02.02.2014

Out of action
Terrorists are dictating their terms while the state is yet to evolve a workable strategy
By Muhammad Masood Khan

No words but actions are needed if we have to address the monster of terrorism in Pakistan. Discussions, negotiations, analysis and thinking of framing policies for more than a decade have given this nation nothing but miseries and loss of lives. This country has suffered massive bloodshed and demoralisation.

Now what are the actions to be taken? These may be quite a few but to start with we have to go with only three to provide immediate relief to masses and build trust among the people that something has been done on the part of leadership of this country. You cannot mesmerize the people all the time or to make them fool with your false speeches and pseudo analysis. One must wake up and listen to the people.

First, an immediate implementation of execution of condemned prisoners is needed. There are more than 6,000 condemned prisoners languishing in jails for more than a decade even after rejection of their appeals from the apex court. Their retention in jails is not only a great fuss for the jail administration but for the whole society in general. It will uphold the justice and fulfillment of the divine’s commandment. For security of prisons in Pakistan, respective provincial governments should never facilitate prison-inmates with cash and mobile phones. This facility may also now be restricted to the prison staff.

Second, steps should be taken for immediate repatriation of Afghan refugees from this country. We have registered and non-registered Afghans who have been blessed with NICs and ownership of properties. They have also ruined the labour class of the poor provinces. The federal government can evolve some mechanism to vacate our areas from these refugees as they have been staying here for more than 30 years now and there are complaints about their irresponsible activities.
Establishment of rapid squad force, intelligence secretariat and social sector uplift may surely contribute towards ending terrorism. Keeping in mind the gravity of the situation, the issue of unemployment should also be addressed on war-footing.

Third, police should be trained and equipped to check the movements of terrorists. It is the duty and responsibility of every SHO to gather intelligence of the area under his domain. Extrajudicial killings may not be the solution of all the problems relating to extremism, sectarianism and street crimes.

Besides these immediate actions, steps like establishment of rapid squad force, intelligence collection secretariat and social sector development may surely contribute towards ending terrorism. Keeping in mind the gravity of the situation, the issue of unemployment should also be addressed on war-footing to combat terrorism.

Injustices almost everywhere have led us to a horrible situation and one must review the work and achievements of executive, legislative and judiciary in totality. More responsible and disciplined approach is expected of these organs.

One of the major reasons for widespread of terrorism is economic disparity. Thousands of fresh graduates pass out every year but there is no employment for them. Why there is a consistent ban on employment when it is a continuous process. Vacancies in almost every department need to be filled without further delay. Without looking towards Public Service Commissions, every head of department should be authorised to fill the posts judiciously. They will surely take care of merit and suitability of the candidates for their own departments. Such inequalities and disparities lead towards negativism and aggressions.

Can we become one nation? We all are not on the same page to address the problem of extremism and terrorism. Terrorists are dictating their terms while the state is yet to evolve a workable strategy. Immediate action by the state is very important.

02.02.2014

Back on own resources
Clarity regarding ownership rights over natural resources is critical for political stability and investors’ confidence
By Farahnaz Khan

The 18th Constitutional Amendment passed unanimously in April 2010 has sharpened the debates on sharing of natural resources in Pakistan. This was reflected clearly at an inter-provincial conference on “Operationalisation of Joint Ownership of Oil and Gas Resources — Issues and Options” held on December 21-22, 2013 in Karachi. The conference was jointly organised by UNDP’s project on Strengthening Participatory Federalism and Decentralization (SPFD) and Dawood University of Engineering and Technology.

It was attended by Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Minster for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Finance Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah, political figures, experts, economists and academicians. Prominent among them were: Tracy Vienings, Sartaj Aziz, Dr Kaiser Bangali, Senator Afrasiab Khatak, Senator Hasil Khan Bizenjo, Dostain Jamaldini, Haris Gazdar and Ahmer Bilal Soofi.

Diverse perspectives on the issue were brought in fore by the representatives of the federal and provincial governments, legal experts, sectoral experts, economists and investors in oil and gas industry. The conference came up with a tentative roadmap to be taken up by the Council of Common Interest in the forthcoming meeting.

The conference highlighted the aim of joint and equal ownership of oil and gas resources under Article 172 of the Constitution.

The property-ownership regime for natural resources is a highly emotional and sensitive issue globally, that is often intertwined with identity based conflicts. In many federal systems, responding to demands for local autonomy over natural resources is an added complication, regarding how to resolve potentially competing ownership claims between the national government and provincial governments.
Assigning control to provincial governments is likely to improve accountability as they are in a better position to determine the needs and preferences of their populations and have direct interest in making the most of their region’s resources.

Clarity regarding ownership rights and regulatory authority is critical for political stability and investors’ confidence. Ambiguity in ownership can be a major source of risk for potential investors; can lessen the attractiveness of an investment opportunity in a country’s resources, resulting in difficulties in attracting capital.

Older federations, such as the USA, Canada and Australia have tended to favour private ownership or absolute ownership by state and to leave control and benefits of natural resources to be determined at the level of the states or provinces. Whereas Constitutions of countries such as Nigeria, Venezuela and India treats natural resources as a national heritage, important in the financing of equal services and development nationwide, rather than as a regional resource.

Similarly, like Pakistan the federal states of Iraq, Russia and Sudan, control vests with the provinces and the federal government. However, in Brazil control vested with the government till amendment in 1995 when private companies were allowed to exercise ownership over oil and gas.

In general, assigning control to provincial governments is likely to improve accountability as they are in a better position to determine the needs and preferences of their populations and have direct interest in making the most of their region’s resources, whereas if control is in the hands of the national government, dominant groups at the center may not have an interest in promoting particular province’s development.

Pakistan is facing a similar issue where ownership of natural resource has created a conflict between the federal and provincial governments as they are locked in a row over who has rights and control over mineral, oil and natural gas following the 18th Constitutional Amendment with the provinces claiming that they are deprived of their due share.

One of the major objectives of the 18th Constitutional Amendment was provincial autonomy, given that the oil and gas industry is perceived to be profitable as well as highly paid job-oriented industry, which helps boost the economic growth.

Until the promulgation of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, Pakistan’s natural resources were exclusively owned and regulated by the federal government. However, a vital change has been brought about through the 18th Amendment, whereby Article 172(3) has been inserted pursuant to which ownership of oil and gas resources has been vested jointly and equally in the federal government and the relevant provinces.

The revised Article 172(3) is a key provision concerning oil and gas ownership that states:

“(3) Subject to the existing commitments and obligations, mineral oil and natural gas within the Province or the territorial waters adjacent thereto shall vest jointly and equally in that Province and the Federal Government.”

The insertion of Article 172(3) contradicts Article 161 which provides 100 per cent royalty on natural gas to the provinces whereas, according to Article172(3), 50 per cent of government receipts are to be shared equally by the federal government and the relevant provinces. A question then arises, as to why 100 per cent royalty was paid to the provinces when 100 per cent ownership of oil and gas resources was with the federal government. The answer to that could be to boost the economic growth of provinces. However, this is no longer valid under Article 172(3).

Article 172 (3) has been effective since April 19, 2010 when the 18th Amendment was enforced. However, till date Article 172(3) has not come fully into force as we can see that in most of the foreign ventures, the mineral, oil and natural gas become the property of the operating company whereas the province is only paid the royalty and the federal excise duty. Saindak Copper-Gold mine is one of the examples, where the mine was leased to a Chinese company Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd (MCC) for a 10-year period. MCC had invested just 23 million dollars and in return got hold of the whole reserves. The decision about the distribution of profits was according to a formula beyond anyone’s understanding. The Chinese company took 75 per cent, the federal government 24 per cent, and only one per cent of the revenue was given to the Balochistan government.

The agreement and handling of the Saindak project has been against the will of the Baloch people. The federal government approved a five-year extension in the lease of the Saindak project in 2012, which will end in 2017. Unfortunately, the Baloch resources will be exploited for another five years. This project could have brought a great economic change in the conditions of entire Balochistan, but it did not even develop the nearby villages and district since it became operational in 1995.

After looking at various federal states and the Saindak case study, a question can be raised that should equitable distribution of petroleum revenues across a federation be pursued? If yes, which criteria for revenue transfer, sharing, or assignment are more likely to be socially and economically sustainable?

Once Article 172(3) comes fully into force, it will lead to greater accountability, better compensation for the producing area, political stability and increased investors’ confidence.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

02.02.2014

Fiscal devolution
Provincial autonomy and local self-governance without taxation rights and equitable distribution of income and wealth is meaningless
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr Ikramul Haq

Fiscal devolution involving the transfer of taxing and spending powers to sub-national levels of government is totally non-existent in Pakistan despite clear command contained in Article 140A of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is in dire need of fiscal devolution — presently major fiscal powers are concentrated in the hands of federal government. Even the Constitution denies the provinces right to levy sales tax on goods within their respective territories.

The provinces have also shown apathy to devolve administrative and fiscal powers to local governments. Since all broad-based and buoyant sources of revenue are with the federal government, contribution of provinces in total tax revenues is only six per cent and in overall national revenue base (tax and non-tax revenue) just around eight per cent. This has made them totally dependent on the Centre for transfers from divisible pool.

What makes the situation more disturbing is the fact that right of provinces to levy sales tax on services is encroached by the federal government through levy of presumptive taxes on services under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, sales tax on gas, electricity and telephone services and excise duty on a number of other services.

Like other federations — notably India, USA, Canada — in Pakistan the provinces should have the exclusive right to levy indirect taxes on goods and services within their respective physical boundaries. Right to levy any tax on goods should be restored to the provinces as was the case at the time of independence. Despite levying of taxes by the federal government that should have been the provinces’ right, Centre has miserably failed to reduce the burgeoning fiscal deficit that is reaching a horrifying mark of Rs1.8 trillion this year. Had provinces been allowed to generate their own resources, the present chaotic situation could have been averted.

Centre has been claiming that provinces lack infrastructure to efficiently collect sales tax. This has been proved wrong as Sindh and Punjab collected much more sales tax on services than the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) after establishing their own tax apparatuses in 2011 and 2012 respectively. In 2013, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa also followed in their footsteps.

We need amendments in Constitution to ensure judicious distribution of taxation rights between the federation and its units. Unless it is done, the provinces will continue to remain hugely dependent upon federal transfers. Transferring of indirect taxes on consumption of goods to the provinces will empower the federating units and raise tax-to-GDP ratio considerably. Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) and Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) are confirming this point. Collection of SRB in 2011-12 and 2012-13 at Rs25 and Rs33.7 billion respectively is impressive as compared to what Sindh used to get from the FBR — never more than Rs12 billion. PRA in its very first year (2012-13) collected Rs37 billion compared to Rs26 billion that was received from the FBR in 2011-12.

The provincial performance in the case of sales tax on services completely belies the impression that they do not have the capacity to generate taxes. If sales tax on goods is given back to provinces, as was the case under the Government India Act of 1935, they will certainly perform much better than their federal counterpart as evident from the management of sales tax on services.

However, the performance of provinces in collecting agricultural income tax is extremely poor. This is a common issue both at federal and provincial level arising from absence of will to collect income tax from the rich and mighty — the meagre collection of agricultural income tax, less than Rs2.5 billion by all provinces and Centre — should be a serious cause for concern. It is imperative that right to levy tax on income, including agricultural income, should be with the Centre. In return, the Centre should hand over sales tax on goods to the provinces.

For the current fiscal year, the FBR is required to collect Rs2475 billion. The federal government’s total revenues (both tax and non-tax) are estimated at Rs3420 billion, out of which share of provinces is Rs1502 billion. The federal expenditure under debt servicing is Rs1154 billion, defence affairs & services is Rs627 and running of civil government is Rs275 billion. After charge of these four items, there is deficit of Rs138 billion — implying more borrowings!

While the provinces have not been allowed to levy and collect indirect taxes on goods within their geographical boundaries, the federal government has utterly failed to tap the real revenue potential. Failure of the FBR to tap real tax potential adversely affects the provinces. In fiscal year 2012-13 due to massive revenue shortfall of over Rs400 billion on the part of the FBR, all the four provinces could not get the promised amounts from NFC. Any shortfall in the FBR’s revenues or exemptions through statutory regulatory orders (SROs) jeopardises projection of revenue collection and fiscal deficit.

The FBR has persistently been failing to meet budgetary targets for the last many years what to speak of realising the real revenue potential, which is not less than Rs8 trillion. In 2012-13, it even failed to collect Rs2000 billion. This year’s target is less than Rs2500 billion. The failure to tap the real tax potential is the real dilemma of Pakistan. Poor performance of the FBR adversely affects the provinces as they are wholly dependent on what the Centre collects and transfers to them from the divisible pool.

Centre is unwilling to grant the provinces their legitimate taxation rights while it collects too little to meet their overall financial demands. The size of the cake — divisible pool — is so small that nothing substantial can be done to come out of debt enslavement and to spend adequately for the welfare of the people, no matter in which part of the country they live.

Track record of the FBR shows remote possibility of collecting even Rs6 trillion in the next three years to give enough fiscal space both to the Centre and the provinces to come out of the present economic mess, thus providing some relief to the poor as well as trade and industry. Under the given scenario, federation-provinces tax tangle will continue unchecked and further taxation through local governments, when elected, would not serve any useful purpose — there will be no relief to the people, rather tax burden will increase manifold.

Pakistan will remain in debt enslavement and more and more people will be pushed below the poverty line. If we want to come out of this crisis, the parliament will have to reconsider the prevailing social contract between the federation and the provinces. Provincial autonomy and local self-governance without taxation rights and equitable distribution of income and wealth is meaningless. We cannot overcome perpetual economic and political crises unless the provinces are given true autonomy; ownership of all resources; generation of own revenue and exclusive right to utilise it for the welfare of their denizens.

The provincial parliaments in Pakistan should be pressurised by civil society to enact laws for establishment of local governments as ordained under Article 140A of the Constitution on the basis of social policy — they have so far just copied the previous outdated ones with patchwork here and there. The ruling classes do not want to empower people through self-governance. They want to enjoy total control over resources. The local governments will not be meaningful unless entitled, within national economic policy, to have adequate financial resources of their own, of which they may dispose freely within the framework of their powers and for public welfare.

In a nutshell, for achieving the goal of fiscal devolution, local governments’ financial resources must be commensurate with the responsibilities provided for by the constitution and the law to ensure welfare of the people and ensure sustainable growth at grassroots level. Part of the financial resources of local authorities shall derive from local taxes and spent for providing universal entitlements and development. Pakistan must follow the model of welfare states where resources available to local governments are based on a sufficiently diversified and buoyant nature to enable them to keep pace with the real evolution of the cost of carrying out their tasks.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

02.02.2014

Forgotten Pakistanis
Over 34 Pakistani citizens, languishing in Bagram Prison without charge or trial, are awaiting government’s intervention for the last 12 years
By Abdul Nasir Khan

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has always been vocal against illegal and lethal drone strikes on Pakistani territory, but he must remember that drone strikes are not the only aspect of the United States’ misguided counter-terrorism policy to affect Pakistani citizens. The United States is currently holding over 34 Pakistani citizens in Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, without charge, trial or access to a lawyer.

The US authorities handed over six Pakistani prisoners to Pakistan on November 16, 2013 after non-profit lawyers’ firm Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) fought the case in Lahore High Court. Justice Khalid Mehmood Khan had clearly directed the Pakistan authorities in October 2012 to negotiate their release as there was nothing against these prisoners — no charges, no trial.

The handed over detainees included 19-year-old Hamidullah Khan, who belongs to Waziristan. But he and his family have been living in Karachi for greater economic opportunities. Hamidullah has always been an excellent student and dreamt of becoming a doctor. In July 2008, during the summer holidays, his father sent him to his family home in Wazirisitan to collect their belongings. The family had learned of an impending military operation in the area and wanted to salvage their belongings. After a few weeks of traveling and having collected the family belongings, Hamidullah called his parents to say he was coming home. That is the last they heard of him. He was 14 when he disappeared.
If the United States leaves Afghanistan in 2014, the Pakistani detainees at Bagram Prison will be handed over to Afghan authorities notorious for the horrific torture they inflict on detainees.

A year later, his family discovered the US government was detaining him in Bagram, Afghanistan. His family believes that he was sold to the US soldiers across the border in return for a hefty bounty. How else could one explain that a child of fourteen, an excellent student, whose dream was to become a doctor, ended up in the black hole that is Bagram Prison?

Though the Pakistani government has also been aware of other detainees’ plight, it has failed to take genuine steps to repatriate its citizens.

It was only in response to litigation initiated by Justice Project Pakistan and the bold efforts of Justice Khalid Mehmood Khan of the Lahore High Court that these detainees begin to see a glimmer of hope.

In January 2012, Justice Khan rightly held that Hamidullah and five other detainees were innocent of any wrongdoing. He also said that even if they were guilty, it is the responsibility of the Pakistani government to ensure they are provided with legal representation and that they have their day in court. Only after ordered by Justice Khan, the Pakistani government initiated negotiations with the US government to seek the return of its citizens.

On October 16, 2012, the Pakistani government claimed in court that Hamidullah and five other detainees would be returning home but it took more than a year to materialise. Hamidullah’s mother kept fasting for long five years for his release and finally she saw him in Central Jail Peshawar which become possible after the LHC ordered the authorities to arrange meeting of the handed over detainees with their relatives.

Otherwise, the Pakistani authorities were trying to hide the fact that US authorities had handed them over six Pakistani prisoners. It became possible when lawyers from JPP informed the court on November 21, 2013 that the six prisoners landed in Islamabad on November 16, 2013.

The standing council of Pakistan Foreign Ministry expressed his ignorance about the fact, but on direction of the court he submitted a positive written report on next hearing.

There are still 34 more Pakistanis detained in Bagram Prison waiting for the Pakistani government’s help for release for the past 12 years. By not pressing the US government to repatriate those at Bagram Prison, it has destroyed their lives as well as those of their families in Pakistan.

Time is running short for the Pakistani government to redeem itself. It seems increasingly likely that the United States will leave only a small amount of troops in Afghanistan after 2014, certainly not enough to man Bagram Prison. If so, the Pakistani detainees at Bagram Prison will be handed over to Afghan authorities notorious for the horrific torture they inflict on detainees.

The Pakistani government has the legal and moral high-ground to demand the unconditional return of all its citizens detained illegally in Bagram Prison. It must hold negotiations with the US authorities at the highest level and sign a repatriation agreement applicable to present and future detainees. The agreement must guarantee Pakistani citizens will be repatriated in full respect of their internationally and domestically protected human rights.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

02.02.2014

A medium of change
Will the changeover from Urdu/Pashto to English-medium schooling in KP take the intended course?
By Tahir Ali

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is going to introduce English-medium schooling and a uniform curriculum in all the public sector schools from the upcoming academic session. The shift from Urdu/Pashto medium to English-medium textbooks will be completed in several phases. In the first stage commencing from this April, the students of grade one, besides English, will also study Mathematics and General Knowledge in English. With the promotion of these students to grade two, English-medium textbooks/education will also move up the ladder, if not earlier. The process will take about four to five years to reach up to secondary level.

Official sources say the government is fully prepared for the shift. “First, 400 master trainers were trained who are now busy training primary school teachers for grade one. The process will continue till mid-March and 36000 teachers will be trained this year. One teacher from each primary school will be guided on the new textbooks in ten-day workshops. For more classes later, more master trainers will be trained who would then train all the 120000 teachers in KP,” says an official privy to the process.

He says the government has prepared/printed textbooks and these will be provided well before the start of the session.

Teachers and parents say English medium education was long overdue. It will bring public sector schools at par with their private counterparts which have seen a mushroom growth in recent years. In the absence or shortage of quality English medium government schools, parents go for private schools which are increasingly getting costlier and unaffordable, they argue.

Naming them Centennial model high schools, the government had earlier converted a few government high schools to English medium status throughout the province. These schools proved a great success and have gained parents’ confidence.

The PTI activists say it will help end the decade-old class-based education, bring a uniform curriculum, remove disparities between the education standards in urban and rural areas, ensure equal opportunities for competition and progress to both the rich and the poor and will augment enrolment in government schools.

Nevertheless, changeover from Urdu/Pashto to English-medium schooling is, however, easier said than done. It is likely to bring several problems for both the students and teachers overwhelmed by an English-phobia of an extreme kind. But nothing is impossible for a resolute mind and hardworking administration. Though the government seems conscious of the gigantic challenges lying ahead, some precautions must be made.
Too ambitious for schools with no infrastructure.

Too ambitious for schools with no infrastructure.

Planners will not only have to select and train qualified and competent master trainers and teachers in the later stages, they also will have to prepare/supply books in time and a permanent monitoring mechanism will also have to be developed.

“We need hardworking and proficient master trainers and teachers to be able to teach maths and science in English. Without qualified and committed trainers and teachers and a robust oversight mechanism and competent monitors, the move will come to nothing. One hopes the government will be able to publish/provide textbooks in time and will induct, train and provide competent teachers for this purpose,” says Zubair Ahmad, an educationist.

“Training of teachers continues province-wide. To make the process successful, the concerned officials should ensure that a trainee teacher nearing his retirement or likely to be promoted in near future is not selected. Or at least two teachers should be trained for a class,” says a teacher.

“Some of the trainee primary teachers can hardly speak a simple sentence in English for grade one. The trainee teachers must be young, energetic, qualified (preferably graduate) and must be selected on merit without any interference from teachers’ union and politicians,” says a master trainer. “Also, primary teachers whose promotion to high schools is due shortly must never be considered for training as their departure would deprive their erstwhile schools of a teacher trained for grade one while his training would be of no use in high schools. The government should also plan and ensure follow-up activities so that teachers continue to teach to the class they were trained for,” says the trainer.

“Almost all the teachers at my centre are young. They take keen interest in the training. They are happy that English medium textbooks will improve enrolment and prospects of their students and augment their own prestige,” says another master trainer.

English-medium education is being started from grade one (Awal Aala). It means two preceding classes — the preparatory class (called Awal Adna locally) and the other called Kachi have been left out, says a teacher, Shafiq Khan. The KP government, however, recently announced playgroup classes will be started in public schools from the upcoming session.

Most developed countries have uniform system of education. But different curricula in the public and private sectors and religious madaris (seminaries) have sharply divided Pakistan. A modern/uniform curriculum is necessary to strengthen national unity and promote moderation and tolerance in the country. The PTI, in its 6-points education policy, too had promised a uniform education system if voted to power.

It requires huge funds, time, personnel, incessant work and cooperation from all the private schools and religious seminaries to have a uniform curriculum province-wide. So, the PTI has decided to bring uniform curriculum in government schools through English-medium textbooks for the moment. Private schools may be covered later. The PTI leaders argue the government and private schools follow the same syllabus for class 9 and 10, so why can’t it be the same in other classes.

One hopes the move will lead to healthy competition between the public and private schools. The government should also promote spirit of cooperation and coordination between the two.

The PTI opponents accuse it of being ‘secular’ having pro-west agenda (JUI-F leaders harp on the theory) while some analysts accuse it of taking the KP towards fundamentalism.

Following the landmark 18th Constitutional Amendment that devolved education and curriculum design to provinces, the KP government can modify its curriculum and textbooks. Textbooks lessons have been usually changed by successive governments and the PTI government is also expected to follow suit. But its leaders say they would do so in strict compliance with the 2006 national curriculum. It means there will be no major changes in curriculum introduced by the previous ANP-led government.

The ANP government had included lessons on local heroes in curriculum such as famous poets Rehman Baba, Khushal Khan Khattak and Ghani Khan. They also included lessons on human rights, peace and religious tolerance and removed historic distortions, hate material and harsh sentiments against non-Muslims. The ANP activists say the Jamaat-e-Islami is now bent on reversing these changes.

The KP Elementary and Secondary Education Minister, Muhammad Atif Khan, as per newspaper reports, said Islamic ideology would be the basis of his government’s steps regarding curriculum. He said the PTI government would accept no bar on religious education and won’t tolerate external interference in this regard. He also vowed to rectify the ‘mistakes’ in present curriculum introduced by the ANP government.

The KP Information Minister Shah Farman reportedly said the KP would revise and develop curriculum as per Islamic teachings and the country’s cultural norms. He termed criminal the changes brought about by the ANP-led government (some changes he and Khan cited included the removal of Quranic verses on Jihad, mention of Kashmir as disputed land and replacement of lessons on Voice of God, Hazrat Umar and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) with those on ‘The Man Who Was a Giant’, ‘Helen Keller’ and ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ etc).

“While its coalition partner — The JI — wishes to Islamise syllabi by expunging some ‘secular’ lessons from them and limit the donors’ role in policy/decision making, the civil society, opposition parties and donor agencies may dislike the move. How will the PTI deal with these conflicting viewpoints, remains to be seen,” says an ANP activist.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

02.02.2014

Cricket, a neo-imperialist tool
PCB must persuade others boards to come together
By Tahir Kamran

These days, Narayanaswami Srinivasan, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), is busy meeting chiefs of the cricket boards of England and Australia to establish their dominance over the world of cricket. He seems unreceptive to how pathetic his team’s performance against New Zealand has been in the ongoing series.

A draft proposal presented at the International Cricket Council’s board meeting in Dubai on January 28-29, calls for an overhaul of international cricket — a move that may have profound implications on the game of cricket.

The ICC’s financial and commercial affairs group advocates conjuring up a new executive committee with powers to oversee issues pertaining to “all constitutional, personnel, integrity, ethics, development and nomination matters, as well as matters regarding [financial] distribution from the ICC”. Three members of the committee will be representatives from India, England and Australia, while the fourth member will be nominated by the ICC’s executive board. The position of the ICC chairman will also be rotated among the three countries. All the important events will be held in these countries and all will be contingent on their approval — who will play against whom and when. Most of the test cricket will be played between these three.

Also, the Future Tours Programme will be scrapped for a new bilateral system which will see England, Australia and India play each other more often.

The document also sets out a new method for organising the world cricket schedule, which forms the basis of each nation’s lucrative television rights deals.

Ironically, the ICC’s financial and commercial affairs committee’s proposal has snubbed South Africa, despite it being at the top of world test rankings.

The BCCI seems to be dominating the Big Three, and the affairs of international cricket, in a bellicose manner — because, it is the richest cricket board, earning around 80 per cent of the game’s revenue.

However, on January 29, better sense prevailed and the ICC did some toning down of the proposals in the 21-page position paper. Still, things do not bode well for international cricket. Such neo-imperialist practices are making their way into the sport.

Tarika Khattar, writer for Wisden India and cricket enthusiast, laments that Indians have been zealous critics of anything reeking of imperialism but, in this particular case, their cricket board officials are its biggest proponents.

So far, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have voiced opposition to such an arrangement, while West Indies, New Zealand and Zimbabwe have succumbed to the lucrative offers made to them by the Big Three.

A similar carrot, in the form of test series, was offered to Pakistan. But the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) so far has been very vocal in its opposition to the position paper.

Some influential personalities in Bangladesh too have expressed criticism. They justifiably feel that Bangladesh will be affected the most if the proposed setup takes effect. The fact of the matter is that its test status is in serious jeopardy. But the Indian board will try its best to bring Bangladesh to her side by making enticing promises. The president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board has already issued a statement in favour of the proposed setup.

There is a lurking fear that the position paper, with minor amendments, will be eventually adopted. If the bigwigs in Pakistan do not wake up and do whatever it takes to ward off such machinations, Pakistan, sooner or later, will be rendered a pariah, no matter how good our players are.

I earnestly think the situation requires high profile figures like Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad and Waseem Akram to come into the open and voice their concerns. The reputation and high profile of Imran Khan in the world of cricket may come in handy for the future of Pakistan cricket. He is one of the greatest all-rounders the world has seen. I am sure when he speaks; the likes of Narayanaswami Srinivasen and Giles Clarke will listen.

Making noise is imperative for the future of Pakistani cricket. The PCB needs to actively persuade other cricket playing nations to come together for the good of test cricket.

One is appalled by the reticence of Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. A bit of searching on the internet and it all became crystal clear. Both are on the pay role of BCCI and each gets 3.6 crore Indian rupees annually. Thus, their columns and comments do not represent their independent opinion but that of the BCCI.

In fact, Indian cricket has been reduced to a money-making exercise. Money is used with impunity to hide mediocrity of the Indian cricket which becomes all the more glaring when it goes overseas to play.

As Tarika Khattar says, the BCCI is held hostage by the clique of businessmen with vested interests who care for money and not for cricket.

One could argue that not revenue generation but the calibre of the cricket team ought to be the criteria to ascertain any cricketing nation’s status. To evaluate the merit of any team, consideration must be given to its performance abroad.

It will be interesting to know how many matches the Indian cricket team has won away from India recently!

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

02.02.2014

The great summer exchange
The cataclysmic migration of 1947, which uprooted millions of people from places they had lived in for centuries, still needs to be understood
By Yaqoob Khan Bangash

The exchange of populations which followed the transfer of power in August 1947 was one of the largest and bloodiest such migrations in recent memory. Millions left their hearths and homes, hundreds of thousands lost their lives in the process, and countless were (and still are) unaccounted for.

This great demographic shift has unfortunately not received much academic attention, and the focus has been mainly high politics and the numbers game. However, this cataclysmic event, which uprooted people from places they had lived in for centuries and made them move to a new, unknown, land full of expectations, still needs to be understood.

For example, in Pakistan the so-called ‘Muhajirs’ — people who actually suffered for the sake of Pakistan — were very different from the already resident populations of what became Pakistan. Since the areas which became Pakistan were Muslim majority, the issues here were very different from Muslim minority provinces where the threat of Hindu domination was very patent, and therefore their attitude towards a separate homeland for Muslims was also different than those coming in. Similarly, how the incoming people — the Muhajirs — were accepted and treated remains to be fully investigated.

Unfortunately, very few firsthand accounts remain on the subject of the population exchanges, and so our information is limited to official documents which are usually concerned with numbers and lack any kind of emotion. Among the primary sources we do have is the excellently written account of 1947 by the then Revenue Minister of Bahawalpur State, Sir Penderel Moon of the Indian Civil Service, which gives us a sense of how the Hindu and Sikh populations were evacuated from this princely state on the periphery, and the ways in which the incoming Muslim refugees were accommodated. What follows is a brief discussion based on Moon’s book.
Unfortunately, very few firsthand accounts remain on the subject of the population exchanges, and so our information is limited to official documents which are usually concerned with numbers and lack any kind of emotion.

Among the states that acceded to Pakistan, Bahawalpur had the most non-Muslim subjects. Most of the Sikhs in the state had come as a result of the Sutlej Valley Project in the 1920’s and 30’s and numbered around 50,000. The Hindu population was more, numbering around 190,000 and most of them had been inhabitants of the state for several generations.

As noted by Moon, communal tensions in Bahawalpur only grew after the partition of India. Before that the tension in the Punjab had had little effect on the state except in a few places in the north eastern part near Bahawalnagar where a lot of malicious propaganda was carried out. Moon noted: “In order to spread alarm and afford colourable pretext for an exodus — since Bahawalpur had remained entirely peaceful — some Hindus started petty cases of arson in their own houses…and then made out that Muslims had done it, that their lives and property were in danger and that they must leave at once to some place of greater security.” As a result, both Moon and Gurmani, the prime minister, toured the area and assured the Hindus and Sikhs that there was no reason for alarm and that they should feel safe in the state.

By the end of August 1947, however, disturbances had erupted in Bahawalpur State. The arrival of Muslim refugees with their tale of misery and woe had incensed the local population in Bahawalnagar and led to a series of riots in the city that ended up in the massacre of over four hundred Hindus. Moon and Gurmani had driven up to Bahawalnagar from Bahawalpur city in the last week of August 1947 to ascertain the situation, going through several towns, including Hasilpur where large scale looting and massacres had taken place.

As with the rest of the Punjab, civil administration had broken down in Bahawalnagar and both the police and the army personnel were not following orders. In these circumstances, both Gurmani and Moon decided that Moon should be given “not only powers of District Magistrate but full powers of Government over the whole of the eastern half of the state i.e., Bahawalpur district.” Gurmani then returned to Bahawalpur to look after the part of the state which as yet did not appear affected by riots and looting.

Moon immediately set upon restoring law and order in Bahawalnagar and the adjoining towns and villages. His main tasks were:

The collection and protection of the Hindus and the evacuation of those who wished to go to India.
The custody of their property, or whatever remained of it.
The recovery of stolen property and abducted women and the arrest of as many offenders as possible.
The collection and safeguarding of stocks of grain, and
More and more as the days passed — the settlement of incoming Muslim refugees.’

As Moon describes, all the aforementioned tasks were undertaken solely through the state machinery — no help was sought or received from the government of Pakistan. The main reason behind not approaching the government of Pakistan was that the Bahawalpur government did not want to allow the Pakistani establishment to use these circumstances to create a sense of paramountcy over Bahawalpur. Moon noted: “…if we went cap in hand to Pakistan, we should be ourselves at their mercy and enable them to assert the Paramountcy of the old British-Indian government.”

Restoring order in Bahawalnagar and the surrounding areas was not an easy task, especially since most of the Hindus in the area were in a panic and wanted to leave. Therefore, Moon decided to evacuate all Hindus who wanted to leave to Hindumalkot in Bikaner State (which had acceded to India). Hindumalkot was only a few miles from the last station in Bahawalpur State, Macleodganj Road and so was a very convenient passage. However, initially the train drivers refused to take the Hindu refugees to Hindumalkot, fearing an attack by the Indian forces stationed there.

Moon has to personally travel from Macleodganj Road to Hindumalkot to allay their fears. While a number of Hindus in the district wanted to leave, many, especially those who had been resident of the state for many generations, were reluctant to leave. At that time the policy of Bahawalpur was not to encourage Hindus to leave the state.

As noted by Prime Minister Gurmani: “His Highness and his Government are anxious that they should stay and every possible effort is being made to restore confidence among them.” However, soon disturbances in Bahawalpur city in September 1947 and later in Rahimyar Khan led to the large scale evacuation of Hindus to India, which was done mostly through State resources. Moon wrote: “The process of evacuation extended over a couple of months. Altogether sixteen special trains were run and the number of persons evacuated was about sixty thousand.”

The coming of refugees from India also posed a formidable problem for the government of Bahawalpur, especially when it was trying to evacuate non-Muslims from the state and restore order. By the end of September 1947, not many refugees had arrived in Bahawalpur and those which had come were quickly allotted evacuee land on a six-month temporary basis. In the meantime, the government of Bahawalpur had also promulgated an Evacuee Property Trust Law, similar to the West Punjab Ordinance.

The refugees had proved to be quite industrious and had settled themselves in lands vacated by Hindus and Sikhs without much help from the government. By the end of October 1947, however, the government of India had begun to dump huge numbers of refugees on the border with Bahawalpur State at Macleodganj Road primarily because it was the safest route available.

As noted by Moon, the Bahawalpur government had nearly reached its limit of accommodating refugees and could not take responsibility for resettling anymore, despite attempts by the government of West Punjab in forcing them to do so. Moon wrote: “Our stand throughout was that the government of Bahawalpur, unlike that of West Punjab or the federal government of Pakistan, could not be held responsible for refugees. We had not asked for the creation of Pakistan or even been consulted about it, and therefore anything that we might do to mitigate its consequences by settling refugees within the state was purely ex gratia.”

The government of Pakistan, to the surprise of Moon, accepted this argument, in light of the fact that Bahawalpur had already accommodated about two hundred thousand refugees, and at a refugee rehabilitation conference in Lahore in early December 1947 impressed upon the provinces of Sindh and NWFP to take on more arriving refugees. However, the refugee problem in West Punjab still plagued the Pakistan government as hundreds of thousands still remained in refugee camps well into 1948.

Not only were the other provincial governments reluctant to receive any more refugees, even the refugees themselves were hesitant to move. Therefore, Governor General Jinnah declared emergency on August 27, 1948 on the grounds that the economic life of Pakistan was threatened by the mass influx of refugees and the following day all the refugees were divided among different units, with little room for negotiation. Hence, Sindh had to accept 200,000, NWFP 100,000, Balochistan Agency, Bahawalpur and Khairpur 100,000, while the Punjab had to resettle another 100,000. A sizeable number of the 100,000 allotted to the princely states and agencies thereafter were absorbed by Bahawalpur.

This short description of how and why the non-Muslim populations of Bahawalpur were evacuated, how violence erupted and the attitude of the Bahawalpur and other provincial governments towards the incoming Muslim refugees substantially complicates our understanding of the transfer of populations.

We have only recently begun to understand the events of 1947, and only more research on those tumultuous days will enable us to understand Pakistan then, and now.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

09.02.2014

Tests and accountability
Under standardised testing strategy, accountability mechanism needs to be rethought holding all the stakeholders accountable for the performance of schools
By Irfan Muzaffar

Standardised testing as a strategy has worked to tame the sheer complexity and uncertainty of the process of education for as long as it has been around. It does so by using the test scores as proxies of learning achievements. These tests appeared in the early 20th century in the form of intelligence testing and primarily served the needs of military recruiters. But it is in the last two decades that they have become quite widespread and pervasive.

This has happened in part due to advancements in information and computing technologies that have made possible collection and processing of large amounts of data. But more importantly, they have gained influence as part of a larger package of reforms usually referred to by education scholars as the Global Managerial Education Reforms (GMERs). These reforms use testing together with a potpourri of market and managerialist policy solutions together with such ideas as choice, competition, incentives, and accountability.

The origins of the GMERs can be loosely located in the US in mid1980s. In 1983, the Reagan administration appointed a commission called the National Commission for Excellence (NCEE) to take stock of the state of education in the US and make recommendations for its improvement. The report of NCEE, entitled A Nation at Risk painted a doomsday scenario and warned that US was fast losing its economic preeminence to other competitors due to the falling quality of American public schools. It described American schools as faltering in their mission and urgently called for a nation wide movement to raise the quality of education in public schools.

Ever since the publication of A Nation at Risk, the talk of standards and accountability has filled the air. The standards are set and tests administered frequently to assess if they have been met. The evidence generated by tests constituted what came to be known as ‘achievement gaps’, between different racial and socio-economic groups as a central policy concern, ultimately paving the way for the famous No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act passed by the Bush administration in 2001. NCLB took the stakes associated with the standardised tests to new heights. According to some US-based scholars, ‘gap gazing’ became the fetish of education research in the US and beyond. While some reformers supported testing and accountability based on them, others opposed them. A controversy around the GMERs followed in the Western countries in the wake of these debates.
The policymakers and others worrying about education in Pakistan will do well to think diffusing accountability throughout the system and reconsider the suggestions to raise the stakes of large-scale standardised tests for teachers and students.

Of course, like many other ‘travelling reform ideas’, the discourse-practice of standardised testing crept surreptitiously into the global education discourses as part of the GMERs. But as it happens usually in the case of such travelling ideas, the ‘standardised tests’ were stripped of the debate/controversy surrounding them in the US. In Pakistani context, the meaning of standardised tests also changed as some began to use the term for any large-scale test irrespective of whether it has been developed through a ‘standard’ procedure or not.

While the GMERs in general need some scrutiny, in this article I restrict myself to a discussion on the perception about standardised and large-scale tests as means to hold the system accountable and measure progress toward ‘reforms’? This discussion is important since they sound immediately attractive to policymakers and other stakeholders. We hear plenty about their advantages but it is important to recognize their cons as well. In fact, the entire field of psychometrics owes itself to the attempts to find a way out of the formidable problems posed by the use of standardised tests to allow fair comparisons between individual children and between groups of children.

To be sure, I am not against testing per se but only worry about the consequences of using it for teacher accountability. The existing evidence suggests that learning-deprivation can continue to coexist with the best of standardised testing regimens. When used for accountability purposes by raising their stakes, such tests can have unintended consequences. To ignore such consequences in general, including how good teaching is converted into learning gains, can hardly be an adequate basis for an acceptable evaluative system.

When the same test is given to a large number of students in the same grade, it is assumed that the test scores will allow for comparisons of various kinds. Does this assumption make sense in the context of Pakistan? I think it does not stand some very preliminary scrutiny primarily due to the enormous, almost intractable, diversity in Pakistan. Pakistan is afflicted by the worst of inequities in the distribution of capabilities across its population. The contextual factors (both inside and outside of the school) that have an effect on learning vary significantly across different groups of children. So the same test being given to people located at different points on any interpersonal comparison of well-being can potentially produce very different results.

If different test takers taking the same test are on vastly different locations on measures of socio-economic well-being, then it does not seem very defensible to rely on the test scores to make judgments about accountability and performance of teachers. The level of effort that teachers must put in their instruction will vary for different individuals and groups. A focus on student outcomes alone, despite its usefulness for several purposes, can blind us to the actual work done by teachers. Imagine a teacher who is fairly well-qualified and motivated and is working tirelessly with children from high poverty groups. Yet, the socio-economic status of the households that children come from together with other problems associated with poverty could impact student outcomes negatively. Tying accountability with test scores will end up discouraging good teachers in such circumstances.

Then, there is the other, and much larger, problem — that of mortgaging your life to the test. Even in the rich countries, test-based accountability has had unintended effects and has led to widespread manipulation of the system. Test-based accountability can push the stakeholders with high stakes to manipulate the system in different ways, including cheating or lowering the standards to keep the scores higher.

As Diane Ravitch, an eminent American historian of education, puts it: “Test scores are misused, however, when they become blunt instruments to punish teachers or schools. States’ standardised tests are not the equivalent of yardsticks or barometers. They have margins of error. If Johnny takes a test on a Monday, he could take the same test a week later and get a higher or lower score depending on any number of things, including Johnny’s mood, his health, the weather, the testing conditions in the room, or just random variation. The tests also sometimes contain errors or ambiguities. These are weak reeds on which to hang the fate and future of students, teachers, and schools.”

Another scholar of education, Dan C. Lortie, has famously said that education reforms are “long on prescription and short on description”. Though said in the context of the US, it is equally true for Pakistan. The suggestions to use the standardised tests for accountability need to be seen against the backdrop of this history of quick fixes and half-thought prescriptions with less deliberation and analysis.

I also find it interesting, that accountability talk focuses on teachers alone, but not on other cogs of the system. It would be a great idea to make the political leaders in a constituency also accountable for providing the kind of support to schools and teachers that is needed for good results. It would be equally heartening to also see the commissioners, or DCOs, or whosoever is incharge to be accountable for the performance of schools in their districts.

It is easy to pull the teachers out for election and other sorts of duties and blame them for low performance of children as well. Let the standardised test scores, then, make it more difficult for every cog in the system, and not just for teachers. To be sure, I am not defending bad teachers, but just suggesting some critical issues for consideration by the readers regarding the use of standardised tests for accountability.

Let me end with an example. In 1996, I attended a lecture from a Russian professor of Mathematics at Columbia University. He was talking about mathematics education in the erstwhile Soviet Union. The American audience were shocked when told that in the Soviet Union, the parents of the children would get a letter of displeasure and a warning from the party offices if their kids did not do well in mathematics. Well, like it or not, this sort of targeting of parents for accountability also worked by presumably influencing the parental attitude toward learning of a specific school subject by their children.

While doing something like this may be a stretch of imagination in Pakistan, we should at least consider the idea of raising the stakes for education for everyone in the society. Why only teachers? Why should the communities, parents, school councils, and departments not share the burden of accountability? As the evidence from other countries show, the use of standardised testing for holding teachers accountable for children’s learning in the midst of this global epidemic of GMERs can lead to unintended consequences.

The policymakers and others worrying about education in Pakistan will do well to think diffusing accountability throughout the system and reconsider the suggestions to raise the stakes of large-scale standardised tests for teachers and students.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

09.02.2014

Duty vs charity
Access to free medical care is one part of the safety net that a welfare state must ensure
By Syed Mansoor Hussain

One of the important areas where modern liberal and conservative politics collide is concerning the welfare state and the ‘safety net’ that goes with it. Perhaps, the concept of a Muslim ‘welfare state’ is best encapsulated in a famous saying attributed to the second Caliph that “If a dog dies hungry on the banks of the River Euphrates, Umar (RA) will be responsible for dereliction of duty”. Clearly providing for ‘all’ was considered a duty and not an act of charity.

Modern concept of a ‘welfare state’ has evolved considerably from the times of the righteous Caliphate, but the basic concept that it is the ‘duty’ of the state to provide a basic safety net persists. And universal access to free medical care is one part of this safety net. Before I go further, I will like to explain my point about ‘duty’ versus ‘charity’ by taking the example of two different medical institutions that are both providing excellent care to the public but with a different perspective.

First we have the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital (SKH) in Lahore run by Imran Khan. SKH is a ‘charity’ hospital where I was told a few years ago that roughly one third of the patients receive free medical treatment, another third receive subsidised treatment and a third pay a full price for treatment. Essentially, SKH provides treatment at a cost based upon a patient’s capacity to pay.

On the other hand, we have the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), one of the largest kidney hospitals in Pakistan that performs hundreds of kidney transplants a year besides providing medical care for all sorts of kidney problems including ‘dialysis’ to thousands of patients every year. Yet every patient is treated for free irrespective of their ability to pay. SIUT is a ‘government’ hospital and the government provides a part of the budget while the greater component comes from private donations.

The comparison between these two institutions best explains the different concepts of medical care. SIUT maintains the idea the medical care is a right and all patients that need care should be provided such care irrespective of their capacity to pay. SKH, on the other hand, runs on the idea that medical care is not a ‘right’ but a ‘favour’ made available to deserving individuals from charitable contributions. And that the recipient of such a favour should feel obligated to the charitable donors for their largesse.

I joined the department of cardiac surgery in King Edward Medical College/University (KEMC/KEMU) as the head of the department in 2004. Around then, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the then chief minister of the Punjab, announced that ‘emergency room’ care in all public hospitals was going to be free for all patients.
If we accept the concept that medical care is a right for all citizens, then medical care must be decentralised and basic primary and preventive care must be made available at the local level.

Over the next year, ‘all’ medical care in Mayo Hospital was also made free. In my department, we performed more than two hundred and fifty complex heart operations including coronary bypass surgery and heart valve replacements for free every year. The patients were only required to pay Rs25 out-patient admission fees.

And that brings me back to where I started from. There are two opposing points of view as far as free medical care for all is concerned. First is that Pakistan is a poor country and as such the government does not have the financial capability to provide care for all for free and those patients that can pay should contribute to their care. The other point of view is that all patients should have free care made available and if the patients choose to contribute, that is a choice left to their discretion. Of course, patients that prefer can always seek care in the private sector.

Unfortunately, politicians prefer to build edifices that commemorate their time in government. The CM of the Punjab recently announced that a cancer hospital will be built in Lahore to provide ‘free’ care for cancer patients. A great idea and something that will indeed benefit many sick patients. But that illustrates the problem with healthcare in the public sector.

What about a 50-year-old woman that develops a cancerous ‘lump’ in her breast? She lives in a village or a small town where access to medical care is limited. Unfortunately, for her, the lump in her breast will become quite large before she seeks medical treatment. By then the cancer might be too advanced to be cured. So, if there was a system in which such a patient gets regular medical care, the cancer could be detected early enough to be treated effectively.

If we accept the concept that medical care is a right for all citizens, then two important conceptual changes on the part of our administrators and politicians must happen to make it possible. First is that medical care must be decentralised. Second, that basic primary and preventive care must be made available at the local level.

Besides prevention of serious medical problems like communicable disease and problems of maternal and child health, many chronic medical problems like high blood pressure and adult onset Diabetes can be treated very well at the ‘local’ level before they lead to serious problems like strokes and kidney failure. We already have a network of basic health units (BHUs) and rural healthcare centres (RHCs) and district and divisional hospitals. Obviously, these should be properly funded and provided with the required manpower and facilities to function effectively.

And also, the 50-year-old woman with a lump in her breast after early detection could undergo ‘curative’ treatment at the district level hospital. But that would require certain basic capabilities. First, the pathology service that can diagnose the problem based on a biopsy. Second, the surgical capability to perform the appropriate operation. Third, the medical capability to provide ‘chemotherapy’ (medicines to control the cancer). These services should be made available at the district hospital level. The capacity to provide ‘radiotherapy’ (special X-Rays) to destroy any remaining cancer can easily be outsourced to a specialised cancer hospital.

The same holds true for other problems like heart disease. Instead of building more specialised heart institutes, it would be entirely appropriate to provide specialised services like heart catheterisation and basic heart surgery in the larger district and divisional hospitals and all of the ‘teaching hospitals’ associated with different medical colleges. Of course, every ‘teaching hospital’ needs to have capability of treating all types of patients and also provide the training for future medical specialists.

Decentralisation of medical care and concentration on preventive care and early detection and treatment of chronic disease can make it possible to provide better care at all levels at a much reduced cost. This could make healthcare available for free to most people.

However, to successfully decentralise medical care, one important political aspect needs to be emphasised. That is of an effective local government system. If locally elected leaders are made responsible for running the local medical care systems, they will be vested in making them run properly. Presently, if a BHU, RHC or a district hospital does not run properly, nobody in the political or the bureaucratic hierarchy can be held responsible.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

09.02.2014

Rethinking Pakistan’s Political Economy
Both statist or Islamist Pakistan undermine the vast array of processes that are at work and feed into the nature of Pakistan’s state and society
By S Akbar Zaidi

This paper examines how the political economy of Pakistan has changed, both in theory and reality, when one considers the country as it actually exists today, and identifies the problems and challenges in trying to theorise about the new political economy. It is a critique of how the political economy has been constructed in Pakistan, especially with regard to the state and the military (perhaps for understandable reasons usually seen as one and the same), ignoring the actually existing country. Since Pakistan has changed in so many fundamental ways, one needs new ways of looking at the state, the military, and its society.

I begin with a brief summary of what theorisation has existed, and for this assess the contribution of the country’s main theoretician of the state and its political economy, Hamza Alavi, to show how he envisioned the state. I then examine some critiques of Alavi that suggest new ways to build on his work, where relevant. I also examine some new formulations about how Pakistan is seen, especially in the context of Islam, 9/11, and some institutions. I identify some of the major changes that have taken place in Pakistan’s social structure and its broad political economy and how the state functions. Following this, I turn to identify the restrictions or problems that exist in providing a systematic analysis of Pakistan’s political economy. Unlike many countries in south Asia and elsewhere, it is difficult to look at trajectories of the Pakistani state in evolutionary terms or on the basis of social structures and path dependence, or what Kaviraj calls “a combination of structural processes and conjunctural openings”. The old debate on the autonomy of the state – relative or otherwise – with regard to social structure and class formation poses an interesting challenge. To what extent does Pakistan’s social formation and social structure inform the behaviour and nature of its state?

Theorising the Pakistani State

Despite a number of eminent scholars and academics, there has only been one serious attempt of any significance theorising on Pakistan’s state, but, importantly, not its society. Alavi’s 1972 article and its subsequent reorderings by him (1972, 1983, 1990) have defined, unfortunately for far too long, the limited debate on the state in Pakistan. His thesis of an “overdeveloped state” laid the path for all scholars looking at the state in Pakistan to follow. This is not the place to examine whether Alavi’s simplistic structuralist interpretation of the state in Pakistan was a faithful and careful explanation at that time. For, much work has been built on this erroneous foundation, and any serious scholar in Pakistan today would certainly recognise a very different state and class structure in the country. One could even argue that Alavi’s analysis is irrelevant to what Pakistan is today and the theorisation is merely of historical relevance because the country is very different now by every account.

That all scholarship on the state in Pakistan owes its allegiance to Alavi speaks less about his intellectual insight and prowess than the inability of Pakistani intellectuals, academics and scholars to think for themselves. Alavi’s analysis laid the foundations for an unchanging, static, statist mode and model of analysis, which still dominates discourses on social change and the nature and foundations of the state in Pakistan in the fields of political economy, sociology and political science. However, there are some notable exceptions that have opted to evolve different paths, looking more at the social structure – that is, the country as it actually exists – than what was considered to be the omnipresent and overbearing institution of the state and its core components. While there were and still are numerous flaws in Alavi’s analysis, perhaps the inability to examine – or even understand and recognise – social forces must stand out as his biggest failing. That numerous scholars after 1972 have not recognised or corrected for this failing illustrates the poverty of ideas among Pakistani scholars examining the country’s state and society. Only with it becoming amply clear that Alavi’s highly statist analysis does not help in explaining Pakistan today has recent work emerged that is free of the earlier rigidities.

I briefly summarise Alavi’s key arguments about the nature of the state in Pakistan in 1972 through the work of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, the most recent and thorough interpreter of the overdeveloped state thesis. Akhtar critiques Alavi’s formulation and builds on it, highlighting significant weaknesses and adapting it to the present socio-economic and political formation of Pakistan. Following this, I provide some pointers that may help in designing and developing a further understanding of Pakistan’s state, its classes, and its institutions.

Simply put, Alavi’s argument is based on the notion that a nexus of power exists in Pakistan between landlords, the military, the bureaucracy, and what he calls “metropolitan capital”, which, based on Pakistan’s colonial legacy and evolution, has resulted in an “overdeveloped” postcolonial state presiding over an undeveloped or underdeveloped society. It is the military-bureaucratic “oligarchy” with the three propertied classes of landlords, industrialists, and metropolitan or foreign capital that has kept what can be called Pakistan’s political settlement in place, perhaps too functionally and rigidly. One of Akhtar’s many critiques dismisses Alavi’s “static conception of structure that underlies his understanding of the overdeveloped state”. Using a Gramscian framework, he brings in an analysis of the political and cultural spheres, which were missing in much of the neo-Marxist analyses of the 1970s.

As Akhtar reminds us, not only was an analysis and evaluation of society missing in most of Alavi’s work, but also that of resistance and of the working classes. As he argues, “While Alavi’s model of this state has offered much insight into the legacy of colonialism and the state forms it left behind, arguably the most gaping hole in his theoretical treatise is the lack of attention paid to the politics of the subordinate classes, or in other words, the working people upon whose exploitation the entire system of power rests”.

There seems to be a complete absence of the dynamics of change and transition in Alavi’s work, and one wonders how a theory of superstructure could have been so easily formulated while ignoring social and class dynamics.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)