Dinosaurs of politics

August 06, 2011

When the dinosaurs of Pakistani politics will have their last hurrah is hard to guess.

By Kunwar Idris


THE dinosaurs’ last hurrah was 65 million years ago after they ruled the earth for 200 million years. Their extinction paved the way for the rise of the mammals who took another 10 million years to emerge from the desolation.

When the dinosaurs of Pakistan’s politics will have their last hurrah and how long it will take for a new breed of productive mammal-politicians to establish their rule is hard to guess. But 60 years of political dinosaurs in the modern time frame seems like a million of the pre-historic Triassic period.

Volcanic eruptions are believed to have set in motion the process of the dinosaurs’ extinction. Recent research by Micha Ruhl of Netherland’s Utrecht University (quoted by The Economist) suggests that it was methane, a greenhouse gas much stronger than carbon dioxide, that hastened their end.

Mounting popular protests, recurring natural disasters that wreck the lives of the poor and an upheaval resulting in the loss of the more populous half of the country have driven the old dinosaurian establishment comprised of politicians, bureaucrats and generals (often sustained by judges) close to their demise. Challenging judicial orders — already made or in the making — could prove to be their methane. They can buy time but not for long.

Dinosaurs were brainless reptiles. Their present-day human counterparts are brainy enough to realise that they must not defy the legal writ. It is not parliament but the constitution that is supreme, and the Supreme Court, and not parliament, is its interpreter in the last resort. The fundamental flaw of our senior, or ageing, bosses is the tendency to place their wishes, or orders, above parliamentary traditions, the rule of law, fairness and human rights.

Such is the attitude that marks their dealings with public servants. When a bureaucrat resists illegal or improper orders — mostly oral — it is hard for him to survive. He is considered defiant, a doommonger or partial to their rivals. It is not reason but personal pique that drives their actions.

Most civil servants barring sycophants whose number, sadly, is growing, fall victim to perverse political behaviour. The normal tenure of three years in senior and sensitive jobs was cut short for this writer to a few months on four occasions. No reason was given but, seemingly, the message conveyed was that the party boss, the chief executive or the chief martial law administrator can do whatever he likes and to whomever.

The result, notwithstanding pretensions to the contrary, has been that hardly any bureaucrat today goes by the advice of the founder of the nation “to act as true servants of the people even at the risk of any minister or ministry trying to interfere with you in the discharge of your duties as civil servants. I hope it will not be so, but even if some of you have to suffer as a victim — I hope it will not happen — I expect you to do so readily. We shall, of course, see that there is security for you and safeguards….” The Quaid’s hope that “it will not happen” and his promise of giving security both have been consigned to the archives. Ziaul Haq even mutilated the Quaid’s exhortations to suit his own designs.

The security that the head of state and father of the nation had promised can be given only by the constitution, not by the Supreme Court. The fate of Sohail Ahmed, a civil servant of undisputed competence and integrity, who was made OSD (he was subsequently appointed secretary to the narcotics control division) for obeying the order of the Supreme Court was in the hands of the prime minister who made him OSD.

Has the Supreme Court relented to avert chaos or is it the beginning of the end of independence of the judiciary and total subordination of bureaucracy to politics is a question that haunts the people to the glee of most party bosses.

Though much is said about saving the system, the reality is that political power today, as in the past, revolves around individuals. It is hard to believe that Mr Asif Zardari is head of state under the same system and constitution as were Chaudhry Fazal Elahi and Rafiq Tarar. It is equally hard to believe that Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry is chief justice of the same Supreme Court presided over by Mr Irshad Hasan Khan who allowed Gen Pervez Musharraf to amend the constitution if it failed “to provide a solution for attainment of his declared objectives”. Gen Musharraf later looked the other way when he held on to power for nine years against three sanctioned by the court.

The contention of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that the question of the respective jurisdictions of the organs of the state will be resolved in parliament is untenable. Such a question doesn’t arise as the jurisdictions stand demarcated in the constitution itself and any dispute arising has to be settled in the Supreme Court.

Parliament can amend the constitution but it must not, even if the required majority is forthcoming, because its representative character is doubtful and its credibility low. The issue being debated, on the other hand, is fundamental and requires a fresh mandate from the people which can come only through elections held here and now. The political dinosaurs of all hues are understandably averse to that proposition for it might prove to be their last hurrah.

A mugging in Washington

By Irfan Husain


WHEN trying to pinpoint a date that signalled the terminal decline of the United States as a global superpower, future historians could do worse than pick Aug 2, 2011.

Although this was the day America pulled back from the brink of fiscal disaster, it was also the day the US Congress announced to the world how dysfunctional it had become. And far from being a solution to America’s economic crisis, Congress has now become a big part of the problem.

The unedifying spectacle of a handful of Republican congressmen holding their nation — and the world — hostage for weeks did little to reassure the rest of us that there was somebody at the helm in Washington. President Obama looked like a hapless victim of a mugging, handing over all his valuables at gunpoint to a bunch of hoodlums.

We may well ask how decision-making in Washington — often a messy business marked with compromises and wheeling-dealing — could have got to this hysterical level of brinkmanship. Pundits are quick to tell us that the Tea Party represents a grassroots movement that seeks a return to a small government with minimal federal spending and taxes.

Not so, says George Monbiot in a recent article in the Guardian. Reminding us that the Tea Party movement “was founded and is funded by Charlie and David Koch”, he calls the recent events in Congress a “political coup”. The Koch brothers are billionaires who have poured some $85m into lobbying for lower taxes for corporate America, combined with fewer and weaker regulations for industry. Monbiot concludes his article thus:

“A handful of billionaires have shoved a spanner into the legislative process. Through the candidates they have bought and the movement that supports them, they are now breaking and reshaping the system to serve their interests….” The last few years have shown us that despite bringing the global banking system to its knees through sheer greed, bankers continue to reward themselves with obscene salaries and bonuses. Indeed, the wealthy are highly adept at protecting and furthering their interests at the cost of the wider public good.

Again and again, politicians reassure us that what’s good for the rich is good for the economy as their profits will lead to investments that will create jobs. But currently, corporations in the US are sitting on a cash mountain that totals over a trillion dollars, and yet unemployment continues to rise. Indeed, over the past decade, the income of the top one per cent of Americans has risen by 18 per cent, while that of industrial workers has fallen by 12 per cent. So much for the trickledown effect.

The deal worked out to break the deadlock over the debt ceiling does little to fix the basic problem: how to plug the growing gap between income and expenditure. Currently, the US is a country that would like to offer its citizens a Nordic level of social security, but with the lowest taxes in the developed world. In addit ion, it would like to maintain its defence spending at the current level of $685bn.

Clearly, something has to give. In 1987, American historian Paul Kennedy wrote a prescient book titled The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. Here, the author examines the trajectory followed by a number of major powers including Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire and the United States. His conclusion is fairly obvious, but appears to have escaped most statesmen.

Basically, Kennedy argues that over time, a great power’s economy declines relative to its rivals, but its political ambitions dictate a large military. There is thus an overhang in which the state can no longer sustain its defence spending, and runs up large debts. According to Kennedy, rising defence expenditure “leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defence”.

This is an apt description of the United States today, excepting that the Republicans are refusing to raise taxes. This has created a situation where Obama, having inherited two wars from Bush, and pushed through expanded (and expensive) medical coverage, must now somehow find the money to pay for it all.

Given a political consensus in Washington, there might have been a broad agreement to reduce the deficit in a gradual manner to minimise the impact of the cuts on the most vulnerable sections of society. But with the dominance of big business over the Republican Party, and their distrust of Obama who they consider a radical socialist, any meeting of minds seems improbable.

While framing the US constitution, the founding fathers wrote in strong checks and balances to prevent the concentration of power in any one institution or individual. But as we have just seen, a group of uncompromising congressmen can hold a gun to the administration’s head, and threaten to bring the whole system to a grinding halt.

Another factor at work is the determination of the Republicans to make sure that Obama is not re-elected next year. To this end, they have consistently opposed him at every turn, making it very hard for him to govern. The whole business of the ‘Birthers’ who refuse to believe that he is indeed an American citizen and was born in Hawaii is a case in point. For weeks, the rightwing media hyped up this canard until, humiliatingly, the president of the United States was forced to produce his birth certificate.

Similarly, a significant number of Republicans believe Obama to be a closet Muslim despite his regular attendance in his church. Clearly, many Republicans have very strong reservations about having a black president, and while they can’t voice this prejudice openly, they continuously snipe at him in an effort to bring him down at any cost.

But judging from their latest effort, the cost can be very high indeed. The level of polarisation they have introduced into politics is making it very difficult to forge a consensus on any issue. The American — and the global — economy is much too fragile to subject it to the kind of cliffhanger drama we have just witnessed.

In a recent poll, a large proportion of Americans said they thought their representatives had acted more like children than adults. Hopefully, come next election, these politicians will be sent back to nursery where they belong.

Towards Financial Meltdown 2?

By Larry Elliott


THERE was a whiff of August 2007 in the air on Thursday as financial markets tumbled around the world. More than a whiff, in fact. The familiar stench of panic was back as shares fell heavily, bond yields in Spain and Italy rose and the search for a safe haven sent the price of gold to a new record level.

Banks took an especially severe pummelling amid fears that they were exposed to the two big concerns of investors: a break-up in the eurozone and a double-dip recession in the global economy.

In a week of anniversaries, it was a day that conjured up all the wrong sort of memories. It was 97 years since Britain declared war on Germany, and the resulting financial turmoil meant the stock market, which had closed at the end of July did not reopen for business until early 1915. Yet even in the month or so after the assassination at Sarajevo, when the Great Powers gave up on diplomacy and prepared for conflict, the movements in financial markets were less violent than they were on Thursday.

More recently, it is almost four years since an announcement by the French bank BNP Paribas that it was temporarily suspending three hedge funds specialising in US subprime mortgage debt led to financial paralysis. Banks, it was discovered, had lent unwisely, were loaded up with toxic derivatives that were vulnerable to falling American house prices, and had far too little capital set aside for a rainy day. On Aug 9, 2007, the heavens opened.

On the face of it, the banks are in better shape than they were when the British bank Northern Rock became the first major UK high street lender to suffer a bank run since Overend & Gurney in the 1860s. They have been forced to build up capital reserves and to hold a higher proportion of their assets in liquid form — financial instruments such as government bonds that can be quickly turned into cash.

Financial regulators have spent the past four years crawling all over the banks, making up for the not-sobenign neglect in the days leading up to the crisis, when supervision was far too lax. The UK’s Financial Services Authority, the European Banking Authority, and America’s Federal Reserve know where all the bodies are buried in their respective banks. In theory, at least. One of the parallels between August 2007 and August 2011 is the shiftiness of those running the show, a sense that they are not letting on all they know for fear of creating more panic.

The dwindling band of optimists point to differences with four years ago. Many companies, especially the bigger ones, are in rude financial health after cutting costs aggressively. Parts of the emerging world, such as China and Russia, are growing strongly and may act as the locomotive for the rest of the world. In the West, interest rates are low and budget deficits high: policymakers have pressed the pedal to the floor in an attempt to get their economies moving.

But the ultra-loose state of macro-economic policy cuts both ways. Policymakers were the heroes of Meltdown 1, thumbing through their copies of Keynes’s General Theory to come up with the measures deemed necessary to prevent the global banking system from imploding. But if the next few weeks see Meltdown 2, the policy options will be limited. Interest rates are already at rock-bottom levels while the flirtation with Keynesian fiscal policies was brief. As one analyst put it, the monetary and fiscal guns are not obviously full of bullets.

Thursday’s mayhem will fan speculation that the Federal Reserve will respond with a third dose of electronic money creation through the process known as quantitative easing. Cheap money and big budget deficits certainly averted a second Great Depression, but it has not produced the normal snap back from recession seen during the post-Second World War era

International isolation

August 07, 2011

We are again facing international isolation as Pakistan is seen condoning, even supporting, militant extremism.

By Ali Sarwar Naqvi


AS has happened several times in the past, Pakistan is facing international isolation once again. Somehow we land ourselves in a situation ever so often where we are on one side and the rest of the world is on the other. Four instances from our history illustrate the point.

First, military action in the then East Pakistan when we thought we were right and the rest of the world thought that we were wrong.

Second, the execution of an elected prime minister, deposed by extra-constitutional action. Again the world appealed to our leadership not to take the dire step, but we did.

Third, the recognition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; when the rest of the world, except for two countries, shunned it, we recognised it.

Fourth, our military adventure in Kargil, which was considered by the rest of the world as irresponsible and likely to provoke war, was covered up by the government of the day. The result in each episode was international isolation, which took us a long time to get out of.

We are again facing international isolation as Pakistan is seen condoning, even supporting, militant extremism. The world saw us as giving a muted, even shockingly favourable, public reaction to the killing of Salmaan Taseer and later an ambiguous one to the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti. This was followed by the US action against Osama bin Laden where we chose to invoke our sovereignty rather than express satisfaction at the death of the leader of international terrorism.

The world is unable to comprehend why we cannot take a clear position regarding domestic and international terrorism. The international community has developed the perception that Pakistan is a country that tolerates, perhaps even encourages, terrorists and armed marauders to run riot all over the country, that it allows them safe havens, and that Pakistan is thus the most dangerous country in the world. As a result, no country worth the name now wishes to do business with us, allow our students, or our professionals and academics, or our visitors and tourists to enter its territory. Likewise, outsiders avoid coming to Pakistan.

Actually, this isolation is not entirely due to the terrorism problem, even though that is the main issue. There are other reasons which lie beneath the principal concern. Pakistan has been earning a negative perception since some time now. For years, Pakistanis have been found involved in drug trafficking, human smuggling and transnational crime.

Our exporters are often believed to resort to deception in trade, shipping substandard products after winning a market with initial supply of quality products. They fail to meet supply deadlines and are found short of abiding by commitments made.

There are also perceptions that a number of Pakistanis tend to be arrogant and self-righteous. I was recently told of a story of a Pakistani’s interaction with a Chinese engineer working in a remote part of the country, who became friends with a Pakistani engineer working with him. One day the Chinese engineer said to the Pakistani, “Do you know why I like you?” Quite perplexed the Pakistani asked “Why?” The Chinese replied: “For two reasons, one, you have not tried to convert me to Islam, and two, you do not try to correct my English.” The terrorism and violence emanating from Pakistani territory seems to be the proverbial last straw that may break the camel’s back. Many terrorist incidents, starting with the London Underground attack and the infamous Mumbai attacks in 2008 among others, were found to have a Pakistani connection or suspected of one. We have become the prime exporter of terrorism abroad, as well as its hapless victims at home. No wonder we are facing international isolation, and one which is far worse than we have ever experienced before.

In the decade that ended last year, our region has generally witnessed unprecedented economic growth and development. The two biggest countries in our neighbourhood have registered high growth rates of eight to nine per cent of GDP all through the decade. Pakistan initially did almost as well, but towards the latter part of the decade, it slipped to the low digits of the growth figure.

The cumulative effect of its unsatisfactory dealings with the outside world, compounded by homegrown and home-bred militant movements that have mushroomed all over the country, from Karachi to Peshawar and the tribal areas, have more or less destroyed whatever credit Pakistan had enjoyed internationally. So while economic prosperity has come to the rest of the region, which includes, besides India and China, even Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Pakistan is wallowing in the odium of shame and disgrace.

While we have overcome our isolation in the past after suffering ostracism by the international community for some time, the situation seems to be far more serious this time round. Our problem is that we are no longer seen as a normal state, and as prone to deviating in the wrong direction.

It is just not the United States that harbours a negative perception about us, it is almost the whole world that is becoming wary of us.

And the solution, though appearing difficult at first sight, is also very simple. We can put aside the other problems for the time being and concentrate on only one for the moment — the elimination and eradication of terrorism — to overcome this debilitating isolation.

The economic journey

Today, we find ourselves isolated and mistrusted in the West. While South Korea through its alliances has been able to achieve unparalleled economic and social development, we have not.

By Salman Shah


ACCORDING to a top secret memorandum of the British chiefs of staff dated July 1947: “The area of [West] Pakistan is strategically the most important in the continent of India and the majority of our [British] strategic requirements could be met by an agreement with Pakistan alone.” In a related British memorandum dated May 1948 it was stated: “The Indus valley, western Punjab and Balochistan are vital to any strategic plans for the defence of the all-important Muslim belt … the oil supplies of the Middle East.” It also stated that Pakistan was the “keystone of the strategic arch of the wide and vulnerable waters of the Indian Ocean”.

Going further back in our history after the first war of independence in 1857, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan showed the defeated and demoralised Muslims the way forward, on a path based on adopting modern knowledge and practices. His Anglo Muslim University at Aligarh produced our founding fathers and leadership, leading to the birth of Pakistan. The Quaid, a product of British legal training, also envisaged a modern Pakistan firmly anchored as a strategic partner in the contemporary western global system.

Yet today, we find ourselves strategically isolated and mistrusted in the western world. In our alliances with the West we have had mixed results. Whereas, for example, South Korea through its alliances has been able to achieve unparalleled economic and social development, we have not.

For the first decade of our existence, we were literally trying to learn how to govern a new country suffering from birth pangs. With the advent of military rule in 1958, we started cementing western alliances and also became a role model for private sector-led economic growth and development.

However the first shock to the system came from the 1965 war with India that shook the foundations of our western alliances. The economic miracle of the 1960s evaporated in the 1970s when the PPP went on a nationalisation spree, badly damaging the private sector which had hitherto been the engine of growth. As a result, the commanding heights of the economy were captured by the state at the expense of the markets. In 2011, huge loss-making white elephants are still a millstone around our budget.

The 1980s bought us cash bounties as well as the scourge of the Afghan jihad, religious extremism, drugs, Kalashnikovs, money laundering and black wealth while the masses continued to suffer. The public sector continued to rule the roost. The Soviet Union collapsed and the market economy spread across the world.

However, in Pakistan, the 1990s was characterised as the lost decade. The alliances of the Afghan war were broken. The reforms needed to usher in the market economy were patchy, and by the time Nawaz Sharif was overthrown in a military coup in 1999, the country was under sanctions, foreign currency accounts had been frozen, interest rates were over 20 per cent, public debt was over 100 per cent of GDP and foreign exchange reserves held less than a few weeks of imports.

The country’s economy had been shattered. Investors had lost their shirts. With Pakistan’s credit rating of selective default the stock market was at its alltime low of around 1,000 points (com pared to its peak of around 16,000 in March 2008).

Gen Musharraf took over and 9/11 happened. Alliances were restored, sanctions were lifted, market reforms were implemented and the economy prospered. Privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation propelled the $60bn GDP in 1998 to over $175bn in 2008. Investment reached an all-time high, currency was stable, the stock market was a leader of the emerging markets, public debt dropped to around 53 per cent of GDP. Credit ratings improved three notches and employment generation dramatically reduced poverty.

The new democratic dispensation turned the economic management upside down, politics took ascendancy over economics, capital flight was engineered and foreign investment transactions were cancelled, privatisation was abandoned in an era of escalating oil prices.

Now we are victims of stagflation, high unemployment rising poverty, dropping investment, weakening currency, worsening law and order, rising terrorism, growing corruption and endemic misgovernance. The size of the state is increasing and the private sector is shrinking. The relationship with the West is in disarray and the nation seems to be turning inward, angry and isolationist. So where do we go from here?

We are still one of the most strategically placed countries in the most important part of the world. We have the sixth largest and perhaps the youngest population in the world. Location-wise, there are many opportunities. To the northwest, post-war Afghanistan can be a big boost for us. Second, the entire resourcerich Central Asia region is overcoming its teething problems and looking for trade, oil and gas exports and logistic connections. Beyond it, a reasserting, friendly Russia can be a big plus.

Third, in the west, Iran and Arab competition needs to be managed as a source for economic and social development. Fourth, the Arab awakening needs a peaceful transition to a democratic and prosperous future. Fifth, the vast Indian Ocean rim from the African coast, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea to the straits of Malacca can be an area for explosive rivalries as well as economic growth and trade in which Pakistan has a key role to play.

Sixth, neighbouring China is fast becoming the second-largest economy in the world with huge possibilities for us. Seventh, our colossal neighbour to the east has a dynamic economy but has yet to give us economic or political space. When it realises the need to engage us meaningfully the dividends can be enormous.

Thus, exploiting Pakistan’s geography and demography would be a big advantage for us and inter alia must form the cornerstone of our future alliances, market-based economic vision and governance strategies. One thing is apparent that whenever we had functioning alliances, ascendancy of the markets and better governance, the economy functioned better than otherwise.

It is also clear that South Korea through its alliances, markets and governance took its economy from $8bn in 1970 to over $1,000bn in 2010 whereas over the same time period we took our $10bn economy in 1970 to a minuscule $175bn in 2010.

Going forward, the questions facing us are: can we build an internationally integrated vibrant market economy that doubles every 10 years? Can we wipe out poverty in our lifetime? The answers to these questions are a cautious ‘yes’ provided we put a game plan in place to achieve all this and much more.

‘He hit me first’

By Ardeshir Cowasjee


SUBTITLED ‘When brothers and sisters fight’, Louise Bates Arnes wrote He Hit Me First in 1982 on selected dos and don’ts for parents of children caught up in sibling rivalry.

The don’ts include “…act as a referee ... encourage tattling … compare your children to each other … allow your children to play you against your spouse … take the blame for the way your children behave”. And the dos “…keep in mind that most children fight (a lot) … try and find out why they fight … separate your children more than you may be doing … use rules, keep them simple and specific, … do what you can to make each child feel special”.

This parental guide could well have been aimed at Karachi dwellers, who, in a manner of speaking, attained puberty in the 1970-80s and are now slowly moving through the adolescent stages. The ‘sibling’ rivalry of the communities of the metropolis, despite sharing a common destiny, has reached epidemic proportions, destroying the fabric of society and strangling the economic pulse of the city at a point when the overall financial situation of the country has bottomed. Each ‘sibling’ blames the others for the violence (he hit me first…) and excuses his own community’s retaliation as natural.

The MQM feels that Karachi voted for them. A study of the 2008 election results shows that despite receiving 34 (76 per cent) of the 42 Karachi seats in the Sindh Assembly, only 48 per cent of the registered voters of the city turned out. The MQM managed 69 per cent of the votes cast. In any case, ethical and committed assemblymen are bound to look after the legitimate interests of all citizens in their constituency, not only those who voted them in.

When Altaf Hussain directed his party members to stop their ‘peaceful protest’ against the incendiary remarks of Zulfikar Mirza, even the unknown violent protesters heeded his call and stopped the killings and torching of vehicles.

In the 1998 census, 48 per cent of the city’s population was Urdu-speaking, 14 per cent Punjabi-speaking, 12 per cent Pushto-speaking and some nine per cent Sindhispeaking.

With a decade of ruralurban migration, the refugee influx from the 2005 earthquake and the 2007-2008 Fata and Swat operations, the proportion of Pushto-speakers in the city has probably increased substantially: not all, however, owe allegiance to the ANP whose Sindh chapter projects the Pathan population at four million. Certainly, the Pathan in Karachi is better organised today than he was in 2007 — and will give his ‘siblings’ a run for their money.

The PPP’s recent move to resurrect the commissionerate system is an attempt to nullify non-Sindhi power in Karachi’s local government system, where the nazim wielded more clout and con trolled larger budgets than the provincial chief minister.

Ghettos (aka no-go areas) have increasingly proliferated in pockets all over the metropolis. Ethnic minorities in some localities are being compelled to relocate, abandon house or sell commercial ventures at a loss. Students of selective ethnic groups are not given admission in schools and colleges. Even the sacking of 4,500 non-performing employees (largely Pathan) of the KESC is being coloured ethnically: they are allegedly being replaced by Urdu-speaking contract employees.

Money is being generated by armed groups through land grabbing, bhatta/extortion, drug trafficking, kidnapping, mugging and armed robberies. The abundance of weapons and explosive devices has rendered mafias better equipped than the police who are beginning to question the feasibility of deweaponisation.

The city awaits the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which recently conducted a three-day fact-finding mission into Karachi’s killings, with representatives from all provinces meeting political parties, law-enforcement agencies, business/industrial communities, CPLC, hospital administrators, ambulance services, NGOs, educationists, transporters, media men, lawyers. An ‘open katchery’ was held at the Press Club, where one Baloch woman, who had lost a son in the recent killings, lamented loudly, “We are all Muslims. We may speak dif ferent languages, but we are all Muslims!”Two months ago, WikiLeaks provided a clear and wide window into the 2009 US assessment of violence in this city. Not much has changed since then, except that the ‘siblings’ of Karachi have drawn clearer battle lines and developed more aggressive strategies.

The state and law-enforcement agencies bear the greatest part of the blame. The basic function of the police is to implement the law without fear or favour, a duty now observed in the breach. Fifty years ago, those cyclists who rode ‘double-sawari’, or had no headlamp at night, were so frightened of the police that they would dismount and push the cycle far past a policeman before remounting.

Today, three astride a motorcycle, going in the wrong direction up a one-way street thumb their noses at the traffic sergeant. Over the years, the police have increasingly ignored all kinds of violations of the law, and now society has reached what may be an irreversible state of affairs.

Politicians and bureaucrats have added to the chaos by politicising the force, while citizens look on silently. Today, a policeman will first ascertain the political and power connections of a lawbreaker before taking action as required by law. The poor and helpless are at his mercy, but may still get away if the ‘right’ amount is paid. If we are to avoid an apocalyptic ending, does it really matter who hit the other first?

In a recent statement, Interior Minister Rehman Malik came down hard on the Tableeghi Jamat (TJ), claiming that the Islamic evangelical movement has become a breeding ground of extremists. His statement understandably ruffled quite a few feathers, especially within parties like the PML-N and the JUI-F.

PML-N’s Sharif brothers have had close links with the TJ, and the JUI-F follows the Deobandi school of thought that the TJ too adheres to. Also, quite a big number of TJ members are from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the province from where the JUI-F draws the bulk of its electoral support.

For long the TJ has been viewed as a benign movement that distances itself from mainstream politics and militancy, focusing instead on propagating ‘correct’ Islamic rituals and attire, and ritualistic paraphernalia in tune with the Deobandi line of thinking. The TJ was formed in the 1920s to supposedly cleanse Islam in the subcontinent of Hindu and Sikh influences.

After Pakistan’s creation in 1947 the TJ was ironically more successful in attracting positive attention from Pakistanis living abroad than those living in the country. Based in Raiwind in Punjab, the TJ membership and appeal however got a two-fold boost after the arrival of the reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship in 1977.

This was the time when Zia used a part of CIA and Arab funds (dished out for the anti-Soviet Mujahideen insurgency in Afghanistan) on constructing a number of indoctrination centres in the shape of Deobandi and (the more radical) Salafi-dominated seminaries. The rise in the TJ’s fortunes was thus a product of the proliferation of the more puritanical strains of Islam by the Zia regime.

By the late 1980s, the TJ became successful in also attracting membership from the country’s petty-bourgeois and trader classes, especially in Punjab and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. In the 1990s, it also began attracting the interest of certain prominent sections of Pakistan’s affluent middle-classes, including certain pop musicians, TV actors and eventually cricketers.

Through the sectarian turmoil that the country faced in the 1980s and 1990s, the TJ was free to preach and recruit. It was always believed to be a harmless movement that had no political, sectarian or militant motives. However, since the country’s Sunni majority remains Bareilvi — an 18th century sub-continental Muslim concoction built from elements of Sufism and ‘folk-Islam’—a parallel evangelical movement emerged from within this fold.

Called the Dawat-i-Islami, it claims to represent the Barelvi majority’s spiritual interests. Also seen as non-political, the Dawat however has been accused of containing members that have graduated to becoming members of the Barelvi Sunni militant organisation, the Sunni Tehreek. The guard who shot dead Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer (for ‘blasphemy’) was also a former member of the Dawat. It is also staunchly anti-Deobandi creed.

What Malik spouted about the TJ may be the first time a member of a sitting government in Pakistan has accused the outfit of breeding possible recruits for various hardcore Islamist organisations. Alarms in this respect were first raised by some western observers when in the mid and late 1990s the radical anti-India/Hindu and anti-West chief of the ISI, Major Javed Nasir, became a staunch member of the TJ. This was also the time the TJ was making great headway in the Pakistan army.

The event was seen as being only incidental and the TJ continued to recruit and preach freely—now more than ever after making deep inroads into Pakistan’s showbiz scene and the cricket team as well. But the accusations (though suppressed in Pakistan) kept coming. The TJ’s name came up in connection with terrorism plots such as in October 2002 in the US (the ‘Portland Seven case’) and the September 2002 ‘Lackawanna Six case’ (also in the US).

The TJ was mentioned again in the August 2006 in a plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States and in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005. Most of those accused in all these cases were said to be members of various violent Islamist organisations, but they were also said to have been a part of the TJ at some point before their final radicalisation.

In 2008, the Spanish police arrested fourteen Asian Muslims for allegedly planning to attack various places in Spain. Twelve were Pakistanis. A Spanish Muslim leader claimed that all of these men had once been members of the TJ. Though counter-terrorism experts have understandably focused their studies more on the militant groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, in the last five years or so, many of them have now begun to also study the dynamics of evangelical groups like the TJ.

They believe that in spite of the fact that the TJ’s primary function remains non-political, its rather secretive organisational structure and the goodwill that it enjoys among most Pakistanis allows elements from terrorist organisations to use it as a way to recruit members for more violent purposes. They say that many young men joining the TJ are more vulnerable to the Islamists’ propaganda due to the TJ’s conservative social orientation.

Rehman Malik was not shooting in the air. He was merely pointing out yet another area of concern in a country being torn apart by men committing violence in the name of faith. His statement only became controversial because very few Pakistanis are aware of the potential of the TJ polluting its pond with rotten fish.

Smokers’ Corner: Rotten fish | Opinion | DAWN.COM

Pakistan’s FMCT woes

08 August, 2011

Finalising the FMCT is the next point on Obama’s agenda, and he will be hard-pressed to let Pakistan stand in its way.

By Huma Yusuf


AS if US-Pakistan relations were not strained enough, news is circulating that the US plans to pressurise Pakistan to sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) at September’s UN General Assembly.

Such an effort, more than unilateral raids and CIA security contractors, will incense the Pakistani establishment because it directly targets Pakistan’s ability to balance the security equation with India. Pakistan has long boycotted FMCT negotiations, arguing that it has to proceed with fissile material production to address the conventional military imbalance with India. Since 2005, Pakistan has cited the US-India civil nuclear deal as the main reason for boycotting the FMCT, arguing that Pakistan would cap fissile material production under the treaty, but India could continue production in a civilian context and divert material for weapons production against Pakistan if necessary.

A renewed push to finalise the FMCT would further complicate Pakistan’s nuclear stance for, despite international media frenzy, Pakistan’s nuclear strategy has concerns beyond the safety of nuclear assets and the threat of infiltration of the armed forces.

The first issue is that of sustainability. Pakistan pursues a strategy of minimum credible deterrence, and expects to cease weapons production when perceived needs are met. It seems unlikely that this will ever happen given that India has emerged as the largest arms buyer, receiving nine per cent of all international arms transfers between 2006 and 2010. How Pakistan plans to afford infinite nuclear production is unclear as most of the country’s citizens are already eating grass, if that.

The programme’s poor reputation is also a hindrance. Pakistan’s concerns about the US-India civilian cooperation deal under the FMCT have some validity. Moreover, in light of the escalating energy crisis, Pakistan stands to gain from nuclear energy projects. But the country’s poor proliferation record and its continuing refusal to give the international community access to Dr A.Q. Khan mean that Pakistan will never be the recipient of a civilian deal with the US. The famed deal with China, too, will come under intense pressure from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Pakistan’s nuclear strategis ing is also falling victim to souring US-Pakistan relations. Islamabad’s resistance to the FMCT is partially driven by the paranoia that Washington is trying to undermine Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities as part of its overall ‘tilt to India’. The global picture is more complicated than that, and it ill serves Pakistan to ignore that fact.

The dream of a nuclear-free world is the cornerstone of US President Barack Obama’s personal legacy, one that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. He stimulated disarmament by ceasing funding for America’s “reliable, replacement” warheads and signing the New START treaty with Russia, which reduced the nations’ nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in five decades. Finalising the FMCT is the next point on Obama’s agenda, and he will be hard-pressed to let Pakistan stand in its way. Rather than persist with the boycott, Pakistan should ask the international community for assurances on India’s fissile material production and press for a civilian nuclear deal.

As an aside, it is worth noting that the US-Pakistan nuclear dynamic has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. No doubt, the US has long-held concerns about a nuclear Pakistan, as confirmed recently by the declassification of American memos from the 1970s. But its concerns have been inconsistent: the US turned a blind eye while Pakistan pursued weapons in the 1980s, privileging cooperation in the Afghan ‘jihad’. Similarly, after 2001, the US worked with Pakistan to secure its weapons rather than pressurise Islamabad to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. President Obama’s 2010 nuclear posture review didn’t even mention Pakistan.

Despite this history, Pakistan obsessively fears US ploys to seize its 100-plus nuclear weapons. In a perverse feedback loop, these ploys are becoming reality in response to recent Pakistani nuclear initiatives, including escalated weapons production and the development of tactical weapons such as the Nasr (Hatf-9), which is a short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile system designed for battlefield use and therefore more vulnerable to misuse.

As ties with the US worsen, Pakistan turns to China. Recent reports suggest, however, that China too is seeking to finalise the FMCT. The question now is whether Beijing will join hands with Washington to pressurise Islamabad to sign the treaty.

Pakistan needs China to be on board with its nuclear programme, which it largely is in order to keep a check on nuclear India. Beijing is also hesitant to finalise the FMCT because that would hamper China’s ability to compete with the US and Russia in terms of weapons production. It is convenient for Beijing to let Islamabad appear as the spoiler to the FMCT while avoiding having to sign the treaty itself. After all, it is cheaper for China to build offensive weapons rather than defensive systems.

Support or silence from China on the FMCT issue should not be seen in Pakistan as approval for its nuclear programme. We cannot forget that Pakistan is the lowest in the pecking order in terms of global nuclear strategising: China produces fissile material to balance the US and Russia; India responds to Chinese production; and Pakistan reacts to India. But Pakistan cannot pursue an impossible target of weapons production just because superpowers must compete.

Sadly, these are issues that cannot be thoughtfully debated within Pakistan because the Bomb has become the linchpin of our nationalist fervour. Lack of education about the fallout of a nuclear attack and the cost of the programme lead too many Pakistanis to favour unbridled weapons production. As such, they are faced with a worst-case scenario far more devastating than perceived US designs on Pakistani nukes.

No alternative to ties

Ties with America may not be good at present, but they will be far worse if we go too far down this road. A breakdown may be bad for the US, but it will be disastrous for Pakistan.

By Moeed Yusuf


TENSIONS between the US and Pakistan have continued to escalate ever since the May 2, 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Both sides have chosen to engage in a tit-for-tat pattern of escalatory moves. These have only increased the already deep-seated mistrust in the relationship.

On both sides, an increasing number of opinion-makers are calling for a rethink of the relationship. In Pakistan, some influential voices are pointing to the need to consider a ‘plan B’ to offset the excessive reliance on the US. Over in Washington, the appetite to continue supporting Pakistan has thinned out substantially as well.

A careful analysis of the situation has left me bewildered at these calls to find alternatives to a stronger US-Pakistan engagement. The fact is that at this point, there simply is no viable ‘Plan B’. A breakdown in ties will cost both parties dearly in terms of their regional objectives.

Let me focus on the Pakistani side to provide a reality check.

Most calls for ‘Plan B’ hint at returning to the traditional strategic fallback option in times of adversity: leveraging ties with China, Saudi Arabia and some of the other friendly Gulf countries to a greater extent to balance the losses from a dysfunctional US-Pakistan relationship.

These avenues have serious limitations — mainly because of the bitter reality that none of Pakistan’s traditional partners are willing to stick their neck out at this point. China’s signalling on the issue has been fairly consistent. Beijing remains concerned about American ingress into the region. However, it has consistently avoided any direct diplomatic confrontation on the US role in Afghanistan and on Washington’s ties with Islamabad. In fact, China has actively shied away from posing as a potential substitute for the US role in supporting Pakistan.

Even tangibly, there is a qualitative mismatch between Washington and Beijing’s ability to provide for Pakistan’s needs. Going forward, the Chinese do see Pakistan as a major transit hub and as a floor for cheap production of low value-added products; they will continue to invest in these endeavours. However, the Chinese model of assistance is far less amenable to providing direct cash infusions and emergency funds which provide immediate relief to the economy. Utility of US assistance is most critical in this regard.

On the defence side, the Chinese capacity to provide the hardware and capacity support that the US is able to is, as one senior military officer told me, “at least 50 years behind”. Not to mention, there has been extensive tactical counterterrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US over the past decade which has benefited the Pakistani military significantly. The Chinese, or for that matter, no other country, will be able to match that.

Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have been consistently warm over the years; at a pinch, Islamabad has often persuaded them to help out. However, none of these countries have given any indication of a willingness to upgrade their economic assistance massively to Pakistan in the near term. In fact, as their own economic woes have grown, they have been forced to cut back on support and even repatriate Pakistani labour in large numbers. Also important to recognise is the fact that much of the Gulf is very sensitive to US concerns and is therefore unlikely to back Pakistan’s case in direct opposition to the US (should we get to that stage in US-Pakistan relations).

Let us also not be naïve in thinking that a developing country like Pakistan, for all its importance, can live on the wrong side of a superpower without affecting its other relationships. To cite just one example, Washington wields tremendous influence over the international financial institutions (IFIs) and has much to do with IMF’s lenient attitude towards Pakistan. But IFI attitudes have been known to change rather abruptly when geopolitical environments take a turn. One ought to expect this, should signals from Washington become less favourable.

Also, a breakdown in US-Pakistan ties will undercut the very strategic interest Pakistan has been trying to protect all along: its regional balance vis-à-vis India. There is already a strong push in Washington for closer counterterrorism cooperation with India and to further exploit the convergence of US and Indian interests in South Asia. The move in this direction will only be accentuated if Washington and Islamabad part ways.

On Afghanistan, there is little doubt that the US is highly dependent on Islamabad for a favourable outcome. But it is equally true that Pakistan’s interests are unlikely to be satisfied without some level of support from Washington. To be sure, Pakistan’s nightmare scenario — a return to anarchy in Afghanistan — remains the most likely outcome should these two sides fail to complement each other’s efforts in the ‘endgame’ in Afghanistan.

The history of the post-Westphalian world teaches us that the biggest blunders by states often have at their core miscalculations by leaderships about their country’s self-worth, their options and the surrounding dynamics. Pakistan, like any other nation state, has a right to exploit interstate relations to its advantage; and it is entirely reasonable for Pakistan to reach out to its traditional partners as much as it wants. However, none of these overtures can be based on misplaced perceptions about the intentions and ability of these states.

The fact is that Pakistan is extremely constrained in its options today. Unfair as it may be, the global narrative about Pakistan has forced even the best of friends to shy away from going the extra mile to back Islamabad’s case. Pakistani state policies have to be crafted keeping this reality in mind.

There is certainly a need to recalibrate the relationship with the US. That said, it is dangerous for the Pakistani state to create an impression that ties with America are a net negative and that Islamabad will be better off without it. Let us face it — things may not be good at present, but they will be far worse if we go too far down this road. A breakdown may be bad for Washington, but it will be disastrous for Pakistan.

Why do debt crises occur?

By Peter Wilby


YOU may recall the Latin American debt crisis of 1982, the Asian debt crisis of 1997, the Russian debt crisis of 1998 — and you’ll certainly remember the US sub-prime debt crisis of 2008. Now we have a European debt crisis and, horror of horrors, a US government debt crisis.

That’s the word to keep hold of: debt. Ignore the financiers’ jargon — bond yields, credit default swaps, hedge funds — which makes finance sound like quantum physics, a fearfully abstruse subject beyond the grasp of ordinary mortals. Financial crises occur when people (or governments or companies) can’t repay their debts. Or more precisely when their creditors (or shareholders) decide they aren’t likely to get their money back. It’s as simple as that.

That, at least, is how it seems to me. But I am not an economist. In the 1990s, when the eurozone was being formed, I thought the concept flawed. If countries adopted a common currency with common interest rates set by a central bank, I reasoned, they surely needed a common government with some powers over taxation, borrowing and spending.

Deprived of the power to devalue their currency, thus making their goods and services more saleable, weaker countries would face ruination without the automatic money transfers that follow from a common government with a common finance minister.

That is how the US works, even though it remains a federation in which the states have considerable autonomy, and how the UK works, even after devolution. Theoretically, Wales could sell nothing at all to anybody outside Wales and still get by, thanks to benefits, services and infrastructure investment paid from London.

When I put this view, proeuro economists told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and should go away. More government was bad. The market would provide. Even two years ago, the idea that the euro would collapse without a federal government was dismissed as heresy. Now it is common wisdom.

But it is too late for this to be a problem only for Greece. We are all, you might say, Greeks now. To avoid ruination, the Greeks borrowed heavily. Having adopted the euro, they could do so at the same interest rates as countries with much stronger economies, such as Germany. The financial markets didn’t seem to care that, just because Greece used the same currency as Germany, it hadn’t suddenly become as wealthy and productive as the German economy. They expected that, eventually, Greece would just ‘converge’ with Germany because that is how markets, unimpeded by ‘distortions’, should work.

So banks across the world lent money to Greece — and Spain, Portugal and Italy — which can’t be repaid. As we know from the last crisis, banks sell debt to each other, and then sell it to each other again and again. Nobody knows who will end up holding worthless IOUs. It could be your bank or mine. So as well as the problem with subprime mortgages, we now have a problem with subprime countries. That explains why the financial markets are in panic. But it is, or ought to be, more than that. The whole western world is in trouble with debt: a sub-prime hemisphere, if you like. Individuals, banks, governments are all in the same boat. Who do we owe the money to? ¦ — The Guardian, London

Exports from Pakistan to the US are unlikely to be hurt but official aid may be slashed.

By Ishrat Husain

IN downgrading the US sovereign credit rating, Standard and Poors gave the following reason:

“The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less efficient and less predictable…. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. …[I]n our view the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge.” US politicians have taken the global economy hostage with point-scoring and parochial interests between the Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans wanted to shift the blame on the president and the Democrats for the stalemate on the debt ceiling. The Democrats did not want the Republicans to get all the credit for the breakthrough. The markets did not consider the last-minute compromise credible There are several reasons for the markets to believe this deal will not put the US budget on a sustainable path.

First, the deficit-reduction target should have been about $4tr if stabilisation and reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio were to be achieved. The compromise deal of $2.4tr is considered inadequate as the debt ceiling debate will resurface in the next 15 months, close to the US presidential elections. The political atmosphere then would be highly charged. The markets perceive the risk of renewed paralysis at that time.

Second, the modalities of this $2.4tr reduction will be decided by a bipartisan committee. The possibility of reaching a consensus solution is low in view of the polarisation between the two camps. While the Republicans want to extend the Bush tax cuts and resist cuts in defence expenditure, the Democrats feel they have gone too far in accepting discretionary expenditure cuts and that further concessions in the core social protection programmes or universal healthcare will hurt their traditional constituency.

Third, the debate of continuing with fiscal stimulus in the short term as opposed to fiscal austerity is inconclusive. Liberal economists argue that in the current circumstances when growth is anaemic, unemployment high and businesses are focused on enhancing their productivity, an early withdrawal of fiscal stimulus would be damag ing. Conservative economists believe that to build up the confidence of investors and businesses the government has to demonstrate seriousness in tackling imbalances. The unending debate has contributed to an adverse market sentiment.

In addition to the intransigence of the two parties some additional factors that are beyond the control of US policymakers also impinge. Normally, economic recessions are not synchronised except for the last one in 2008-09. If adverse economic circumstances hit the US, the slack is picked up by the EU and/or Japan and vice versa.

At present, the EU is facing a domestic economic crisis with even reasonably staid economies being affected.

Despite the resolution of the Greek debt crisis, divergence and discord among major EU players do not exude a feeling of comfort. Banks are extremely cautious in extending credit to slow-growing EU economies. Japan, after an extended downturn, is trying to cope with the aftermath of the recent tsunami and is unable to do much for the global economy.

Then, the international commodity prices, particularly spikes in oil prices, do not allow the Federal Reserve to resume quantitative easing. Inflationary pressures are low but likely shocks from price hikes must be factored in and tackled. It is not obvious that the Federal Reserve Board would agree on the need to pursue an expansionist monetary policy. Interest rates having remained close to zero for a long time have aided the corporate sector in raising their profits but have done nothing to stimulate growth or job creation. Further loosening of the monetary policy will hardly reduce the rate of unemployment.What are the consequences of the US setback for the global economy? Stock markets in Asia including Pakistan reacted in unison with the New York Stock Exchange after the downgrading. Investors will remain wary; small investors particularly will make a hasty exit to minimise losses.

The US dollar is the reserve currency of many central banks in Asia. China alone has almost $1tr invested in the US treasuries. The capital loss, if not contained by policy response, will reduce the value of the stock of the assets of central banks and the sovereign wealth funds of capital-surplus countries. The only redeeming feature is that alternatives to the flight from the US dollar are not many. Cash, gold and commodities have taken the role of a substitute but they cannot match the depth and liquidity of the US currency market.Emerging and Developing Economies tied to the US through trade, investment and financial flows will also suffer. Some can partially bear the burden of filling in the vacuum created by the US but their combined weight is small. To the extent that these countries get affected negatively because of ties with the US their leadership in an economic turnaround role will be less effective.

Pakistan has bilateral official aid and trade ties with the US. Exports from Pakistan are unlikely to be hurt because they cater to the low end of the market. Official aid may be slashed by both political parties in the US. In their quest to find candidates for expenditure reduction, they may penalise a defiant Pakistan for not ‘doing more’ and also save $7.5bn for the budget. The endgame of whether the US will go through a doubledip recession or recover quickly falls squarely on the shoulders of the two political parties in the US. Will it be self-interest or collective interest? ¦

The writer is the dean and director of the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

One province leads to many

It is the PPP’s formal embracing of the idea that has given the call for a Seraiki province its verve and drive.

By Asha’ar Rehman

THE wish has been expressed, the slogans raised. The people have set off on the road to a new province, which will take some travelling and entail quite a lot of discomfort, not to speak of the pain of those who must view this as a parting.

All historical tours of Pakistan must begin in India. Indian examples abound in all our discussions. It is no surprise then that the new province debate is in part sustained by how the Indians divided their provinces. They divided them in the wake of Partition, chastened by Partition. It was in a way logical for the people of India to demarcate the boundaries when a partition had just happened.

The movements for division — or as it were, a coming together of small British-period states — on a linguistic basis was strong even in the early 1950s, and following the creation of a Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh just six years after Partition, a number of new states emerged on the Indian map in 1956. The principles set and constitutional cover given, it later led to the creation of more states. Pakistan, meanwhile, decided to go its own way in nationbuilding.

Religion was a given, and it used Urdu, in the name of unity of the people who lived in its five provinces. East Pakistan was told by none other than the Quaid himself that Urdu was going to be the national language of Pakistan. The declaration itself and its consequences are indicative of the tough regime that the new nation-building exposed Pakistanis to.

Religion, as it turned out, was not enough of an adhesive, and those running the country’s affairs searched for the right kind of constitution and were desperate enough to go on adventures such as rule by the bureaucracy and by the military soon after independence.

They pandered to false notions of a union by experimenting with the One Unit system. All these steps failed and East Pakistan went its separate way in 1971.

That the remaining parts of Pakistan did n’t quite fit official definitions of a single nation was clear when the Baloch took up arms against the state in the 1970s. The Balochistan problem as it is often called persists to this day and other provinces have joined the protests against what they call Punjab’s hegemony.

Within Punjab, in areas at a distance from Lahore, local bards have been for long heard coming up with strong denouncements of the ‘Takht Lahore’. In the province’s southern parts, the political divide between the ‘locals’ and ‘settlers’ has been stark, manifesting itself ever more strongly in the politics of the areas.

In the 2008 election, for instance, a large number of seats in southern Punjab were won and lost on the basis of the local-settler bifurcation. Also the rural-urban divide was quite clear, reflecting in the tally of seats secured by the PPP and PMLN. The PPP did win some seats where settlers had a significant presence while doing remarkably well in constituencies dominated by the locals. The PML-N, on the other hand, did better in urban areas with a sizable population of Punjabi- and Urdu-speaking voters as compared to its showing in the rural parts of southern Punjab.

There is truth in the observation that it is the PPP’s formal embracing of the idea that has given the call for a Seraiki province its verve and drive — more than half a century after our Indian cousins saw logic in smaller provinces ultimately formed on a linguistic basis. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s views notwithstanding, this is the basis on which provinces are going to surface in Pakistan, be it in Punjab or anywhere else.

Since few have been able to oppose it or even stay neutral, it has to be a genuine demand supported by public sentiment as well as logic. There are reports from southern Punjab areas such as Multan which say the people there are confident about being able to secure a province of their own.

There is a suggestion that the years that have passed since the great migration of 1947 have actually meant that groups have had that much more time to assimilate in a common culture.

In these times of high hopes and expectations, in these times of disillusionment with the existing system, settlers from Punjab’s upper parts are also seen to have become culturally compatible with the ‘locals’, the old measure of intermarriages still acting as a gauge to knowing the level of assimilation. Indeed, many new-generation ‘settlers’ have taken to speaking Seraiki.

These happy estimates from observers are quite contrary to the political news emanating from the area in the past. In all honesty, this assimilation part is yet to be fully probed. The earnest political impetus for a province has recent origins and it is only now that analysts will be drawn to looking at the cultural differences that exist. An analysis of potentially how disruptive they can be is yet to be under taken. These will have to be reconciled as a new province matures from a dream to a practicable, constitutional option.

At this moment, a lot of work remains to be done, before the constitutional spadework on the matter begins. For one, there is not just one demand but various sets of ideas. Groups in Bahawalpur want a state of their own. Unlike Multan that has to dig deep in history to prove its exclusivity as well as affinity with parts that it now wants included in a Seraiki province, Bahawalpur was a separate state until only half a century ago. And then there are areas such as Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whose politicians want a union with the new Seraiki province.

These are as yet disparate claims that could ultimately set in motion a process aimed at a demarcation of the entire country. Javed Hashmi has 16 provinces in mind. His PML-N colleagues could soon be found repeating elsewhere what they are hearing today in their home province of Punjab. ¦

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Kashgar must not mar ties

The primary onus is on Pakistani policymakers, both in mufti and khaki, to take the fallout of Kashgar seriously, for its recurrence can be detrimental to our ties with China.

By Mushahid Hussain

THE recent events in the ancient Chinese city of Kashgar and their possible fallout need to be examined in three broad contexts: China’s concerns, Pakistan’s track record in combating anti-China terrorists and extremists, and the emerging ‘Great Game’ in a region in which the strategically located, mineral-rich province of Xinjiang is a geopolitical centre of gravity.

Xinjiang, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, has 17 per cent of China’s land mass producing roughly 40 per cent of its oil, coal and gas. The province’s economic underdevelopment has been reinforced by a cultural chasm between the Muslim Uighurs of Turkic origin and the Han Chinese population. Xinjiang saw the first signs of organised armed groups emerging soon after the end of the Afghan jihad in 1990. The biggest outbreak of violence was in July 2009 when rioting in the provincial capital, Urumqi, led to over 200 deaths and some 1,700 were injured.

Following the Urumqi riots, in May 2010, the Chinese central government announced the launching of a major modernisation and development plan for Xinjiang, with plans to pump in almost $100bn over a five-year period, with its centrepiece being the Special Economic Zone for Kashgar (similar to the one in Shenzhen, close to Hong Kong) to link the province economically closer to Pakistan and the seven other neighbouring countries that border Xinjiang. The Chinese initiative for Xinjiang also has two interrelated objectives: development and stability.

After the recent violence in Kashgar, local authorities referred to a leader of this terror group having been trained in Pakistan, a claim echoed in the semi-official English-language China Daily of Aug 2 which said “the leaders of the group learned terrorist techniques in Etim camps in Pakistan before they penetrated into Xinjiang”. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim) was formally declared a terrorist outfit by the United Nations Security Council in 2002.

The subsequent official statement of China’s foreign ministry on Aug 3 made no mention of training camps in Pakistan, focusing only on a positive note of “continued close anti-terror cooperation between Pakistan and China”. And, in an unprecedented comment, the ISPR chief, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, underlined on Aug 5, the “Pakistan Army have been and would continue operations against Etim, and our cooperation (with China) in the field of operations and intelligence will continue against the common threat of terrorism”. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the head of ISI has visited China twice in five weeks.

Given the relatively free movement of people between Pakistan and China, concerns have been raised by Chinese leaders about border crossings by Uighur extremists. For example, when President Zardari visited China in February 2009, China’s minister of public security especially flew from Beijing to Shanghai to discuss these issues with him.

That this irritant hasn’t been able to spoil Pakistan-China relations so far is largely because of Pakistan’s consis tently close cooperation with China on this count, key aspects of which have included:

— Capture and extradition of Xinjiang suspects from Pakistan on at least three occasions, 14 in 1997, seven in 2002 and nine in 2009; — Killing of Etim leader, Hasan Mahsum, by the Pakistan Army in October 2003, as well as the death in a drone attack of his successor Abdul Haq Turkestani in January 2010, on information provided by Pakistan; — Joint counterterrorism military exercises between the Pakistan Army and the People’s Liberation Army of China in 2004 in Xinjiang, in Abbottabad in 2006 and in July 2010 in the predominantly Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Several hundred troops, including elite commandos from both sides, took part in these military drills, whose preparations do not preclude the possibility of joint operations against antiChina terror groups on the PakistanChina border, should the need ever arise.

Since Xinjiang, and Kashgar in particular, would be the hub of regionalism spawned by economy, energy, road and rail communications (a feasibility study for a railway line from Havelian in Pakis tan to Kashgar is under way), geopolitics also casts its shadow over the region.

While China is vital for Pakistan’s security, stability, economy and energy, and is also now a factor for national unity given across-the-board national consensus on close ties with our time-tested neighbour, Pakistan’s importance too has increased since it protects China’s troubled ‘soft southern underbelly’ (Tibet, Xinjiang). With the Dalai Lama operating out of India, the ‘Tibet card’ could now be played in coordination with the ‘Xinjiang card’ as the World Uighur Congress has its headquarters in Washington.

Containing China’s rise and viewing China as the ‘new threat’ seem to be key ingredients of an emerging Great Game which has two other components: cobbling an anti-China coalition of Asian countries like India, Japan and Vietnam, and exploiting China’s ethnic fault lines.

In fact, such thinking is not new among influential circles in Washington. A famous Op-Ed which the prominent establishment writer, Leslie Gelb, provocatively titled ‘Breaking China Apart’, in The New York Times on Nov 13, 1991, stated that “a threat to the territorial integrity of the Middle Kingdom” could become the “ultimate sanction” if Beijing did not behave. He added, somewhat ominously, that “Americans and others may take extraordinary measures” including “kindling separatism” to pressure China.

Notwithstanding such a mindset of others regarding China, the primary onus is on Pakistani policymakers, both in mufti and khaki, to take the fallout of Kashgar seriously for its recurrence can be detrimental to our bilateral bond.

For starters, they have to ensure no part of Pakistan is used by any group against any of our neighbours. The excuse of ‘lack of control over ungoverned spaces’ no longer holds, more so, if such spaces can be used with impunity by forces destabilising both Pakistan and its friendly neighbours.

Earlier, Iran had voiced similar complaints, so the quicker and more competently we act, the better it would be for Pakistan’s interests and that of our relations with the region as a whole. ¦ The writer is chairman of the PakistanChina Institute, a non-governmental think tank devoted to relations with China and the region.

Implementing devolution

THE devolution of several ministries to the provinces has been one of Pakistan’s most important steps towards developing a strong federation that pays due respect to provincial autonomy. But it is also an incredibly complex undertaking, and the quality of its execution will have very real implications for the day-to-day lives of citizens. A report in this paper yesterday showed that a number of areas formerly within the purview of the food and agriculture ministry, for example, require regulatory oversight or inter-provincial coordination best carried out by a central body. One such issue is the equitable distribution of agricultural products across the country; when it comes to wheat, for example, will Punjab be willing to meet the needs of other provinces rather than exporting it at higher prices? Another example is that of safety standards; imported produce may enter the country from Sindh but makes its way to other provinces, and crops grown in one part of the country are sent elsewhere. How will this movement of produce be affected if provinces develop varying standards for pest control and other safety risks? The issue of regulation brings up the case of the pharmaceutical sector as well. The drug regulation function at the health ministry, which controlled the pricing, regulation and licensing of drugs, is reportedly inactive since devolution, exposing consumers to serious health risks. But even if these functions are finally taken up at the provincial level, inconsistent licensing and pricing across provinces will lead to the creation of black markets in pharmaceutical drugs.

These are examples from just two ministries, but they highlight the kinds of issues that need to be ironed out urgently. Apart from the obvious health and pricing risks for consumers, what would be unfortunate is if the poor execution of devolution became ammunition for those who oppose it. If ministries at the provincial level do not spring into action quickly, and the centre does not devise — using input from the provinces — methods for addressing regulation and coordination issues created by the devolution plan, the entire exercise could be in danger of being diluted or overturned.

Global crisis: key stages

By Larry Elliott

FROM sub-prime to downgrade, there have been five stages of the most serious crisis to hit the global economy since the Great Depression.

Phase one on August 9, 2007 began with the seizure in the banking system precipitated by BNP Paribas announcing that it was ceasing activity in three hedge funds that specialised in US mortgage debt.

This was the moment it became clear that there were tens of trillions of dollars worth of dodgy derivatives swilling round which were worth a lot less than the bankers had previously imagined. Nobody knew how big the losses were or how great the exposure of individual banks actually was, so trust evaporated overnight and banks stopped doing business with each other.

It took a year for the financial crisis to come to a head but it did so on Sept 15, 2008 when the US government allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt. Up to that point, it had been assumed that governments would always step in to bail out any bank that got into serious trouble: the US had done so by finding a buyer for Bear Stearns while the UK had nationalised Northern Rock.

When Lehman Brothers went down, the notion that all banks were ‘too big to fail’ no longer held true, with the result that every bank was deemed to be risky. Within a month, the threat of a domino effect through the global financial system forced western governments to inject vast sums of capital into their banks to prevent them from collapsing.

The banks were rescued in the nick of time, but it was too late to prevent the global economy from going into freefall. Credit flows to the private sector were choked off at the same time as consumer and business confidence collapsed. All this came after a period when high oil prices had persuaded central banks that the priority was to keep interest rates high as a bulwark against inflation rather than to cut them in anticipation of the financial crisis spreading to the real economy.

The winter of 2008-09 saw coordinated action by the newly formed G20 group of developed and developing nations in an attempt to prevent recession turning into a slump. Interest rates were cut to the bone, fiscal stimulus packages of varying sizes announced, and electronic money created through quantitative easing.

At the London G20 summit on April 2, 2009, world leaders committed themselves to a $5tr fiscal expansion, an extra $1.1tr of resources to help the International Monetary Fund and other global institutions boost jobs and growth, and to reform of the banks. From this point, when the global economy was on the turn, international cooperation started to disintegrate as individual countries pursued their own agendas.

May 9, 2010 marked the point at which the focus of concern switched from the private sector to the public sector. By the time the IMF and the European Union announced they would provide financial help to Greece, the issue was no longer the solvency of banks but the solvency of governments. Budget deficits had ballooned during the recession, mainly as a result of lower tax receipts and higher non-discretionary welfare spending, but also because of the fiscal packages announced in the winter of 2008-09.

Last Friday, the morphing of a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt crisis was complete when the rating agency, S&P, waited for Wall Street to shut up shop for the weekend before announcing that America’s debt would no longer be classed as top-notch triple A. This could hardly have come at a worse time, and not just because last week saw the biggest sell-off in stock markets since late 2008. ¦ — The Guardian, London

Devolution the saviour – I

The DC-SP based system of rule was considered necessary for governance by the pre-Independence governments to ensure absolute control over the people and the maintenance of public order.

By Tanwir Naqvi

A TUMULTUOUS month ago, Sindh was pushed back a century and a half to a system of bureaucratic rule through antiquated laws that the British had used for ruling their colonies for two centuries.

The motive of Sindh’s politico-bureaucratic elite for taking this regressive action obviously was to facilitate and perpetuate arbitrary rule over their own people. The Police Act 1861 remaining intact makes it evident that this remains the motive, despite the misleading impression being given that by disbanding the divisions and their commissioners the local government system under the SLGO has replaced the so-called commissionerate system introduced a month ago. This makes it imperative for people to acquire a clear awareness of what had necessitated its replacement a decade ago with the Police Order 2002 and its integration with the Local Government Ordinances 2001.

The colonial system was built around extreme centralisation of authority under six separate laws in one officer who had four titles — collector (of land revenue), district magistrate, deputy commissioner, and controller of local governments — and the concentration of 10 management functions spread across the political, administrative and criminal justice spectrum of governance.

The system’s colonial character was founded on the empowerment of a single officer, the district magistrate, with administrative authority along with the judicial authority to even hold trials in his criminal court, thus making him the arraigner and the prosecution, as well as the judge and the jury in his court. The 1973 constitution did away with this antipeople monstrosity, but allowed five years for the judicial function to be withdrawn from the executive magistracy. However, it took nearly three decades to get implemented through the Local Government Ordinances 2001 and the Police Order 2002. Violations of the constitution inherent in restoring this executive magistracy, partially or wholly today, pose a stark challenge to our independent judiciary.

The police, headed by the superintendent of police of the district, functioned under the Police Act 1861 for performing three core functions: maintenance of public order; investigation of crime; and prosecution of criminals in courts of law. The ethos of the police under this law was not of policing the district as a service to the people; instead, the police was meant for protecting the colonial state and pro-state people against opponents of the state. Selective justice through tyrannical behaviour was thus inherent to the system.

The Police Rules 1934 placed the police under the ‘general supervision and control’ of the district magistrate. Yet when police excess called for judicial enquiry, the provincial government deputed the district magistrate to conduct it, despite the latter being a party to it as the boss of the police. This, in essence, is the conflict-of-interest ridden criminal justice system, deliberately built to respond to political requirements as opposed to the needs of justice, which the Sindh government has chosen to reintroduce.

This DC-SP based system of rule was all that the pre-Independence governments considered necessary for governance; because their aim was ensuring absolute control over the people, and the maintenance of public order, both mainly in pursuit of the twin colonial interests of maximising production, and optimising collection of revenue for its repatriation to their mother country.

The Devolution Plan sought to replace this system with an integrated governance system based on two new laws: the provincial Local Government Ordinances 2001 to enable 99 per cent of the people to solve 99 per cent of their problems within the district; while the federal Police Order 2002 laid the foundation for establishing a pro-people criminal justice and policing system. Good governance is possible only through cohesive functioning of these two laws.

The Police Order 2002 subordinates the district police directly to the district nazim for all policing functions except the internal administration of the police, investigation of crime and the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. Very deliberately, authority over the police was not decentralised to any other political leader or bureaucrat in the local government. To infuse professionalism in the planning of all policing functions, Police Order 2002 requires the district police officer to develop a formal policing plan every year for approval by the district nazim.

Taking away the ‘general supervision and control’ over the police from the district magistrate, it vests the police directly with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens against crime, as a service to the people, and gives it the authority to measure up to its new role. To balance this autonomy of the district police, and the authority of the district nazim over the police, the Police Order 2002 created and tasked public safety commissions at the district and provincial levels to prevent misuse of the police by the district nazim, as well as misuse of authority by the police itself. The law requires these civil society institutions to be manned by a combination of meticulously selected citizens of eminence and integrity, and elected representatives at both levels.

To promote specialisation, the law deconcentrates the three prime functions of the police by leaving just the maintenance of public order with the main elements of the district police; and creating a separate department within the police to handle investigation of crime; while a separate prosecution department was created in each provincial government for the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. But to ensure that all district functionaries dealing with functions relating to crime and criminals, including prisons and the district courts, function harmoniously, a criminal justice coordination committee, headed by the sessions judge of the district was brought into being.

For internal administration the police was placed under its own district and provincial police officers, but continued to be answerable to the judiciary. Yet the province was given a professional police complaints authority to discipline police functionaries who were reported upon by the public safety commissions for neglect or excess in the performance of their policing functions.

The Police Order also created independent police forces and public safety commissions for each city district, so as to enable the heads of the provincial police to focus on the host of common districts of the province without the massive distraction that crime in the populous city districts causes.

The bureaucracy supported by the political elite introduced regressive amendments to the law and impeded its implementation for keeping alive the case for restoring the executive magistracy and bureaucratic control over the police. The police itself was not assertive enough to precipitate the implementation of the Police Order despite the support of some progressive elements from among the politico-bureaucratic elite. Coupled with insufficient investment in the police during a decade of rising terror-related crime, this dynamics kept the mutilated law partially implemented leaving the police with its traditional ungainly image largely unchanged.

For the police to emerge as a peopleand-state-friendly governance institution, replacing the Police Act 1861 with the Police Order 2002, along with restoring this law and the Local Government Ordinances 2001 to their original state, followed by their prompt and thorough implementation, are the prime needs of durable good governance through a propeople democracy. Given the wisdom and the will to weave a prosperous future for the people, Sindh can now lead the nation towards the attainment of this goal. ¦ —

To be concluded The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.

Outsourcing conscience

In matters of the conscience, outsourcing is the desire of many Pakistanis.

By Rafia Zakaria


PASSED in 1981, the Ehteram-i-Ramazan Ordinance bans public eating and drinking, making it far harder for Pakistani Muslims to evade the religious duty of fasting during the month.

Undoubtedly, fasting is a trying task in the long, hot and powerless hours of summer; still, from the state’s point of view, some like the 25 arrested in Faisalabad need a push in the right direction. For those not conquered into compliance by the fear of punishment in the hereafter, the possibility of arrest and six months in jail in the here and now can save from temptation and deliver from sin.

Further assistance in matters of the conscience has been provided by the Federal Shariat Court which deemed the punishment of 40 lashes for the consumption of alcohol un-Islamic. According to the decision, there was no support in either the Holy Quran or Sunnah for the hadd punishment of 40 lashes for those found consuming alcohol. The law, the court declared, must be amended and a more lenient 40 sticks, instead of lashes, could be applied instead.

These prescriptions would seem onerous to proponents of the individual conscience and moral management who would like the state to stop assisting struggling believers seeking guidance from the government in matters of faith. But in Pakistan, the concept of choice, whether it involves conscience or convention, has never enjoyed much popularity.

If you’re poor, you can choose between slogging it out as a construction worker or a rickshaw driver; if middle-class, you can opt to either slaving at a chaotic hospital or in a stuffy cubicle, marry the slightly fat cousin or the too-talkative one, live in the house with the leaky roof or the one with the crumbling stairs. Choosing between these options requires the careful evaluation of competing miseries, a task in which Pakistanis have expertise.

Given these sordid encounters with choice, it is little wonder that in matters of the conscience, outsourcing is the desire of many Pakistanis.

If choices are so limited and meaningless in matters of life, why insist on retaining them in matters of moral or religious conscience? Enter, the state, whose thoughtfully added obstacles — the danger of arrest if you scarf down a sandwich in Ramazan, or the prospect of being stoned to death if you run away with your neighbour’s wife — can make moral selection so much simpler.

If the government of a poor country cannot deliver much in this world, it should at least promise something in the hereafter; for if all that is immoral is illegal and you break no law, you become morally perfect.

Taken from the Saudis, this idea of outsourcing the conscience to the state is quite tempting for exhausted populations tired of making independent moral decisions. But, like so many other good ideas, the export of moral management to foreign lands runs into the problem of being not quite indigenous or suitable for local climes.

When the Saudis mandated the Holy Quran and Sunnah as their constitution, and charged state-appointed clerics to decide what could and could not be done, and sent around helpful bands of vice squads to thwart even determined sinners, they were pursuing quite the opposite of what plagues Pakistan.

Faced with the heavy burden of sudden largesse piping up unstoppable streams of wealth from the midst of their sandy homeland, the Saudis like most of the wealthy were beset not by our very Pakistani paltriness of limited options but the hedonistic potential of too much choice. Theirs were not the burden of choosing between equally dismal options but the fears engendered by suddenly being able to buy both the mansion in France and the villa in Italy, of marrying the cousin and the Ukrainian actress.

They outsourced individual conscience to the Saudi state not because of their frustrations at the limits of their choices or inescapable circumstances, but because as the blessed peddlers of the world’s oil they had no limits.

Hence the problem of importing a system conjured up by rich Saudis to a poor country like Pakistan where choice means little. The unsurprising result: moral guarantees provided by a poor government to save the souls of a poor populace are just as shaky and erratic and piecemeal as the promises to provide food, security or electricity.

You may get some help with fasting with one act passed by parliament, but not much on the issue of, say, money laundering or trash disposal. Oblivious, you could go around doing all sorts of immoral things because they are not yet illegal, because there is yet no law to prohibit them and thus land yourself in hell for the mistake of followed mismanaged or unmarked routes to paradise. Morals like titles to property and applications for identity cards can get lost in the government bureaucracy.

The Saudis have faced the opposite problem. So thorough has been their government’s management of morals that the individual conscience has become obsolete and cannot be counted on for moral calculations that go beyond technically following the law.

One indication has been a recent report aired on French channel France24 about the proliferation of sex tourism in certain Muslim countries. Enacted between Muslims are short-term ‘marriages’ considered legal under Saudi law. Any person with a working conscience could tell you that such technical shortcuts around the idea of marriage are not moral. Unfortunately, a number of Saudis, unwitting casualties of the outsourced conscience, are no longer able to make such independent deductions The Saudi experience suggests that the project of outsourcing conscience suffers from problematic glitches causing either the inadvertent death of individual conscience or the government mismanagement of morals. Neither scenario can be tolerated by believers searching for a solid, certain route to salvation on which there is simply no room for mistakes. ¦

The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Ties with Riyadh

UNTIL this spring they may not have been the best of friends, but unnerving changes in world affairs can quickly revive alliances. The current government’s relations with Saudi Arabia had been decidedly chilly since it came to power. Generally more comfortable with Pakistan’s military dictators and close to PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, the Saudis have never been fans of the current Pakistani leadership, but a series of official visits indicate that recent developments in the region have created new incentives. The turning point was a trip to Islamabad in March by Saudi National Security Council Secretary General Prince Bandar, which was followed by visits to Riyadh by then minister of state for foreign affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, President Zardari and, most recently, the prime minister. Not much has been said publicly about the details of these conversations, and most statements have been couched in diplomatic lingo about strengthening bilateral ties. But one description was more telling; the president’s visit, according to his spokesperson, was also aimed at “taking forward the consultative process on issues of peace, security and political stability in countries of the region that have recently been witnessing violence and turmoil”.

This easily encompasses both the Arab Spring and the Taliban reconciliation process in Afghanistan. According to observers of Pak-Saudi relations, America’s lack of support for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and its refusal to interfere in the Bahrain uprising sent the Saudis looking for new supporters to ease fears about upheaval in the region. Pakistan was reportedly courted both to talk to Iran — blamed by Saudi Arabia for supporting Shia protesters in Bahrain — and to provide security forces to quell the unrest there. And in the face of an impending American withdrawal from Afghanistan, building regional consensus on that country’s future became a priority. The PPP government was quick to capitalise on this newfound importance. The potential gains for the current government of a closer relationship with Riyadh were obvious: economic support, Saudi influence on the Americans and the Afghans to ensure Pakistan’s role in shaping reconciliation in Afghanistan, and point-scoring with the Pakistani public.

Observers do add, though, that person-to-person contact between officials of the two governments, especially the heads of state, cannot yet be described as warm. But for the moment a pragmatic analysis of regional realities have brought the Saudis knocking on Pakistan’s door, and the PPP government has, despite earlier snubs from Riyadh, leapt at the opportunity. The move was a sober and intelligent one: a closer ally and a mediator role in the region can only be useful tools to have.

America’s capacity for self-harm

By Mahir Ali


THE first week of August, according to some commentators, will go down in history as signifying a tipping point in terms of the loss of American hegemony.

This conclusion is based primarily on the downgrading of the United States’ credit rating by Standard & Poor’s (S&P), in the wake of a Capitol Hill compromise over raising the nation’s debt ceiling that was advertised, inter alia, as a means of pre-empting this very outcome.

The subsequent precipitous decline in international stock markets could be construed as substantiating this thesis, although it also underlines America’s continuing key status in the global economy. The significance of the fact that China — and, too a lesser extent, India — deemed it necessary to berate the US for its fiscal imprudence has not been lost on observers, though.

As America’s largest creditor, China’s concern is not surprising; and it is widely assumed that China’s economy, powering along at a growth rate of about 10 per cent, will in due course overtake that of the US. The tone of the dressing-down, however, was as unprecedented as the ratings downgrade.

Within the US, there has been a degree of outrage over S&P’s chutzpah — it was, after all, among those agencies that, far from raising any flags of warning, continued to award an AAA rating to culpable financial institutions in the run-up to the subprime mortgages crisis. Which is not entirely remarkable, given that the agencies derive their income from these very institutions, hence they can hardly be considered independent. Their appalling judgment entailed no penalties.

It is intriguing, meanwhile, that half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the last-minute deal hammered out between the White House and leading Republicans, which broadly entails huge spending cuts in the decades ahead, without any commensurate increase in taxation.

Last year, President Barack Obama agreed to extend his predecessor George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the very rich — which have cumulatively cost the US Treasury more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has suggested that he has not given up on the idea of imposing new taxes on the wealthy, but his record of caving in to the Tea Party types does not bode well.

During his presidential campaign, Obama harboured some illusions about a postpartisan America. Given that ideological distinctions between the Democrats and the Republicans have grown fuzzy over the decades, the idea may not have seemed completely fantastical to some. He ought to have known, though, that a rightwards shift in the so-called liberal centre invariably encourages conservatives to drift towards extremes.

What made such a process even more likely was the fact that a substantial proportion of American citizens were discomfited by the very idea of an African-American head of state. Small wonder, then, that the nonsense about Obama’s birth certificate gained so much traction.

What’s more worrying, though, is the fact that the president has managed to alienate to such an extent the constituency that elevated him to the White House three years ago. It is beginning to seem increasingly unlikely that Obama will be re-elected next year. He may just squeeze in if the Republican candidate is too polarising, but it certainly won’t be easy — not least given the tendency of American voters to simply abstain if they are not too pushed about the results.

The 61 per cent turnout in 2008 was extraordinarily high by US standards; last year’s Republican landslide in the midterm elections was based on a turnout of about 40 per cent — which, albeit not unusual, is pathetic for a nation supposedly dedicated to ‘spreading democracy’ in various parts of the world.

One of the most pertinent critiques of the debt deal has been that it will exacerbate America’s biggest socio-economic problem, namely the appalling level of unemployment. The leading Republican negotiators have been accused of behaving like terrorists. That’s hardly a complimentary assessment, particularly in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks. It barely needs to be pointed out that those who wish America ill will be heartened by recent intimations of its capacity for selfharm.

Obama, meanwhile, might do well to soak up some ancient wisdom. There is, for instance, a fable attributed to Aesop about a man and his son taking their donkey (which coincidentally hap pens to be the Democratic Party’s symbol) to market.

They are berated first of all for not riding the beast, so the man puts his son on the animal’s back. Soon thereafter, the son is accused by other passersby of being lazy, so the father replaces his son as the rider. Inevitably, this action too is criticised, so he seats his son in front of him. Whereupon the two of them are accused of overburdening the animal.

After a bit of pondering, they tie the donkey’s feet to a pole and decide to carry the animal instead, which leads to much jeering. As they are crossing a bridge to get to the market, the donkey disentangles one of his legs and kicks out. In the fracas that ensues, the animal falls over the bridge and is drowned because its forelegs are still tied.

The moral of the story? Those who seek to please everybody will please nobody.

To which one might add: those who please nobody cannot seriously aspire to a twoterm presidency. Yet the prospect of Obama losing in 2012 is an unpleasant one — not on account of his (lack of) achievements, but because of the likelihood that his successor could be someone as crazy as Michele Bachman. The idea of a representative of the loony right presiding over the possible end of empire hardly bears contemplation.

Eventually someone will have to start wondering whether free-market capitalism, which entails the supremacy of the profit motive, is such a good idea after all. But it would be silly to hold one’s breath. ¦

Syrian-Saudi relations

By Ian Black


SAUDI Arabian foreign policy is usually a discreet business involving financial incentives and low-profile initiatives, so condemnation of the Syrian repression by King Abdullah is a rare example of high-profile official candour.

It also highlights the two faces of Saudi foreign policy under the pressure of the Arab Spring. Riyadh, after all, gave shelter to Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh and was dismayed by the overthrow and subsequent trial of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

And it sent troops into Bahrain to crush pro-democracy protests there to stop the ‘contagion’ spreading to the restive Shia minority in its own eastern province. Domestic policy has been to buy off dissent with investment in job creation and social benefits.

But the Saudi and Syrian regimes have long been at loggerheads because of the mutual antipathy of a conservative kingdom and a secular republic — and the strategic relationship between Syria and Iran, including their backing for Hezbollah and Hamas.

Tensions exploded in 2006 when Assad castigated other Arab leaders as “half-men” — everyone knew he really meant the Saudi king — for failing to resist Israel’s attack on Lebanon.

It has been rumoured for some time that the Saudis, with the UAE and Kuwait, are quietly financing elements of the Syrian opposition. Fundamentally, however, Saudi policy remains profoundly conservative. The kingdom does not support regime change in Damascus or anywhere else. Abdullah posited a choice between wisdom and ‘chaos’ — a keyword in the Arabic political lexicon. Wisdom means maintaining stability — if necessary, by reforms. The king’s speech was largely about the Saudis responding to the blandishments of the US, trying to make life a little tougher for Assad by swapping some unusually frank neighbourly criticism for a deafening regional silence. ¦ — The Guardian, London

Fai’s campaign, spread over four decades, aroused no suspicion in the American security agencies.

By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi

ONE can understand why New Delhi welcomed Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai’s arrest: there is perhaps no other American who has done more to bring the cause of Kashmir’s freedom to the notice of a wide range of fellow Americans than this tireless crusader for Kashmir’s freedom.

An irate letter written to then president Clinton by the Kashmiri Women for Communal Harmony, an Indian American women’s organisation, perhaps testified to the effectiveness of Fai’s campaign when it protested against the positive tones in which Clinton had replied to his letter.

On Dec 27, 1993, responding to Fai’s letter, president Clinton said he “shared” Fai’s belief that “we all must look closely at our policies with regard to human rights”, and then added what to KWCH was a provocation, “I look forward to working with you and others to bring peace to Kashmir, and appreciate your input”. This “appreciation” was too much for the KWCH, which sought to add to Clinton’s knowledge by saying that Fai’s Kashmiri American Council was “a stunt” and alleged that the president’s letter had given “respectability” to Fai.

During the first Clinton term, the White House, the State Department and a large number of congressmen both Republicans and Democrats repeatedly asked India to address America’s human rights concerns and enter into talks with Pakistan with a view to a final settlement of Kashmir.

A bewildering variety of activity comprised Fai’s campaign — letters to American leaders, ‘vigils’ outside the White House, personal meetings with congressmen and media personalities, ads in newspapers and demos in Washington D.C. and elsewhere. All this activity was spread over four decades and aroused no suspicion in the American security agencies. Fai’s biggest success came during then Indian prime minister Narasimha Rao’s visit to Washington in May 1994, when an unusually large number of congressmen mobilised themselves on the Kashmir issue. In one week alone, 10 congressmen wrote to president Clinton, urging him to raise the Kashmir issue, India’s defiance of UN resolutions and its violations of human rights dur ing his talks with the Indian prime minister.

Dan Burton, the fiery Republican from Indiana, wrote a letter to secretary of state Warren Christopher, urging him to “express our deep concern about the human rights situation in Kashmir” and to ask Rao to allow the holding of prayers in the Hazratbal mosque, which “continues to be surrounded by military bunkers”.

At the Rayburn Office Building, congressman after congressman, and at least one senator, came to the podium to denounce human rights abuses by India in Kashmir. The occasion was the launching of a book by Prof William Baker, the chief guest being Azad Kashmir prime minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum.

The speeches and the letters to Clinton were uncomfortable for the Indian lobby, because they involved some prestigious names, including Senator Paul Simon, the Democrat from Illinois, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House majority whip David Bonior and Dana Rohrabacher a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman Bonior, perhaps the most outspoken of them, referred to the “breaking of the shackles of totalitarianism” throughout the world, and demanded the total withdrawal of Indian troops from India-administered Kashmir. The House majority whip regretted that his country did not really understand what was happening in Kashmir and urged president Clinton to raise the issue with Mr Rao. He was convinced the people of Kashmir were bound to achieve their freedom.

Congressman Rohrabacher not only supported the cause of the people of Kashmir, he paid tributes to Pakistan for its role during the Cold War, especially during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

On May 19, the KAC got a full-page ad published in The Washington Post. Entitled, ‘What Prime Minister Rao will not tell President Clinton’, the black-bordered ad dwelt on the situation in India-administered Kashmir and focused on the human rights situation.

The outcome of the Clinton-Rao meeting was a disappointment for India, for in his very opening statement Clinton called for talks between Pakistan and India to solve the Kashmir issue. Calling for ‘talks’ normally should provoke no government. But so closed has been the Indian mind on Kashmir that Indians squirm at the mere mention of Kashmir.

That the Indians were prepared for some rough moments during the White House talks became clear when an Indian newsman asked Rao whether Clinton had twisted his arm. To a burst of laughter, and showing his arm to the newsmen Rao said, “My arm is absolutely intact. The president didn’t even touch it”. Clinton was, of course, tactful. He expressed the usual warmth reserved for a visiting head of government, spoke of values that united America and India but then replied “differences remain” when an Indian newsman asked him whether there was an identity of views between the two leaders.

The joint statement issued after the talks contained on the American side’s insistence the following fifth point: “The two leaders agreed on the need for bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan to resolve outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, as envisaged in the Simla agreement.” Without Pakistan being there, Clinton insisting on a Kashmir solution in a bilateral US-India statement was quite a success for Fai. It is true that others also helped, including first and foremost the Pakistan embassy headed by Dr Maleeha Lodhi, various Pakistani associations and the American Muslim Council, led by Abdul Rahman Alamoudi (arrested in September 2003). But no one played a greater role in highlighting Kashmir’s cause than Fai, assisted by a fellow Kashmiri the late journalist Khalid Hasan. ¦

Of new provinces

There is need for a thorough debate on the proposals to create new provinces. Pakistan now needs a lean administrative superstructure in each province including smaller assemblies and secretariats.

By I.A. Rehman


IT is now quite clear that the country’s political gladiators are readying themselves for another spectacular battle, this time on the issue of the creation of new provinces.

While the PPP and PML-N have been sounding out their allies and supporters, the PML-Q has jumped the gun and submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly for constituting the southern Punjab districts into a separate province. While taking this step, the party, now a member of the ruling coalition at the centre, has tried to distinguish itself from the PPP’s stand by refraining from calling the proposed province Seraiki and arguing that the move is dictated by administrative reasons.

Although no principle stands in the way of creating new administrative units if the people of the territories concerned, a sizable majority if not all of them, demand it. Yet, the problems such demands raise need not be ignored. These problems have been identified more than once and their reiteration should not be out of place.

The first difficulty is the tendency among our overworked political leaders to ideologise every issue. The traditional custodians of the Islamic ideology or the Pakistan ideology, or both, will surely oppose the idea of dividing any province on a linguistic or an ethnic basis. They are so obsessed with their notions of the millat that the existence of Muslim nations within the great millat is anathema to them. It is with difficulty that they tolerate the existence of units in the federation of Pakistan, and off and on their yearning for turning this country into a highly centralised unitary state comes out into the open.

These ideologues are hopelessly behind the times. Ethnic and linguistic identities continue to provide strong motivation for movements for political autonomy all over the world, more so wherever states have not been able to justly accommodate the diverse intranation groups and interests within the state structure. In the subcontinent, all movements for provincial status, including those for the separation of Sindh from Bombay and the elevation of the then North-Western Frontier Province to a full governor’s province, had their roots in the people’s ethnic and linguistic aspirations, though reference to the people’s belief was also sometimes made.

The same can be said about the Indian experiences in this regard — the division of the East Punjab of 1947 into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and the birth of Jharkand out of the womb of Bihar and the emergence of the province of Uttarkhand out of the all-powerful Uttar Pradesh.

It is perhaps time our political leaders reappraised their notions of unity on the basis of shared belief alone and learnt to deal with political issues as matters of political adjustment. They will serve Pakistan better by seeking unity in diversity instead of closing their eyes to the pluralist nature of our society.

True, many prominent members of Punjab’s intelligentsia do not accept Seraiki as anything more than a dialect of Punjabi, nor do they concede the Seraiki people’s claim to be a distinctly separate ethnic community. Controversies on these points have been going on for decades. Do these issues have a decisive bearing on the present Seraiki demand?

What matters today perhaps more than anything else is the fact of the Seraiki people’s poverty and deprivation. They are the traditional grain-producers of the region and they have been starving for centuries. Unlike the people of central and northern Punjab they have not gone into business or services and now they want to have their share of both. That is legitimate politics on the basis of a community’s socio-economic interests.

Incidentally, what will be the fate of the Punjab’s Provincially Administered Tribal Area in D.G. Khan District where some of the country’s poorest and utterly neglected people live? Why cannot these Balochi-speaking people be united with Balochistan in accordance with their wishes they had expressed many years ago?

The promoters of the Seraiki province are likely to have some problem with the people who have been demanding the revival of the former Bahawalpur state as a separate unit. Unless the PPP can find a way to take these people along, the split in Seraiki ranks could cause it considerable difficulties.

We may now look at some of the problems that need to be addressed.

First, the impact of the creation of new provinces on the status of the Senate ought to be examined. Today Balochistan and Sindh hold 25 per cent of seats/power each in the Senate (Islamabad excluded). If Gilgit-Baltistan is recognised as a province and the Hazara and Seraiki provinces are created the share of these provinces (along with that of the leftover Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in the Senate will be reduced from 25 to around 14 per cent. The balance of power among the units of the federation could be upset whether or not the Seraikis and Hazarawals side with Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa respectively.

Secondly, if the new provinces are to have as top-heavy administrations as the provinces today the country’s non-productive expenditure, which has already crossed all reasonable limits, will rise further and create unmanageable eco nomic crises.Thirdly, Pakistan has just embarked on an experiment to build a federation of duly empowered units. There is considerable anxiety whether the provinces have the capacity to benefit from the administrative and financial powers they have acquired. The question can more justifiably be raised about the capacity of the proposed new provinces.

Quite obviously there is need for a thorough debate on the proposals to create new provinces. Maybe Pakistan now needs a lean administrative superstructure in each province — smaller assemblies and secretariats and a radical pruning of the plumage of power. The day may not be far off when the provinces could need their own constitutions and their own plans to generate resources instead of banking on their shares of the divisible pool.

The debate on the subject has thrown up two points of view. According to one, talk of new provinces and their autonomy will be relevant only if the state can beat off the challenge from the extremists who believe neither in provinces nor in a democratic constitution. The other argument is that satisfying various communities’ aspirations for empowerment and autonomy will make the state stronger and enable it to defeat the militants. Only time will tell which of the two views will guarantee the people a happier future. ¦

Devolution the saviour — II Devolution the stabiliser

With the return of the LG system, Sindh is halfway back to good governance already.

By Tanwir Naqvi


THIS second article focuses on highlighting the essence of the people-serving local government system that has (fortunately for the people of Sindh) been reintroduced, as well as how governance will be seriously hampered when this pro-people governance system will inevitably clash with the authoritarian anti-people colonial Police Act 1861.

The DC-SP based governance system discussed in the first article had evoked in the people the feeling of being left out from governance. The British therefore introduced powerless local ‘bodies’ in 1909, 1919 and 1924 responsible only for municipal functions in just the large urban areas.

These laws were cloaked in superficial national façades in the Ayub and Ziaul Haq eras up to 1979. And yet, even these municipal entities remained subordinated to the deputy commissioner or commissioner empowered as controller of local governments to countermand any executive order, resolution, byelaw, or budget of the local ‘bodies’.

The local government system devolved the deputy commissioner’s latent political power formally to elected leaders of the people. It deconcentrated the functions of most provincial departments, as well as the 10 functions of the deputy commissioner.

It decentralised these functions to officers of the district, tehsils and unions, who were empowered with the authority to enforce laws within the sphere of their respective responsibilities, and placed them under elected heads of their local governments. It created a system of formula-based transfer of financial resources to each local government along with mechanisms for both internal and external audit.

The law embodied a potent system of dual control over the local governments — the first by the people through their local councils empowered to legislate as well as to monitor their governments; and the second by the province through its local government commission and the provincial assembly.

The local government system thus empowered threetier local governments, headed by approachable elected leaders, mandated to deliver or face censure or dismissal; and thus trained in wielding political and legislative power coupled with administrative and financial authority for shouldering higher leadership responsibilities.

Under the principle of subsidiarity, the service delivery function of the provincial government was decentralised to local governments, thus freeing the provincial governments to perform five major functions: interacting with the federal and other provincial governments; formulating policies and strategies; enacting new laws and modernising old laws; directly managing only trans-district functions; and exercising control over local governments through the local government commission.

After the empowerment of the provincial governments through the recent elimination of the Concurrent Legislative List under the very same principle of subsidiarity, the fruits of devolution were expected to ripen in the form of even better service delivery by the provincial and local governments.

To lend focus to those municipal functions that affect every citizen perpetually, LGO 2001 narrowed down the scope of the municipal role by excluding education, training and health from municipal responsibility; and assigned this pruned municipal function to the town/tehsil municipal administration (TMA) of each city/common district.

Functions relating to education, training and health were consequently assigned to the district governments. The responsibility for all schools and colleges, whether established by the provincial governments or the erstwhile municipalities, thus passed to the district governments, leaving specialised colleges within the domain of provincial governments. Similarly, all health facilities from dispensaries to general hospitals were decentralised to district governments, leaving specialised hospitals with the provincial governments.

LGO 2001 converted the ‘tehsil’ into an integrated rural-urban municipal entity with its urban as well as rural population enjoying municipal facilities as a fundamental right. Its TMA has a planning office to plan and manage its coherent urbanisation. It was envisaged that gradual modernisation of agriculture, and establishment of industry, would create new businesses and jobs in each tehsil. This, along with the growth of municipal, health and education facilities, was expected to promote rapid urbanisation of the whole tehsil, and its evolution into a coherent city district.

This countrywide phenomenon would enable the people to stay in their home tehsils and districts instead of migrating to the few existing cities. This trend of ‘urbanisation of rural areas’ would thus gradually arrest the unabated ‘ruralisation of the urban areas’.

Police Order 2002 was designed in harmony with this local government system. The two systems — local governance and policing — were integrated through authority over the head of the district police being given under both the systems to the district nazim, and to no other elected leader or bureaucrat; and both the district nazim and the head of the district police placed under the oversight of public safety commissions.

With the reintroduction of the district magistracy in any form empowered with authority over the police, the district nazim is likely to experience insubordination by the executive magistracy as well as the police; and he, along with the rest of the political leadership, could even feel threatened by both, especially in the absence of public safety commissions.

With the police not exclusively responsible for policing the district to the satisfaction of the district nazim and the people, incompetence and tyrannical behaviour of the police will return, thus leaving the people as helpless before the police and the executive magistracy as they used to be. With the whole district government thus undermined, the governance system could soon border on collapse.

With the return of the local government system Sindh is halfway back to good governance already. Restoration of Police Order 2002 will complete the virtuous circle. If elections within this year can restore political leadership to the system, these July-August hiccups might even be forgotten, and 2011 remembered as the year in which the political elite truly set the stage for the establishment of a stable people-and-state-serving democracy from bottom to top.

If this does not happen, the consequences for democracy could be grave; because it will convince the people that politics is not about improving the lot of the people, or preventing what looks to them like a ‘failing’ state turning into a ‘failed’ state; but only about an oligarchy having fun at the expense of the people, generation after generation. ¦ — Concluded The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.

A western ‘un-spring’

At the heart of the debate on how to deal with what some have come to regard as perhaps an existential crisis of the capitalist system, is essentially the question of who is going to pay for this.

By Sakib Sherani


TRAGEDY in Norway, conflagration in Britain, sovereign meltdown in Europe, impasse, foreboding, downgrade and a deep sense of decline in the US: welcome to the West’s ‘autumn’? Given the magnitude and scale of the events leading into, and then emanating from, the socalled Great Recession, this is a question that has been seeking an answer for some time.

Global economic developments since 2008 have been narrowly — and very wrongly — characterised as a ‘sub-prime’ or a ‘financial’ crisis. In what has mirrored to a great extent, though arguably with not the same severity yet, the Great Depression of over 70 years ago, the current episode has not just been a financial or even macroeconomic crisis. A ‘financial’ crisis connotes something relatively short and sharp, occurring with regular frequency in some part of the globe, that tends to get fixed after the application of bank recapitalisation, monetary easing and other forms of policy intervention. While a recession is generally an outcome, it is usually typical in that it lasts 18 months to two years on average in the developed world.

However, events since 2008 (and even earlier, starting with what Alan Greenspan called the ‘Great Moderation’) have hardly been ‘typical’. In fact, as underscored by the sovereign credit downgrade of the US, and the huge retrenchment of growth and jobs in Europe, recent events have been seismic and portend to what Mohammed ElErian of PIMCO, the world’s largest private bond investor, has called ‘the new normal’. Decades of low growth, high unemployment and painful repair of public finances stare at the core of the global economy: US and Europe.

In addition to these events of great magnitude and severity, the confluence of the food and commodity prices superspike since 2007 has produced a tsunami of social dislocation and discontent around the world. While this has spawned misery on a global scale in its wake, the impact has been hardest felt by countries with high levels of public debt that have constrained their ability to stimulate the economy with anti-cyclical policies, or to insulate the vulnerable with safety nets or other protection mechanisms. Commentators have rightly referred to the aggregation of risks as ‘the perfect storm’, or perhaps more appropriately in the current context, a true ‘black swan’ event.

Hence, since the start of this crisis, over 50 million jobs are estimated to have been lost globally, while initial estimates put the increase in poverty at close to 200 million people in Asia alone. Not entirely coincidental is the fact that roughly one-sixth of humanity, or one billion people, went hungry every day in the world in 2009.

In many ways, this pain is more concentrated and acute in the developed economies which are struggling with unemployment, wealth erosion and a loss of hope while much of the emerging world is still experiencing unprecedented prosperity. The scale of pain in Europe and the US can be gauged not just by the magnitude of deficit reduction required over decades to return to a measure of solvency, much of it in the form of expenditure-cutting, but by statistics relating to the pain of ‘real’ people.

In Europe alone, an estimated 22.5 million people are currently unemployed, roughly 10 per cent of its workforce, with Spain’s unemployment rate at 21 per cent. Many of those seeking jobs are young and educated, with a large swathe who are facing a massive downshifting of their previously affluent lifestyle. In the US alone, close to six million properties are believed to have faced foreclosure action since 2007.

To a great extent, a similar toxic socioeconomic environment had spawned widespread disillusionment and the stu dent protest movements and inner-city unrest across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, while giving birth to anarchist urban guerilla movements such as Baader-Meinhof or the Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades and the Greek 17 November organisation, among others.

While state security apparatuses are much better equipped post-9/11 to snuff out terror activity, and any other geopolitic entity is unlikely to be a ready sponsor for such movements in the West, anarchy could yet be a recurring theme for years to come in Europe, particularly given the jobs outlook and the prospects for huge cutbacks in state entitlements and public services for years on end.

At the heart of the debate on how to deal with what some have come to regard as perhaps an existential crisis of the capitalist system, is essentially the question of who is going to pay for this — i.e. what shape will the burden of adjustment take? As demonstrated in the debates in the US Congress, the ideological dividing line is between those who want to cut expenditure (Republicans), especially entitlement pro grammes that favour essentially the poor, and those who want to increase the tax incidence on the rich while keeping expenditure levels on key programmes more or less unaffected (Democrats).

A popular variant of the latter argument is that increasing public spending in an economic crisis is the best bet to balance the books later, as it will generate economic activity and therefore more tax revenue down the road. Policymakers, academics and the media are besotted with this notion in Pakistan as well, despite overwhelming evidence in our case, that much like a second marriage, this proposition reflects the triumph of hope over experience. We will explore in the next article the myth of this ‘no cost’, silver bullet ‘solution’ that essentially seeks to replicate what policymakers in the US have achieved: kicking the can down the road. ¦

The writer heads a macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad.

What Pakistan can learn

Short-term solutions cause problems to multiply rather than be resolved.

By Khalid Aziz


THE recent report of the International Crisis Group (ICG) Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan is a critical appraisal of the efforts made during the past 10 years in that unfortunate country.

It warns, “There is no possibility that any amount of international assistance to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will stabilise the country in the next three years unless there are significant changes in international strategies, priorities and programmes.” One may ask that if progress could not be achieved in the last 10 years, how it will be possible to ensure this in the next three. Experience shows that the international community and Mr Karzai have now missed the opportunity to make a positive difference in Afghanistan.

Another finding and a lesson for the Pakistan military, as also for its operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, is that leadership regarding development and the rehabilitation of the internally displaced should remain with civilian institutions and communities, otherwise no effort to improve the situation would be sustainable and the money spent would be wasted.

The report notes that as “more and more districts come under Taliban control, despite US claims of substantial progress, and the insurgency spreads to areas regarded until recently as relatively secure, displacement and humanitarian needs are also rising. The US-led counter-insurgency doctrine that aid should consolidate military gains has been at best unsuccessful, if not counter-productive.” There is an unexplainable disconnect between what the doctrine states, for instance, in the Field Manual 3-07 of the US Army dealing with stability operations and what actually is happening. The manual highlights the importance of legiti macy as the basis for military actions. Legitimacy of action is considered, “the cross-cutting principle central to building trust and confidence among the people. Legitimacy is a multifaceted principle that impacts every aspect of stability operations, from any conceivable perspective”.

However, in reality one finds that the principle is not followed by either the US or Pakistan military.

The following examples would suffice. About two years ago, the US decided to eliminate Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan through night raids. In many cases these raids, that now average 15 to 20 per night, resulted in the deaths of scores of innocent persons including women and children. These actions were not only a violation of human rights, they were also illegitimate in the eyes of the Pakhtuns, who were the target of such actions.

The violation of the sanctity (purdah) of the home of a Pakhtun is considered repugnant by him and is a matter of shame (sharam) that can only be restituted by revenge (badal); if it can’t be avenged by the affected family, then it becomes incumbent upon the larger clan to seek vengeance. Thus a ‘black ops’ or a drone attack may achieve the immediate objective but invariably leaves behind others seeking to avenge the deaths; it is a cultural compulsion generated by the Pakhtun code of conduct or Pakhtunwali.

Similar instances abound in Pakistan’s case. One of the most violent Swat Taliban, Bin Yameen, who earned notoriety during the militants’ rule in Swat from 2007 to 2009 went to Afghanistan in November 2001 accompanying Sufi Mohammad’s lashkar to support the Taliban.

He was captured and after returning from captivity was working in Peshawar when he was arrested at night along with his wife from his house. He felt dishonoured. After interrogation and before his release he told his interrogators that he would extract revenge by slitting the throats of any security personnel he captured. Later, he returned to his native Swat, joined the extremists and beheaded many captured security officials.

Such cases of cultural insensitivity committed by security forces abound in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and fuel the war.

Another area where legitimacy and violation of the rule of law cause problems is in the matter of arrests; it is common practice that when a person is picked up during military operations in Afghanistan, he is interned in one of the many ‘black prisons’, where a person is interrogated in a forceful manner.

A similar situation prevails in Pakistan, where even after more than a year since the conclusion of active operations in Swat, there are still a considerable number of persons in military custody; their families and relatives live in anguish.

Long detentions without trial and the conduct of night raids in Swat as in Afghanistan are becoming a point of anger in the population. This will prolong the violence that is consuming Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and make it an issue of conflict with the state.

In the case of arrests, legitimacy demands the handing over of the accused to the police for investigation under the law. The reluctance to observe the rule of law in matter of detention causes bizarre results. On the one hand, it leads to creation of monsters like Bin Yameen; on the other, since the legal process is not followed, it leads to court acquittals.

To absolve the military of future indemnities, Pakistan recently promulgated an antiinsurgency regulation for Fata and Pata that allows for indefinite detention of persons. Such a law tramples on the concept of legitimacy as it violates fundamental rights.

Thus short-term solutions cause problems to multiply rather than be resolved. It is, therefore, not surprising that, with the exception of the PPP, all major political parties in the country have condemned the new anti-insurgency regulation. Although the ICG report deals with Afghanistan, many of its prescriptions are equally applicable to Pakistan and we could learn valuable lessons from it. ¦

The writer is chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research in Peshawar. azizkhalid@gmail.com





By Cyril Almeida


A CURIOUS thing has happened since the 2008 elections. Back then, the party believed to be mostly likely to play with the fires of provincialism was the PML-N.

The logic was simple enough: the PML-N had little support outside Punjab; the province was big enough to rule Pakistan from if the party swept the polls there; and Nawaz Sharif showed little appetite for reaching out to the smaller provinces.

The PPP, having some standing in the four provinces, though diminished from the party’s peak, was thought to be the country’s only legitimate ‘national’ party. But, on Asif Zardari’s watch, it has been the PPP which has flirted with the dangers of provincialism and ethnic politics.

In Sindh, the push back against the MQM has been cast as a stand for Sindhi nationalism — protecting the ‘sons of the soil’ and the soil itself from Mohajir interlopers.

(Of course, this being Zardari & co at work, they have managed to bungle even that crude success, the flipflop on the local government system putting the PPP on the defensive in interior Sindh and giving rival Sindhi nationalist parties a boost.) In Punjab, the support for a Seraiki province — based on ethno-linguistic and cultural grounds, instead of administrative or historical grounds — is a coarse attempt at broadening the PPP’s voter base in the province.

Note how the PPP has avoided specifying what it means by a ‘Seraiki province’. Properly drawn, a Seraiki province would be the largest province in the country, stretching across much of Punjab and encompassing parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, too.

By talking up a Seraiki province without defining its boundaries, the PPP is seeking to pick up as many ethnolinguistic votes as it can.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PPP went the other way. By allowing the province to be renamed, the PPP elated the Pakhtuns and delivered to its ANP ally some bragging rights. The Hazaras, more aligned with the PML (Q and N), weren’t worth fighting for, so they were ignored.

Oddly enough, it’s the PMLN which has by and large eschewed provincialism.

The deal on a new NFC was possible because Punjab didn’t try and block a larger share of funds to the smaller provinces, particularly Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

By agreeing to the renaming of the NWFP, the PML-N took a hit in the Hazara region (made palatable by the 18th Amendment stripping the powers of the presidency, perhaps).

In Punjab, the PML-N, instead of waving the provincial flag and touting Punjab’s indivisibility, has very tentatively agreed to look at the issue of new provinces. (Though perhaps only because flatly rejecting new provinces may upset voters in the south of the province, the Bahawalpur region and the Seraiki belt, regions in which talk of new provinces has gained traction.) Of course, the PML-N, being the big player in the biggest province, doesn’t need to be as aggressive in playing the provincial and ethnic card. Might works just by its existence sometimes, it doesn’t necessarily have to say much.

Which is to say the PML-N hasn’t exactly tried to court voters outside Punjab. Nawaz Sharif has stayed true to form in at least one respect: he has appeared content to find a way to Islamabad through Punjab.

And that’s precisely what has made predicting the outcome of the next election so difficult at this stage.

With the regionalisation of the electorate deepening over the past three years, the calculus for power in Islamabad has changed. No longer are the two major parties vying for outright control of parliament. Forget the ‘heavy mandate’ of a two-thirds majority, the PPP and the PML-N aren’t even realistically hoping to capture 51 per cent now.

Zardari has shown what can be done with just 35 per cent of the seats in parliament. The PML-N will likely aim for a smidgen more to gain control of parliament, the party’s willingness and ability to carry along coalition partners being untested. But neither party is building its electoral strategy on 51 per cent.

Which means regional strategies will be key to electoral success. But what is the right strategy and where?

Regions like the Baloch areas of Balochistan aren’t likely to be very problematic. The tribal system and the nationalist parties will figure out a way to be on the right side of power in Islamabad.

But what of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? With 35 directly elected National Assembly seats up for grabs, success there could be a crucial plank for any coalition in Islamabad. Which way is KP swinging, though?

Nobody seems quite sure. The ANP government is epically corrupt and has done little to fight the insurgency beyond offering robust rhetoric. But what sort of alliances will emerge from the mix of ANP, PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, JI and JUI? Speak to the experts and they are divided.

The calculus in Punjab is even more complicated. Down the GT Road, the party of the GT Road, the PML-N, has solid support. But branch off and take one of the byroads and the PML-Q and PPP come into play.

The PPP thinks it’s being smart by playing the Seraiki card, but historically it has been an electoral non-issue. The Bahawalpur province issue has been a slightly stronger vote-getter. Then again, the PML-N’s cautious response to the talk of new provinces indicates that voter sentiment may be in flux.

While the predictions that the PML-N would nudge the electorate towards further regionalisation may have been wrong, regionalisation does appear to have grown stronger, with the PPP taking the lead instead.

And with regionalisation of the electorate growing stronger, the country’s already unpredictable and messy politics have become a little bit more unpredictable and messier. ¦

The writer is a member of staff. cyril.a@gmail.com

The US and diplomacy

The US rejects diplomacy unless the circumstances force it to negotiate — as on Afghanistan — to enable it to quit without loss of face. But its first preference is use of force.


By A.G. Noorani


ON July 27 in New York, the vice foreign minister of North Korea, Kim Kye-gwan, called for a peace treaty with the US to formally end the Korean War (1950-53). With North Korea and Iran, the US has concentrated on their nuclear programmes while they sought assurances of security.

States acquire nuclear weapons to deter aggression. The minister significantly explained that the treaty would go a long way towards resolving the deadlock over Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Iran provides an identical parallel. In 2005 the then DG of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, told an American writer, that what Tehran sought was a grand bargain — concession on the nuclear issue against normalisation of relations based on assurances of security. “The prize they seek, above all, is better relations with the US.” That holds good still. On July 22, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said: “We have not ruled out establishing relations with other countries barring the Zionist regime [Israel], but it is possible that our relations are in an unusual situation with countries like the US. If one day the US agrees to a dialogue on an equal footing and without preconditions, while respecting the rights of our people, the situation will be different.” However, for decades, irrespective of who held the tenancy of the White House, the US has adopted a culture of unilateralism, spurning diplomacy. Negotiations are meaningful only when there is a will to accept a compromise which recognises the interests of others.

Two countries were laid waste precisely because the US rebuffed overtures for a settlement, Afghanistan and Iraq, while a third, Libya, is meeting the same fate today. The revealing memoir of the distinguished Pakistani diplomat S. Iftikhar Murshed, entitled Afghanistan: The Taliban Years, plus the documents published by the National Security Archive in Washington D.C. show that even after 9/11 the Taliban sought furiously to strike a deal with the US based on the ouster of Osama bin Laden.

In October 2001, the Taliban’s foreign minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil came to Islamabad “to suggest cessation of US military action to enable the Taliban leaders to persuade Mullah Omar to hand over Osama”. A decade later the US is engaged in talks with Taliban in sheer desperation, from a position of weakness.

On the eve of the US attack on Iraq, then president Saddam Hussein offered surrender terms. James Risen, a correspondent of high repute, reported (International Herald Tribune, Nov 7, 2003) the offer covered “US oil concessions”; “full support for any US plan” on Palestine, “first priority” on oil and mining rights; “direct US involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq”, including entry of 2,000 FBI agents; cooperation against terrorism and respect for American’s strategic interests in the region. It was rejected. Iraq’s devastation followed inexorably.

It astonishes one to recall today Iran’s written proposals to the US on March 23, 2003. The document was in three parts; one listed “Iranian aims” another “US aims”, the last listing precisely the sequential “steps” towards accord. In an amplification of the original US offer, Iran agreed to take “decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaeda) on Iranian territory”; exchange of information; support for “political stabilisation” in Iraq; “stop of [sic] any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory, pressure on these organisations to stop violence against civilians within the borders of 1967”; “action on Hezbollah to become a mere political organisation within Lebanon” and acceptance of the Saudi initiative on Palestine, the two-state formula.

Iran sought, reciprocally, removal of sanctions, end to America’s hostile behaviour and to its support to “antiIranian terrorists”; “full access to peaceful nuclear technology” and “recognition of Iran’s legitimate security interest in the region”. Three working groups were to be set up for “three parallel road maps” with an agreed “timetable for implementation”.

The document was prepared by Sadegh Kharrazi, nephew of the foreign minister and ambassador to France, and Javad Zarif, ambassador to the UN. It was endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khomeini and conveyed to the State Department by Tim Guldimann, Swiss ambassador to Iran, by a letter of May 4, 2003 during a visit to Washington D.C.

But the national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, “We’re going to fix the Middle East the way we fixed Europe after World War II”. Vice president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “We don’t speak to evil”. Secretary of state Colin Powell was ignored. His chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson lamented “The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiation with Iran”. Worse still, Guldimann was scolded for his pains.

The offer that was made to Iran later omitted the assurance that the US would not attack Iran. It was fear of aggression — especially after Afghanistan and Iraq — that had prodded Iran to acquire a nuclear option. Had its proposal been accepted the situation in the entire region would have altered radically. Iran’s support is vital to the success of the peace process in Afghanistan. How does the United States seek to secure it? On Libya every offer of a compromise has been spurned as carnage proceeds apart.

Diplomacy is not a clash between good and evil. It is an exercise in reconciliation of divergent interests based on recognition of others’ interests. Dialogue is not a reward for good behaviour but a means by which behaviour can be changed. The US rejects diplomacy unless the circumstances force it to negotiate — as on Afghanistan — to enable it to quit without loss of face. But its first preference is use of force, economic — and when it fails — military. It is the Third World that has suffered from America’s disavowal of the age-old tools of diplomacy and compromise. So, of course has the world body, the United Nations. ¦

The writer is an author and a lawyer.

Federal polity and diversity

By Sharif al Mujahid


THE vulnerability of a federal polity to the thrust of internal diversity is a worldwide phenomenon except in well-established federal polities, such as the US, which are sustained by durable institutions, foolproof mechanisms and crystallised conventions that delimit the powers, obligations and boundaries of the state and federal governments.

Hence it is not surprising if Pakistan’s polity is today plagued by internal diversities. Even so, the thrust of diversity wouldn’t have assumed such gigantic proportions had Pakistani rulers attempted periodically, on a continuing basis, to resolve diversity-based challenges.

Both India and Pakistan started out as federal as well as centralised states, governed by the Government of India Act, 1935 until the promulgation of their respective constitutions. But 64 years down the road, they have developed along different, indeed divergent, paths. Over the decades, India has been able to develop a centre (federal polity) that holds it together, even strengthens it. It has been able to control the narrative determining the core aspects of the state’s identity. And its identity has been entrenched in the people’s consciousness. Also, the centre has periodically accommodated diversities, except in India-administered Kashmir.

Vertical diversities such as the demand for linguistic provinces have been accommodated even in problematical states and the process continues. So have horizontal diversities, as represented by split mandates. Thus accommodation on political diversity is the rule rather than the exception, in the evolving Indian political system.

In contrast Pakistan has failed to get the core values/aspects of its identity internalised in the people’s con sciousness. Let alone the 1962 constitution, some of the core values of even the 1956 constitution were in dispute. Lack of recognition and accommodation of demands led united Pakistan to a sticky end in 1971.

That sticky end, compounded by the Bangladesh euphoria, provided ballast to centrifugal forces in post-1971 Pakistan. But, fortuitously, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was there, at the helm of affairs, and he saw to it that the regionalist forces had their wings clipped and the federal polity was sustained and strengthened beyond measure, especially by the crafting of the 1973 constitution by consensus. He also introduced a series of measures which strengthened the federation and crystallised the Pakistani identity. Today, 40 years down the road, Pakistan is home to a string of commonalities and a host of diversities. Briefly stated, the major commonalities which provide common space, whether or not it leaves enough room for diverse cultural practices and ethnic identities to exist and develop, are as follows:

— An agreed upon 1973 constitution which has stood the test of time, especially after the 18th Amendment which provides for the devolution of power and more equitable opportunities for the provinces.

— The 2009 NFC Award which provides for considerable fiscal autonomy to the provincial units.

— Urdu as the national language and English as lingua franca for the elite, business and entrepreneur classes. In tandem, Urdu has also served as the link language for the masses. Urdu’s claim and clout are also buttressed by its ubiquity and universality; hence Bhutto called it “a common denominator”. Even if all the languages are designated as national languages, we would still need a link language for the masses across the regions.

— The emergence of two major, though dynastically oriented, political parties, the PPP and PML-N, on a national level besides strong sub-national parties within the constituent units including the MQM, ANP and the JUI-F. MQM’s endeavour to shed its linguistic and urban Sindh origins, and getting itself transformed incrementally into a Muttahida Qaumi Movement avatar and inducting itself into mainstream politics, though generally misconstrued, is still a positive development. So is its sponsoring non-Urdu-speaking candidates against Urdu-speaking ones in some dominant Mohajir constituencies. However, the PPP has failed to accommodate a split mandate in Punjab. Otherwise, the Governor House in Lahore wouldn’t have been turned into a PPP den.

— Parties from various provinces have been conceded more or less equal opportunities to stake their claim for power at the federal level. For instance, the Sindh-based PPP heading more than 13 out of 18 years of civilian rule since 1970. At another level, the presidential office has seen occupants from various provinces except for Balochistan. Most groups and/or territories are also accommodated in the federal cabinets and decision-making bodies. The provincial quota in the services ensures representation of backward or less developed areas in the services. So does the rural-urban quota system in Sindh.

On the other hand, the major problems representing the thrust against a viable federal polity are: (i) Balochistan with its demand for full jurisdiction over powers relevant to its ethnic survival, economic uplift and control over its resources; (ii) Karachi with its mayhem and lawlessness, and the lack of political will on the provincial government’s part; (iii) executive-judiciary confrontation for the past two years; and (iv) the fault lines in ethnic federalism spawning the burgeoning demand for new provinces.

Other than long-standing tensions, there is an immediate need to recognise differences and to respect them while promoting unity, trust and solidarity among citizens and groups. In essence, this means that there is little need to assimilate or get assimilated in other cultures but to respect them for what they are. Although the endeavour to balance diversity with unity is a continuous process, there is a dire need to develop multiple identities. Whatever one’s racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious identity, everyone inhabiting Pakistan is first and foremost a Pakistani, and his Pakistani identity comes first. ¦

The writer is HEC National Distinguished Professor. smujahid107@hotmail.com

Case for privatisation

Certain politicians and bureaucrats continue to oppose privatisation because of the resulting reduced opportunities for ‘patronage’ or earnings as fees or junket trips abroad.

By Shahid Kardar


IN an earlier column in this newspaper this writer had made a case for rearranging the politico-economic building blocks of the Pakistani state.

The article had argued for an early closure or privatisation of either management or ownership of not just the commercial entities in the public sector but also those mandated to provide ostensibly social services like education.

The latter plea was driven by concerns about the fiscal burden of these resource guzzlers on already strained government budgets and how they were becoming a potential source of systemic risk for the financial sector. This article will present the case for speedy privatisation, not on some theoretical principles but on the basis of irrefutable evidence to support its adoption as a key element of policy and structural reform.

One particularly bad example of privatisation, the KESC (a subject that requires a separate treatment and discussion), is repeatedly brought up not just by vested groups but also the general public to oppose the divestment of a host of poorly managed, loss-making enterprises.

This perception persists and continues to find supporters despite overwhelming information on outcomes following privatisation or the opening up of economic sectors like telecom, banking, etc that were hitherto closed to private entities. An array of stakeholders has latched on to this outlier example (the KESC), contrary to all available proof of the immense contribution of privatisation towards bolstering Pakistan’s economy.To start with, take the case of the banks. The lessons learnt from the recent experience with the Bank of Punjab and that of banks like MCB, Habib, UBL and Allied (the last three with huge holes at the time of their privatisation) until their privatisation began in the early 1990s should be a sobering reminder on the need to protect the interests of depositors and to maintain the soundness and stability of the banking system by saving the remaining public-sector banks from the fate of the Bank of Punjab.

It would be naïve to expect the State Bank as the regulator to be able to initiate timely, corrective measures to pre vent such abuse.

Can anyone deny the quality of services and products, the outreach to those outside the banking system and the increased employment opportunities provided by the rapidly growing private banking industry? Add to this the part it has played in the expansion of the country’s GDP and to government tax revenues to value the nature and scale of its contribution to overall public welfare.

From an after-tax loss of Rs9.77bn in 2001 (when they were government owned) the earnings of these privatised banks rose to a profit after-tax of Rs73.115bn in 2007. Higher earnings resulted in increased tax payment by banks to the government from Rs10.8bn in 2001 to Rs33.8bn in 2007. In the same vein, it is instructive that in 2008 and 2009 the average loan write-off per borrower in public-sector banks was more than twice that per borrower in the case of private banks. Therefore, the sooner we privatise the remaining public-sector banks the higher and quicker the economic and social returns to the nation.

Next, let’s take the case of the telecom sector. Does anyone seriously believe that had PTCL continued to have a monopoly in this sector we would have been able to get this variety of choice and quality of services and products and, more importantly, at such alluring and competitive rates? Also, hasn’t PTCL’s service improved since its privatisation? No bribes now needed for new connections and for getting your landline fixed — all seamless with little, if any, human contact. It wasn’t that long ago that we had to suffer all this. Either our memories are short or conveniently selective.

Next, take the case of the electronic media. Could PTV ever have provided such a variety and quality of programmes and also raised public awareness and knowledge of a whole range of constitutional, political, economic and social issues to such heights, and in a society with an abysmal literacy rate?

Moreover, and more importantly, the presence and growth of the private sec tor is the best, if not the sole, guarantor of recruitment on merit. Isn’t it a pleasure to come across bright young men and women, with hardly any ‘connections’, producing and anchoring widely watched programmes on TV channels and holding middle and senior management positions in leading private companies? To this writer this fact alone that in an economy dominated by the private sector the young would find jobs on the basis of the talent with which they are born (or the skills they have acquired) rather than the family to which they are born is justification enough to privatise every entity in the public sector.

Finally, over the years, successive regimes have overstretched the mandate of the Pakistani state. This has resulted in its inability to perform, efficiently and effectively, its core functions like ensuring security of life and property of its cit izenry, provide justice, etc., responsibilities that it cannot outsource, services that it must both pay for and provide. Therefore, by giving up the management or by privatising these enterprises, scarce resources, both financial and human, will be released to enable the state to focus on the above referred core functions.

In conclusion, I for one find the vociferousness of the opposition to privatisation from politicians and bureaucrats rather amusing. All of them without exception, when it comes to their private lives, have chosen differently from what they are proposing or opposing. They are proud owners of more than one cellphone, have private bank accounts, watch channels other than PTV and would have studied in private schools and invariably chosen such schooling for their children. This private behaviour is rational as they are making choices on the basis of service quality.

However, it is this same set of politicians and bureaucrats and their collaborators who continue to oppose privatisation because of the resulting reduced opportunities for ‘patronage’ (an appropriate all-embracing term in our context) or earnings as fees or junket trips as directors of these banks and publicly owned entities.

The writer was, until recently, governor, State Bank of Pakistan.