which convinces us of our superiority. ‘Fortunately’ we got a title for our country which tried to literally encapsulate this notion of purity. Hence, anything and everything which was Pakistani became pure — since the word that became widely used to denominate our nationality became pak which, literally, translates into ‘pure.’ Hence, our country became pak along with its people and institutions.

The agreed-upon notion of our ‘purity’ went unchallenged in Pakistan and the official stance always aligned with that of ‘dissenters.’ (Perhaps there was no genuine opposition in the history of Pakistan.) Jamat-i-Islami, for instance, is considered to have opposed the establishment during the period after separation, yet their elders to this day believe in the myth of purity and are most prominent in their hatred of the religious Other. It seems as if when it came to hating a people of another religion everyone had a consensus in this country.

If we look at the textbooks which have been taught in our schools we do not find any attempt from our state to inculcate among its citizens notions of pluralism based on humanity. One can find quite a few instances where academic lessons are simply reduced to hate mongering. Just a short survey which asks from people what they think of when they hear the word Hindu will be enough to support my point. As a teacher I have done it many times. The responses always make use of the following verbiage: baniya, impure, enemy….On the other hand the religious order that we inherited adhered to the notions put forward by the Muslim League.

The political philosophy which advocated a more mutualistic approach during the first half of the 20th century was rejected by the Muslim League and its supporters. An anomaly that our historical narrative shies away from is the fact that a group of enlightened, westernised leaders vociferously advocated and highlighted the vital link between religion and nationality, while religious thinkers and politicians like Ubaidullah Sindhi, Hussain Ahmed Madni and Abul Kalam Azad supported a more secular view of our nationality. On one side we had religious scholars with prefixes such as maulana and maulavi preaching that nationality was not solely determined by religion and on the other ‘enlightened’ and ‘modern’ visionaries insisting that religion is the sole determinant of nationality. Strange, isn’t it?

Fast forward to 1979, Russian ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan, a Muslim country — sharer in purity — and the whole nation is ready to jump into the inferno. The consensual hatred of the ‘godless country’ resulted in a mobilisation unprecedented in our history. The country was charged with the hatred of the ‘religious Other.’ People poured in charity worth billions to resist an impure assault with impure designs of reaching our pure, warm waters. Our national historical narrative was configured perfectly to suit our temporal designs.

The notion of purity was also used to keep the country away from the ramifications of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Again, through state-sponsored outfits, the purity myth was energetically propagated, this time, to spread the hatred of another sect. The rest is history. Here again, the notion that somehow one is superior on the basis of one’s sect was exploited to suit designs of a patron country.

We were complacently speeding head-on towards our collective disaster when luckily, for us, 9/11 happened. Because of this mega event the previous alignment of our ideology and politics was questioned. The quest for purity was no longer viable for the powers which had used it so far. The political purpose of purity notion was served.

Efforts were underway after 9/11 to purge textbooks of the notions of purity, exclusivity and self-righteousness. We realised then what we should have realised more than half a century ago: an ideology which presents difference as a demon can have disastrous consequences. It is quite natural now to look for protagonists in our history who have advocated a more inclusive approach in our political history and have been ignored so far.

The writer is a lecturer in the Department of English, GC University, Lahore.

The only option for the army is to destroy the Taliban
By Mukhtar Ahmed Butt
Sunday, 28 Jun, 2009

PAKISTAN’S campaign against terrorism is going to be a long, drawn-out battle which has neither quick fixes nor easy victories. It’s unlike conventional war where the enemy is known and you go all out to destroy him irrespective of the damage. But to fight a war in one’s own territory in the midst of locals against an enemy armed by our enemies is tantamount to chasing the shadows.

Present war is basically like a guerilla warfare where the enemy has an advantage over our troops as they do not follow the rules of conventional war. One must acknowledge with pride the courage and determination of the Pakistan army, which has been able to understand the tactics of the enemy and has positioned itself to achieve maximum in minimum time and, in the process, it has avoided causing casualties to local population.

However, mass dislocation of the local residents from their homes is an unfortunate fact but under the circumstances is unavoidable. Pakistan army has been able to cause immense damage to the extremists in a very short time. It has cornered the terrorists who, in fact, are pursuing the agenda of external/non-state actors to destabilise the country. Displacement of almost three million people, who now live in tents and camps, is a great sacrifice on the part of the local population. They have accepted the difficulties for the sake of their motherland and supported the army in the conduct of operations, which they feel will liberate them from the evil menace of terrorism.

However, this war requires patience, resolution and unity if success is to be achieved against the terrorists, because a weak reaction can provide an excuse to Americans to undertake unilateral action and attack the tribal areas of Pakistan. This would create a critical situation in the wake of already unpopular, intermittent drone attacks on selected targets which invariably cause collateral damage and lead to hatred against Americans. This is a risk that Pakistan is not ready to undertake. American enmity would mean economic downslide, rebirth of Indian hegemony and increased IMF interference in our internal affairs. All these aspects would cause great harm to our vital interests. It is therefore, in the national interest that the Pakistan army is able to destroy the terrorists and does not allow Americans to intervene in the war in our territory.

The best option for the army is to act against the militants with full force. There should be no half measures. We have already wasted too much time in talks, deadlocks and resumption of dialogues. Pakistan now needs to draw a clear line — no dialogue with militants till they surrender. US strategy to control Afghanistan has failed. Arabs, Africans and Central Asian mercenaries have joined hands with Al Qaeda operatives. Operation Enduring Freedom by the Americans has unified them in their cause.

Pakistan is now faced with a two-pronged attack. Firstly by terrorists who want to impose their writ on entire Pakistan by resorting to brutal practices; secondly since Pakistan is committed to fight the global war against terrorism, any threat emanating from its tribal areas will be viewed as a threat against international community, thus warranting a global response. Pakistan must prove itself militarily capable of countering the threat. Let the global community led by Americans see a clear picture of its actions in the tribal areas. Only then can Pakistan become a true ally of the global community and only then can it hope to win this war.

It is said that Pakistan secretly trained radical Islamic groups for campaigns in Kashmir and Afghanistan. At a particular time, this can be argued, was a prudent step but need not be discussed in this article. Organisations such as Sipahe Sahaba, Lashkare Jhangvi, Sipahe Muhammad and Jaish e Muhammad were a result of Pakistan’s efforts to keep the Soviet Union out of its territory.

Southern Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Zabol are today the strongholds of the Afghan Taliban and are closely connected with the network of the Taliban in Pakistan. The leader Mullah Omar, it is said, is nested in Quetta. Other leaders reside at Miranshah, Peshawar and Karachi to make a nexus to connect the Taliban with the logistic, financial and technical assistance emanating from the wider Islamic world. There is this American perception that Pakistan has deliberately not targeted the Taliban as much as they have Al Qaeda. Its proof is that a large number of Al Qaeda operatives have been captured but only a handful of Taliban leaders have been nabbed.

Pakistan continues to maintain a working relationship with moderate Taliban. Impression in some quarters that Pakistan army and government are in conflict on the issue of Taliban is not correct.

Al Qaeda initially operated from South Waziristan. When Pakistan moved in its regular army (Operation Al-Mizan), things changed. The gigantic siege and search operations resulted in the capture of over 700 Al Qaeda operatives. This resulted in the shifting of its headquarters from North Waziristan to South Waziristan. Its leadership moved to Bajaur agency where the terrain is inhospitable, the population is violently pro-Taliban and the presence of Pakistan Army very thin. There are over 85,000 Pakistani troops stationed/garrisoned at Pak-Afghan border. The policy being followed by the Pakistan Army in this area is cautious so as to avoid total elimination/destruction of Taliban targets basically to avoid collateral damage.

There are strong and cognizable evidences about Indian involvement in destabilising Fata and Balochistan, ostensibly, to their funding and aiding of the Taliban. Ex-president Musharraf had said that he was 1000 percent sure of Indian involvement. It means that Pakistan must ensure a proper and befitting response to the Indian involvement. This can be done by implementing a strategy of gradually eliminating the Taliban which would also counter the Indian policy of de-stabilising Pakistan.

The fact remains that we have already lost crucial time in the battle against extremists. Achieving the desired results will require more time and concerted and unified effort. Taliban factor has become a state of mind and the NWFP province has been under its influence. The recent wave of extremist violence in other parts of Pakistan has now largely been checked by the security agencies and the army. A large number of our officers and jawans have embraced shahadat to cleanse our beloved country of the evils of terrorism. The nation feels proud of the valiant armed forces. The terrorists, though claiming to be flag-bearers of Islam, see no hesitation in bombing mosques and killing ulemas. They want to impose on Pakistan a fundamentalist version of Islam which is unheard of and undesired by the majority of the Muslims in the country.

The Taliban had been following the policy of securing critical areas, district by district, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan by virtue of rigid and ruthless implementation of a concocted version of Islam which was never practised anywhere in the Islamic world. The previous government had initiated counter-terrorist operations against them. Resultantly the war in the tribal areas of the country continues to move on and expand. President Zardari’s decision to establish cantonment in Swat has support of the entire nation as it was badly needed to provide sense of security to the locals as well as promote development and create employment opportunities for the locals. This is a timely decision.

There are 1.2 Nato soldiers per 1,000 Afghans in Afghanistan. Another 12,000 Americans are there as part of operation ‘Enduring Freedom". French contribution of 1,000 soldiers is in and around Kabul only. Add to these 8,5000 Afghan security persons and we arrive at a number that is not sufficient for any kind of success in Afghanistan.

Barrack Obama has ordered another 17,000 American troops to shift to Afghanistan as further reinforcement. Al Qaeda will now face more focused operation and an enhanced effort by the global community led by Americans for strong action against their operatives. Pakistan will be asked to increase the intensity of counter-terrorist operations. It is no more in Pakistan’s interest to continue to seek American aid and keep their Taliban clients as well.

If Pakistan fails to deliver there will be a unilateral action by America in Pakistan's tribal areas. This will escalate the war in the region; inflame public opinion and polarisation of an already divided society. Pakistan’s national interest (keeping moderate Taliban as a strategic option) may be in direct conflict with American interest (Pakistan will have to do more and deliver on its war against terrorism).

Terrorism and enforcement of a type of Sharia, which no one except a few elements are willing to accept, strongly demands aggressive military action before the fabric of Pakistan society is shattered. Time is running out. We, as a nation, should get united and back the army and the government to bring the operation Rah-i-Rast to its logical conclusion as early as possible so that IDPs are rehabilitated and Pakistan can then join war against global terrorism.

Government of Pakistan should make all out efforts to motivate extremists to disarm themselves and bring them in the fold to become good citizens. We as Pakistanis must realise that we cannot allow the terrorists to take control of our lives in the name of a concocted, self-styled Islam, which will isolate us as a civilized nation in the global community.

The writer is a retired Lt-Colonel of the Pakistan army.

Paradoxes facing the Zardari government
By Izzud-Din Pal
Sunday, 28 Jun, 2009

A RECENT photo of President Zardari with Dr Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, circulated in the newspapers, summed up one of the paradoxes facing Pakistan in regard to its relations with India. Manmohan Singh with his renewed mandate from the Indian electorate represented a clear contrast with Mr Zardari. Medium is the message, no words were needed to transmit it.

The question is why the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi asked for a ‘chance’ encounter between the two leaders. Given the background of the relations between the two countries, especially since the Mumbai attack, even a casual meeting between the two would be an important event. In international gatherings Mr Zardari has often been noticed to show his bonhomie to other dignitaries with flair. With India it was a different matter altogether. With this mishap at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting at Yekaterinburg, he has now decided to send Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to the next international gathering of Non-Aligned Movement at Sharm El Sheikh.

It probably will be the first international gathering that Mr Zardari would miss since he became president of Pakistan. And this represents the second paradox for Pakistan. Ever since he was indirectly elected to the office by members of national and provincial

legislatures, he has managed to comfortably settle down in the PCO framework left by General Musharraf, and has focused his attention mainly on two activities: international travel and concentration of power through alliances at the national and provincial levels.

The mandate given by the people in general elections held in February 2008 was expected to have the country embark on the path to democracy, shedding all the distortions imposed by the military rule on the constitution and the system of governance in the country. These distortions did not have the endorsement of the parliament and they could have been easily dispensed with. Mr Zardari has decided to have this matter handled through a committee because of his reluctance to go back to status quo ante and also because he wants to maintain what he calls a ‘balance’ among president, prime minister and parliament and.

The pseudo-parliamentary system that will emerge from this manoeuvre will fit in well with his objective — to maintain concentration of power — but will accomplish no more in its business than it is able to do currently, which is almost nothing beyond ad-hocism. This is another paradox facing the country.

According to the 1973 Constitution, the prime minister should have full control over parliamentary affairs, but under the current system, it happens to be Mr Zardari, not Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani, even though he is saddled with one of the largest cabinets in the history of the country. If he were an autonomous prime minister, it would be his responsibility to establish the business for the parliament. Such is not the case and it is quite palpable.

It reflects on the quality of governance in the country. Given the political history, with military rules interspersed by prime ministerial systems, the country has suffered because issues have been accumulating while the musical chairs were performed by the politicians and the military men. There is a whole backlog of unfinished business, spanning over several decades, from provision of basic social capital for the people to law and order. The first order of business for the governing party under the circumstances would be to review the state of the nation, to establish the legislative agenda, a roadmap, to identify priorities. It will soon be almost a year since Mr Zardari became president, there is no list of legislative business, delineating the targets which the party would to try to fulfil during its mandate. The parliamentary sessions are sparsely attended, and not much is accomplished.

Some of the problems which are crying for prompt attention can be easily identified. The constitutional status of the north-west region calls for immediate attention, as well for its economic reconstruction. The madressah and the public school system need to be completely overhauled, with the cooperation of provincial governments; facilities for health care need urgent attention; housing for the ordinary people, not for building richistans, should be promoted; public transit systems in the metropolitan areas are crying for solution, not bigger and better highways for gas-guzzling automobiles; a reliable system to collect and disseminate national data through an autonomous bureau of statistics should be established; and planning commission should be reinstated to its old reputation as a creditable institution.

This is a short list to underline the fact that government must pursue these tangible goals, any of them, if not all of them, to prove before the next general elections that it has been alive to these burning issues in the country. Obviously all three levels of government need to be involved in many areas of this nation building activity, but some concrete activity has to take shape.

In this context, the latest budget, with its IMF conditionalities has been a complete disappointment, on the pattern of the previous budgets. These are difficult times for ordinary people of Pakistan. The budget makes it worse for them, not better, with new levies on salaried and middle-income groups. But there is no expansion in the tax base, allowing rich to get richer. The allocation for health and education is minuscule, in spite of claims to the contrary. No support for cheaper drugs is offered, with good news for multinationals. No plans to improve public transport are mentioned, only advice to people to use more of it. And it cannot be called a pro-poor budget.

The budget offers no coherent policy concerning growth of the economy. Agriculture remains a significant contributor to national income; no effective measures have been proposed to improve productivity in this sector. The budget claims, for example, to establish ten new research centres, even though the existing research centres, some with international reputation, are starving for funds. Nor are there any hints to improve the tenure system for the actual tillers of the soil.

The current budget only confirms the position held by a large section of people with informed opinions that complete overhaul of the institutions is needed in Pakistan, from bottom up. If the country waits for better times to bring about the reforms, then it might be too late. There are distortions everywhere in society. Whatever wealth is produced by the economy, a good part of it is grabbed by the rent seekers, receiving income without making equivalent contribution. Given the precarious state of the economy, a 5 per cent IDP tax on the rich and super-rich is too modest to be taken seriously.

The parliamentarians do not give their time and effort to the nation corresponding to the rewards they receive, and they enjoy perks and privileges at the cost of the public purse, which liberally cover their official requisites as well as private needs. Free loading is part of lifestyle.

Further corroding element is provided by corruption which according to a recent report of Transparency International has increased in 2009 by at least 350 per cent as compared to 2002. Corruption has a strong moral connotation and it receives universal approbation from the people. There is political corruption which usually refers to ill-gotten gains used for political power. Ordinarily economic corruption means use of public office for private gains. In private sector, it can take many forms such as jumping the queue to get ahead in the line up for seats on the aeroplane.

The most straight forward case about corruption is concerning what is called petty corruption. The amounts may be small, but there are incessant demands for doing favours, and number of people affected is usually large and the share of poor people’s income diverted to corruption is high. It plagues their everyday lives. Transparency International survey shows that it had increased substantially between 2006 and 2009.

Corruption at state level gives rise to the question of monopoly power of the state, and it cannot occur without collusion among the people at the top. In general, however, policy issues about corruption cannot be discussed without involving the larger question of the nature of the state.

According to the Transparency International survey, the quantum per act of bribe can fetch Rs72, 000 in tendering and procurement in a single act of bribe as compared to the combined quantum for bribes per act in 9 sectors covered by the survey at Rs74, 000. In 2009 Police, Power, Health, Land and Education were the most corrupt departments in Pakistan. Why bribery is concentrated in these sectors requires a detailed analysis. This is nevertheless another paradox for Pakistan.

The lesson we can learn from the developed countries is that while corruption of one form or another will always be with us, transparency and accountability in a democratic system is the best guarantee to control this problem. Not just introducing appropriate laws, but to have rule of law is a prerequisite for effective safeguard against this phenomenon.

To return to the opening point of this discussion, about relations with India, there is an opportunity for Pakistan through diplomatic channels, to take advantage of the fact that Indian National Congress has a comfortable majority in the Indian parliament. Prospects are not good, however, until the Mumbai issue is resolved.

Focus on the 17th amendment
By Ibne Noor
Sunday, 28 Jun, 2009

NOW that the Supreme Court has declared Mian Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz eligible to contest election, their partymen are eager to see their leader, the former prime minister, in the saddle again, either as a result of fresh polls or some political arrangement.

And there could be no better time than this. The current depressing situation in the country and the poor governance has already made Mr Nawaz Sharif cynosure of world attention and the international community is apparently no more averse to see him in power again as it has been in the past for his alleged links with the Islamist elements. In fact, the impression is that he could more effectively deal with the menace of extremism and also set the house in order. Then, his popularity graph has also been much higher than Zardari.

The route to regaining power for the PML-N passes through the annulment of the 17th amendment which, under a bargain that did not materialise, had vested Pervez Musharraf in 2002 with sweeping dictatorial powers and which his successor, Asif Ali Zardari, is too reluctant to give up. But the latter remains committed to its repeal, at least verbally, for various reasons.

Now after being in government for more than a year along with this commitment, the PPP has finally constituted a 27-member committee to revisit the constitution and weigh pros and cons of repealing the 17th amendment. There are still doubts in some quarters if the committee is meant to settle the matter or delay the law’s removal. But the consensus against the hated amendment is now widespread and even the PML-Q is fully on board.

The PPP under Ms Benazir Bhutto was already fully committed along with the PML-N under the 2006 Charter of Democracy to doing away with this amendment. But if Zardari lacks the will to go with the consensus and tries to freeze the issue, the amendment will remain like Damocle’s sword over his head for long as had been the CJ’s reinstatement in the recent past. The problem is that other parties together cannot achieve the objective for they are not in a position to summon up the required two-thirds majority without which the law won’t die.

If the 17th amendment is done away with, the prime minister will regain the powers he is entitled to under the 1973 constitution and would be making all the important appointments, like those of the services chiefs, the chief election commissioner; and the president will be deprived of the power to dissolve the assemblies. However, the parliament will have to create checks , in the prevailing culture of nepotism and favouritism, on the exercise of powers by the prime minister so that they are not misused.

In Britain and India, where parliamentary system has matured enough, all important powers lie with the prime minister. Since Pakistan also follows the same system, the role of the president should be no more than that of a figurehead. It is the prime minister who is chief executive and should have all the powers. But we should not forget how two former prime ministers (mis)used their powers.

Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was known for his autocratic tendencies, had appointed Gen Ziaul Haq as his army chief not because the former was impressed by the latter’s capabilities. He thought that a submissive and humble Zia would be his loyalist, in whose presence the PPP would be able to rule the country more authoritatively. It is another matter that the general not only overthrew his benefactor but also got him hanged through a judicial process.

Mian Nawaz Sharif, who also showed dictatorial tendencies and wanted to become amirul momineen, got the 8th amendment repealed during his second tenure, and then using his powers as prime minister appointed Gen Musharraf as army chief, ignoring many senior generals. His decision was also not based on merit. He picked Musharraf because, as he later told a senior owner-editor close to him, being an Urdu speaking general he would have no support from the fellow-generals in the army, as a result of which he would not be able to pose any threat to his government.

It is another matter that Musharraf not only toppled the PML-N government but also forced 18 members of the Sharif family into exile in Saudi Arabia, where they remained for seven years before they could return home as a result of intervention by some important countries and leaders. It is generally believed that if the appointments had been made on merit, the two afore-mentioned tragedies could have been averted.

The legislators would be doing a great national service if they bring out the facts before the nation how the Legal Framework Order was made part of the Constitution, as a result of which all steps taken and decisions made by Gen Musharraf were validated. In other words, a dictator’s competence to give himself power to validate his own steps, not resisted by the 2002-08 parliament, should be taken up now.

Then, before making Pakistan’s prime minister as powerful as his counterparts in India and Britain it should also be seen whether the former used his authority as carefully and honestly as their counterparts in the two countries known as bastions of democracy. Unfortunately, our prime ministers have an irresistible tendency to appoint their cronies, family friends, personal servants and sycophants against all important positions and nobody could question them for misusing their power.

Hence, there is an urgent need to devise a mechanism to prevent a civilian prime minister from turning into a dictator. The legislators should also let the nation know what would be the role of the president in case a prime minister was found pushing the country to a crisis and the opposition parties were unable to do anything because they wouldn’t have the required parliamentary support to remove him.

Then, instead of striking down the 17th amendment in toto, only such clauses should be dropped that had failed to serve any national interest. Likewise, some new provisions could be added to the Constitution to remove the flaws of the political system.

There is a view that the number of assembly seats should be restored to the 1999 level. This means the increase made through the LFO, or the 17th amendment, should be withdrawn. But it will be very difficult for the legislators to take such a step which is meant only to lessen the economic burden on the country. The performance of the enlarged parliament is no way better than the one that was in existence in 1999.

Coal holds the key to energy autarky

By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Sunday, 05 Jul, 2009

PAKISTAN’S energy deficit is a problem that goes back more than a quarter century. Successive governments, both military and civilian since the Zia era, simply chose to sleep at the wheel with regard to the crucial energy sector and its impact on the economic fortunes of Pakistan. Ziaul Haq played politics with the Kalabagh dam project and just sloughed it on to his successors to grapple with it. Neither Benazir nor Nawaz Sharif had the guts to deal with this sensitive issue. Kalabagh morphed into a political football as long as it was kept in the stratosphere of inter-provincial rivalries.

Musharraf, obsessed with power, had no compunction shutting his eyes to the snowballing energy crisis on his watch. Not one kilowatt of energy was added to the dwindling power sector during his thuggish rule.

What has happened in the process is that we, as a nation, have opted to wash our hands off, literally, whatever remaining hydel capacity we have left over as a source of power generation. We are so paranoid with the chimera of provincial prerogative and autonomy that we are ready to allow tens of millions of cusecs of water to flow down into the sea but are not inclined, one iota, to use it to create energy for our economic growth. In other words, this purblind nation of petty rulers and ignorant masses has no regrets in committing mass suicide. Harakiri is the latest sport in Pakistan.

But the natural growth in population hasn’t been matching our lack of foresight. In fact, nature seems to be avenging our folly with a population growth getting out of control. Pakistan has one of the fastest rates of population increase in the world, and it’s not slowing down, electricity or no electricity.

Years of crippling sloth and criminal indifference on part of the establishment have spawned a crisis of enormous proportions. The shortage of power in the country has ballooned to as much as 5,000MWs and could only spiral further if corrective action is not taken in hand right away.

A harassed and depressed populace, literally sweating out copiously under 20-hour power outages, is asking the obvious question: is there light at the end of a very dark and forbidding tunnel? Could they see a day in their life-time when the draconian power outages will have become a thing of the past? The answer is, yes. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and help is within grasp, just around the corner, if only the establishment and the ruling elite would show the will necessary to tackle this monster of power shortage.

The elixir is in coal, and that bounty Mother Nature has been treasuring in the bosom of Thar Desert, within hailing distance of Karachi, in spades. Nature couldn’t have been more munificence to the people of Pakistan. Just look at the confluence of coincidences.

Karachi is the motor that runs Pakistan’s economic machine. Karachi is also the recipient of a most cruel and heartless power supply company, KESC, which has been giving two hoots for all the suffering and plight of the mega city’s 17 million inhabitants. And because of this criminal disregard for its basic obligation to make power available to the citizens and the industry, it is not only Karachi’s industrial heart that is being paralysed but, with it, Pakistan’s economy is being pushed into the dumps.

But Thar is not too far from Karachi, and Thar has the second largest proven coal deposits in the world. Current estimates — of expert geologists and not laymen — put Thar’s coal reserves at 185 billion tons, second only to the US reserves of 247 billion tons. In some other statistical comparisons, these deposits are the equivalent of at least 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas, which is 30 times higher than the current proven Pakistani gas reserves of just 28 TCF.

In terms of oil barrels, these deposits are the equivalent of 400 billion barrels of oil, which is almost as much as the combined proven reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran. What an enormous treasure-trove this could be in terms of its potential for power generation may be gleaned from the fact that just two per cent of these coal reserves can generate 20,000MWs of electricity for 40 years.

This coal is of the finest quality for its potential use for the generation of clean energy. Its sulphur and ash content is less than

1.5 per cent, which is much cleaner than the coal being used in Germany, Poland and many other European countries for power generation. We can produce clean energy from this coal without fear of polluting the atmosphere, or emitting gases that would pose a biological hazard. As it is, we are among the least polluting countries in the world because of our abysmally low use of power. The US has less than 5 per cent of world population but consumes more than 25 per cent of global energy. We have more than 2.5 per cent of world population but consume less than0.5 per cent of global energy.

And we couldn’t ask for more from Mother Nature in terms of this coal’s accessibility and extraction. It can be found at shallow depths of 120 to 250 meters, which renders it ideal for inexpensive open pit mining as opposed to the expensive, and hazardous, shaft mining process.

But look at our criminal irresponsibility and disdain for nature’s bounty.

Thar’s coal deposits were discovered way back in 1992. But instead of putting this solid black gold to the use it is meant for, we have been zigzagging and just dragging our feet about it over the past 17 years, in which time costs have doubled, Pakistan’s population has exploded exponentially and with it our power demands have sky rocketed.

But imagine our utter disdain, nay contempt, for the enormous mineral wealth nature has endowed us with in such abundance. The total content of coal in Pakistan’s power generation is a pitiful 0.1 per cent, compared to 69 per cent in India, 78 per cent in China and 93 per cent in South Africa.

We have just signed a deal with Iran for its gas, which will require an investment of several billion dollars in pipelines to bring this booty to Pakistan. It’s a welcome development, if for nothing else than thumbing our nose at the Americans who have been tilting at all the windmills to throttle our co-operation with Iran. The government is justifying the enormous investment entailed in this venture on the grounds that the bulk of the Iranian gas will be used for power generation. But why don’t we use our own coal for power generation and use the Iranian gas, instead, for industries?

The establishment is awakening after nearly two decades of sleeping at the wheel. The Sindh Chief Minister spoke, in his budget speech a week ago, of Islamabad’s concurrence in the formation of Thar Coal Energy Board (TCEB) which will be a one-window operation for the extraction of coal and its utility in power generation. But years of sloth and neglect have taken their toll and left a bad taste in the mouth of those foreign interests which have been keen in the past to lend their expertise to Pakistan for this purpose. The World Bank has shown interest but the most active and engaged have been our all-weather friends, the Chinese who have enormous experience in coal-based energy generation.

Sadly, the Chinese firm that had been engaged in the exploratory work on Thar power generation since 2002, Shenhua Corporation, has been forced to pack up and leave because of the indifference, if not hostility, of Nepra, the official watch-dog for energy and power regulation. The differences were said to be about the tariff of power generation.

But the name of the new game in town should be self-reliance and dependence on our own resources. To make a new beginning in this sector, my old friend and Civil Service colleague, Mohibullah Shah, who used to head the now defunct Thar energy project, has come up with a brilliant idea. Briefing the Sindh legislators — whose legacy of legislating is abysmal — on June 30, in Karachi, he proposed that in order to attract foreign interest in Thar’s enormous power generation potential, we should build and commission, on our own steam, a pilot energy generation plant of 300 MW. He thinks this shouldn’t entail an investment of more than $ 400 million, which we can raise on our own.

Let me add that expatriate Pakistanis — hundreds of thousands of them well-endowed in resources — in North America, Europe and ME, would be happy to chip in, in return for a voice in the management and operation of this plant. 400 million dollars is not an astronomical sum. They could be easily persuaded and galvanised to put their money where their mouth is.

AFTER fifty years as Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad does not yet have its own police headquarters. The Inspector General of Police for Islamabad conducts official business from rented accommodation in a residential sector. The inconvenience caused to the residents of F 7/1 aside, the IGP’s office is in a highly insecure location. It in close proximity to a busy market, a mosque and is in the vicinity of a girl’s college.

With terrorist violence escalating, the IGP’s office might as well have a bull’s eye painted on it. If the absence of a proper police headquarters for Islamabad shows the lackadaisical attitude towards maintaining order, Pakistan’s Tax-to-GDP ratio, which is now slightly less than 10 per cent, reveals a non-serious attitude towards the collection of taxes, the alleged reforms of the Musharraf-era notwithstanding.

Institutions that are absolutely critical to the survival of Pakistan as a state, such as the police and the taxation machinery, are woefully neglected. On the other hand, the same government that has the resources to dole out funds for building office complexes for substantially irrelevant institutions, such as the Council of Islamic Ideology or the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, throws its hands up at providing adequate office space and transport facility for its police force.

What these examples show is that law and order and taxation are not priority areas even though the ability to maintain order and collect taxes are the litmus tests of any state’s seriousness. Pakistan’s priorities have historically been economic development, Islam, democracy and national security. How any of these grand designs can be brought to fruition in the context of administrative breakdown and the decline in the intellectual and moral qualities of the servants of the state is an uncomfortable issue to think about.

Take economic development. Pakistan aspires to be a modern welfare state. That means providing the population with access to free education and subsidised health care. It entails making timely and sufficient investments in power, water, communications and agriculture. Some element of job creation, pensions and insurance schemes are also consistent with this aspiration as are price controls for essential items. It all depends on rational planning based upon reliable data, allocation of resources, and effective means of auditing and inspecting development expenditures.

In Pakistan, the state cannot count. The last accurate census was conducted in 1981. The next census, which came in 1998, was politicised and subverted. In 2008, no new census was launched. The statistics of the Musharraf-era were notoriously cooked by its senior managers and politicians. The next census, if it is conducted, is likely to be subverted by political interests again. The absence of reliable quantitative data means that development planning in Pakistan is based either on outright fabrications or unreliable guesstimates.

Unless the state is capable of collecting sufficient tax revenues to meet expenditures, development expenditure will fuel borrowing. Pakistan’s experience indicates that the rate of borrowing normally exceeds the ability to pay loans back leading to the debt trap. Pakistan narrowly escaped the debt trap after 9/11. Musharraf, however, took the windfall, and failed to utilise the time to increase tax collection in Pakistan or properly document the economy. Now Pakistan has dug itself back into the hole. And our rulers still don’t have the stomach to tax the country starting with themselves.

One way or the other, Pakistan has managed to get the resources to pour billions of dollars into development year in and year out. The problem is that the breakdown of the auditing and inspection mechanisms means that much of the money is wasted or stolen. By some accounts, the wastage and corruption account for two-thirds of development spending. A substantial chunk of the allocation cannot be spent at all due to the lack of administrative capacity. The result is that after decades of development spending Pakistan is neither modern, nor welfare oriented, nor for that matter, much of a state. It has instead become a medieval, maniacally managed, estate.

On the Islamic front, the past thirty years have demonstrated with escalating brutality what Pakistan’s beleaguered rational fringe and closet secularists have been warning against since the late-1940s. Beyond a superficial and transient resonance that can be used to rally people against existential threats, the logic of Islamisation is incompatible with Pakistan’s survival as a somewhat normal country.

The inescapable reality is that Islamisation in Pakistan would culminate in the establishment of a Deobandi or Barelvi sectarian state. The Taliban and the numerous sectarian militias are not aberrations. They are the outcomes of decades of utopian social engineering and are trying to reprogramme Pakistan to become a self-consciously assertive sectarian state.

Pakistan was not created to save Islam. By most accounts Islam is alive and well in India and was doing well under the British imperial rule. Pakistan was created to give the Muslims of the subcontinent a chance to develop a modern polity of their own that would be capable of safeguarding their secular interests. That was why the modernist Muslims, not the conservative ulema, constituted the spearhead and substance of the Pakistan movement.

Pakistan was meant to be the antidote to the backwardness of the Muslims in areas such as education, economics, military power, and constitutional development. For Jinnah and his cohorts vindication lay in secular achievement, not spiritual pretensions, and Islam served an instrumental role for mobilising a pre-modern community around a charismatic leader in order to establish a modern state. As Pakistan descends into Islamist insurgency and deeper internal crisis Pakistan’s leaders still do not yet have the courage to say that political Islam is a broad-spectrum failure that has led the country to disaster.

In an administrative state like Pakistan, it is the quality and autonomy of the civil service that determines the credibility of the polling and declaration of the results. This means an autonomous Election Commission and broader immunity for the civil servants who staff it and the local administration that organises the polling. For electoral democracy to work in Pakistan the arbitrary powers of the political executive over the civil administration will have to be dramatically reduced. In Pakistan, both military regimes and civilian governments have proven hostile to the autonomous conduct of elections and the humane treatment of servants of the state.

Of course, Pakistanis should not delude themselves into thinking that an autonomous Election Commission and a civil service protected from arbitrary treatment will lead to democracy producing better leaders over time. The empirical evidence from India indicates that regular elections have only slowed down the breakdown of the state machinery and utterly failed to produce improvement in the quality of leadership. Pre-poll rigging, cheating, caste, sectarian and kinship affiliations, local mafias, and so on, collectively ensure that South Asian voters do not elect candidates based upon their past performance or policy positions.

National security and foreign policy are, along with cricket, among the favourite Pakistani pastimes. Everyone has an expert opinion to offer on the “strategic dynamics” of regional and world politics. As in other debates the obvious is rarely, if ever, stated. A country like Pakistan that finds itself surrounded by more powerful states and strategic black holes like Afghanistan ought to focus on maintaining its domestic stability and minimising confrontations with its neighbours.

While Pakistanis tend to react emotionally to questions about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets, the path our resident militarists and their civilian front men and women have led the country to is ruinous. Imagine a revisionist power with 50-100 nuclear weapons – an arsenal too large for any external power, conspiracies aside, to neutralise. Now imagine that this country is on the verge of administrative breakdown. Within its frontiers are thousands of terrorists and millions of sympathisers with historic links to the security establishment. This is not a nightmare scenario. It is the ground reality in Pakistan. The solution does not lie in dismantling Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal but in restoring the writ of the state, focusing on domestic affairs, and normalising relations with neighbouring countries.

Pakistan has played a very high price for the mindlessness of its ruling elite. Pakistan’s priorities should be administrative and taxation reform, improving the quality of the state apparatus, reducing the arbitrary exercise of power, and gradually filling the vacuum on the ground. This cannot be done quickly. It is a multi-generational project that requires a serious rethink of existing priorities.

The writer is a faculty member of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Department of History, Islamabad.

THE Arab East and Iran confronted the imperialist domination of the region in different manners. Hence, the difference in the natures of the problems faced by them.

The Arab nationalism predicated itself on putschism. Thus, whenever a middle-rank officer could lead an army formation into storming the royal or the presidential palace, it was claimed as a revolution and welcomed as such. The masses were not asked to participate in the political process at all. Indeed, the petit bourgeois leadership of Arab nationalism was scared of any independent political role of the masses. They were required only as claquers after a successful putsch.

It was, therefore, not surprising that the successful Arab “revolutionaries” failed to recognise a real revolution when they saw one — that of Iran, where the masses rose directly to confront and overthrow the Shah. The only response that the Arab “revolutionaries” could think of was to assault the Iranian Revolution with the backing of the West and inflict massive losses upon it.

It is, consequently, natural that the problems faced by Iran today are qualitatively different from those confronting the descendents of Arab putschism. The latter, in fact, become irrelevant in the political scenario unfolding in Iran, as the revolution comes face to face with the impasse created by its own inner contradictions.

The troubles in Iran arise, firstly, from the existence of problems left unresolved by the Iranian Revolution. Secondly, there is the demand, mainly from the intelligentsia, as in any society after a period of revolutionary upheaval, to return to more “normal” ways of managing the state and the economy. Lastly, the fervent hope in the West for a “rose revolution” in Iran may have brought clandestine material help to the anti-regime Iranians, though it is doubtful if they possess within Iran the means to do there what they did in Kiev and Tblisi.

Khomeinist framework was too constricted to contain the full richness of the Iranian Revolution. It strains at it.

The clerics were able to take power in 1979 primarily because the Shah had succeeded in clearing the political board of all leftist and near-leftist influences, even of genuine liberalism. Secondly, of course, the Shia church, being structurally and financially autonomous of the state, has always been able to play an independent political role in times of crisis. Stirring slogans are usually more effective in mobilising the masses than cold economic or political analysis. The slogans provided by the clerics were, of course, drawn from the religious history.

Even so, the nature of the Iranian revolution was mundane, arising from the class struggle. And, as Bernard Lewis says, it was as authentic as the French and Russian revolutions.

The Pahlavis had modernised Iran in many ways but had not modified the socio-economic structure of society in any substantial manner. The country thus had big landed estates, scattered small industries and petty traders, together with some bigger businesses engaged mainly in foreign trade. The mainstay of the economy was the income from the petroleum, which contributed from 85 to 95 per cent of the national budget. Its sale was the monopoly of a foreign consortium which took half of the industry’s profit.

But the important point here is that the oil industry, combining, as it does, high productivity with only a small labour force actually engaged in productive labour, contributes neither to the industrialisation of a backward country nor to the spread of technology. As a result, the income from the industry is essentially of a rentier nature. In the case of Pahlavi Iran, almost all of it went into the consumption of the ruling family, the ruling class and their instruments of coercion. When the last ruler came to the throne, there were various opposition groups, including a surprisingly sizable communist party. There was also a parliament with periodic elections to it. The Shah gradually put an end to all that, so that the “opposition” parties and the “elected” members of parliament were all nominated by him.

However the main problem arose when the leadership attempted to “develop” the country in partnership with foreign capital. The local partners for the foreign capitalists were drawn from the richer merchant class, in actual fact from the members of the royal family. They had no business experience. And, as to the capital, they brought influence in its stead. As a result, the development turned out to be nothing more than high-scale jobbery. This created resentment among the old bourgeoisie, particularly the small traders, the “bazaris”, who were kept out of it.

The attempt at corporate farming was particularly disastrous, as it drove the peasants in hordes from farming. They were concentrated, bitter and hungry, in the towns and provided the manpower for the mass demonstrations organised by the national bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, which drove out the Shah. They were also supported by the leftist and liberal groups who had been struggling against the Shah for years.

The succeeding clerical regime snuffed out the latter groups and based itself on the national bourgeoisie, protecting itself, at the same time, from their power through the Revolutionary Guards. These guards were drawn mainly from the petit bourgeoisie in the towns and the displaced peasants in the rural areas. Enjoying social security due to their state stipends, they were prepared to ignore the deeper political questions raised by the opposition and provide firm support to the revolutionary power.

The clerical regime, though happy enough to confiscate the property of its major opponents, did not attempt a re-distribution of wealth or property. The poorer were given stipends or loans to keep them quiet. And the rich could keep their wealth if they did not challenge the regime. This, however, left a latent danger at the heart of the society. After all, both French and Russian revolutions had been saved by the peasants, who had come out in millions to protect the property given to them by the revolutions.

In Iran, the peasants may not be as strong. But, combined with the industrial workers and the petty traders, they can mount a formidable challenge to the revolutionary regime if they lose hope in its ability or willingness to ultimately carry out some measure of re-distribution. Driven by their poor economic condition, they may take sides in a purely political tussle, in whose issue they may not be directly interested, but in the hope that a political change may bring a leadership sympathetic to their problems.

This is not the situation at present. Mousavi, representing the wealthiest elements of the Iranian haute bourgeoisie, looks to the West rather than to the oppressed. He probably obtained a majority of votes in Tehran but Ahmedinejad has solid support in the rest of Iran. However, Mousavi would not care to radicalise his protest movement even in Tehran, since, like all rich, his collaborators would be more afraid of a mass “movement” raising basic questions of social re-distribution than of Ahmedinejad, or even of a possible return of the US hegemony.

On the other hand, Ahmedinejad’s political bloc, specially the central and provincial bazaris and the displaced peasants, is still intact. But it may not remain so if the revolutionary regime continues to assume that the people’s problems can be solved without giving thought to the question of economic re-distribution.

The Malakand operation has so far rendered over three million refugees. The majority indeed is from the worst-hit Swat. They live in the camps; and a majority of them has taken shelter with relatives, friends or rented houses. They fled the war in a hurry. Their stories are of misery, awe and distress.

There are many left behind in Swat; they were unable to make out and remained stranded. Their number is no small. The media gives an impression as if all the residents of Swat evacuated. The stranded residents, numbered several thousands, continue to live there in a state of uncertainty, although the situation is now improving. There were several reasons for his. Some had large families, and had little means to manage to flee the fighting. Another factor was continued curfew.

Then, the fighting in Mingora and parts of lower Swat had blocked all the outlets for thousands of people living in upper Swat to get out of the area. They were living in a horrible condition; they had little to eat and drink and could not replenish food supplies from anywhere when these ran out. Nor other essential facilities were available. Electricity and telephones could be rated as luxuries. They have suffered greatly. Besides being stranded between the forces at war, these people have lost all the resources of livelihood.

The government has promised to give Rs.25, 000 to each internally displaced family in the camps besides the daily supply of ration to it. While this package is too inadequate for each family, the registration process has not been completed yet, let alone the timely distribution of the relief funds.

The relief cash for each refugee family should have been at least Rs.100, 000 because the ordeals these people had to undergo was simply nerve-shattering and the cost of the valuable effects they left behind far exceeds the relief cash. Besides, the stranded people in Swat who could not leave the town must also be given the IDP status and entitled to all relief benefits and facilities as being given to the refugees because their sufferings are no less severe. In fact, the inhabitants of the war zone areas need more care and help.

They have suffered bad fate for no fault of theirs. Swat has no border either with any foreign country or with Fata or Kashmir but its residents had still become victims of violence. The militancy, imported from the tribal belt, has ruined the lives of the Swatis and their beautiful town. Many a woman of Swat are now seen begging in Pakistani cities. The brave, hospitable and simple people have met a fate they never deserved.

The question arises why didn't the army and the government nip the militancy in the bud; why did the authorities let these jihadis grow into terrorists and then become a menace for everybody and the state within two years; why was Swat, the Switzerland of Pakistan, allowed to turn into the most dangerous place. The major sources of livelihood of the people of Swat have been agriculture and tourism. Another source was white-collar salaried jobs which were dubbed unislamic by the self-styled saviours of religion. Those doing office jobs were regarded infidels and deserved to be killed. Tourism in Swat cannot be revived for years to come and agriculture stands destroyed. The crops have been damaged and obliterated.

Swat is famous for its apples, peaches, peas, rice and fresh vegetables. It is now the season of peaches, peas and the sowing period of maize and tomatoes. Those who are still there are not allowed to farm their lands or send their ready crops to markets.

The writer is a freelance columnist from Swat associated with Aryana Institute for Research and Advocacy.