The distrust continues

Violence on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border continues. It is a dangerous trend that has evolved in recent years with no end in sight. As the foreign ministries of the two countries sparred over the implications of Punjabi Taliban leader Asmatullah Muawiya’s announcement that his group will no longer commit violence inside Pakistan, but continues to believe in jihad elsewhere, Pakistani security personnel came under attack from Afghan-based anti-Pakistan militants. While a further escalation in tensions seems unlikely — barring some kind of unexpected and brazen attack on either side of the border — neither is a de-escalation apparent. That is in part because of the domestic political dynamics at work in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, a contested presidential election result has cast a dark shadow over the much-hyped hopes for the poll being a major part of a peaceful and stable country emerging in the post-2014 phase. In Pakistan, meanwhile, the ongoing political crisis has further put on the defensive a government that had very limited input on the Afghan policy anyway. Yet, immediate political situations in both countries aside, there is a bigger problem here: joined at the hip as they may be, neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan has figured out quite how to address the other’s legitimate security interests in a mutually beneficial manner. Instead, fear dominates. Pakistan worries about an Afghanistan where regional rivals gain ground and about a porous border from which trouble can be exported to Pakistan.

Afghanistan worries about Pakistan using the Pakhtun-Islamist nexus to keep the country in a state of semi-disarray and, in many ways, as a vassal state. Even developments, good and bad, over the past decade inside both countries have not greatly changed those fundamentals. Pakistan, suffering from a home-grown insurgency, has tried to distance itself from a policy of using non-state actors, but not decisively broken away from it as yet. Afghanistan has seen many economic and social changes — including the configuration of power in Kabul — over the last decade that while strengthening the non-Pakhtun segments of the population, has only papered over ethnic divisions rather than worked to genuinely alleviate them. Ultimately though, both Afghanistan and Pakistan have a straightforward choice: cooperate and deny space to militancy in the region or suffer even more from policies rooted in fear. If the latter occurs by default, it would be a mistake to believe that eventually — once Afghanistan and Pakistan realise the folly of their ways — the effects will be reversible. Militancy changes the social fabric, it impacts societies in ways deep and pervasive. It is not like a war fought by armies that return to the barracks. Overcoming fear is never easy, but Afghanistan and Pakistan must find a way to do it.

Execution moratorium

Until the death penalty is phased out in Pakistan, a moratorium on capital punishment is the best alternative. But while a de facto moratorium has been in place since 2008, as recent developments in a case being heard by the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench show, there is no legal or official cover to justify the freeze on executions. Hence unless a clear policy is enunciated by the state, executions may resume soon. On Tuesday, the LHC stayed the execution of Shoaib Sarwar, convicted for murder, as his counsel had argued that the man had already been in prison for 18 years. Earlier in August, when the government was asked to produce documents to prove that the moratorium was still in effect, it was unable to do so. No civilians have been executed in Pakistan since the unofficial moratorium came in effect six years ago, though a military man was convicted for murdering a fellow soldier by a court martial and hanged in 2012. As a matter of principle, this newspaper opposes the death penalty. Apart from the fact that it is a cruel and irreversible punishment, too much is wrong with the Pakistani legal and law enforcement systems to even remotely consider capital punishment.

Though the goal of abolishing the death penalty in this country may still be quite far off, the second best option is to enforce a permanent moratorium. Currently, there is much confusion regarding the official status of the freeze on executions. While government officials have in the past said they are reviewing the moratorium and legislation is being considered to convert death sentences into life terms, of recent the state has been silent on the issue. But the problem is too big to be left on the back burner. There are over 8,000 prisoners currently on death row in Pakistan, which has one of the largest such populations in the world. While the execution of the convict in Rawalpindi was stayed by the court, a more consistent policy is needed in this regard, instead of dealing with the issue on a case-to-case basis. The government needs to clarify its stance, preferably giving legal cover to a permanent moratorium. In the long term, along with the eventual abolition of capital punishment, the criminal justice system must be reformed so that individuals are made to pay for their crimes through punishments that are in consonance with human rights principles.

New T20 captain

THE appointment of seasoned all-rounder Shahid Afridi as the new T20 skipper has been widely hailed by cricketing circles across the country. Though Afridi’s chequered form of late with both bat and ball have drawn calls for his demotion in the batting order, experts and critics agree that he is an aggressive leader with the ability to inculcate the much-needed fighting spirit in the team. Afridi, who astutely led Pakistan to the semi-finals of the 2011 World Cup, has surprisingly been given a longer reign as captain this time round as the PCB wants his appointment to continue until the 2016 WorldT20. However, he may not have many immediate opportunities to display his talent as skipper since Pakistan have only two T20 international matches lined up in 2014 — one each against Australia and New Zealand in Sharjah. Afridi’s appointment also indirectly puts pressure on regular Test and ODI skipper Misbah-ul-Haq who has recently come in for a lot of flak, especially from former players, for his defensive, less animated style of captaincy seen as the root cause of Pakistan’s disastrous series in Sri Lanka last month.

Afridi’s most crucial task from now on will be to put together a team of match-winners for the challenges ahead besides rejuvenating himself as an all-rounder if he is to improve the team’s efforts. But be it Misbah-ul-Haq or Shahid Afridi, what really rankles is the trend of flogging the old warhorses each time there is need for choosing a new captain. With a number of talented youngsters like Sohaib Maqsood, Ahmed Shehzad, Fawad Alam and Asad Shafiq on the horizon now, the PCB ought to shun its policy of going round in circles and must start grooming the new lads as future captains. India’s Virat Kohli, South Africa’s Faf Du Plessi, England’s Stuart Broad and Australia’s George Bailey are some prime examples of young guns being handed the reins in the early stages of their careers, and they have performed admirably for their respective nations.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2014

Debt market pendulum

For years, debt market watchers have been warning that the maturity profile of the government’s domestic debt is getting dangerously short. At one point, all bids for T-bills were coming in the three-month tenors, creating serious rollover risks. The State Bank and the IMF had both warned of this extreme concentration in short-term paper, raising the spectre of a disorderly default given the size of the rollovers the State Bank had to manage every quarter. There was one year in which almost Rs1tr was being rolled over every quarter. Moody’s warned of an “event risk” in sovereign debt on bank balance sheets, and even downgraded the credit rating of all major Pakistani banks as a result. Last year, as part of a debt management strategy, the government was urged to move into longer tenors. Now the herd mentality of our financial markets has created a stampede into longer tenors the likes of which we haven’t seen in years.

The pendulum is moving so inexorably away from short-term treasury bills towards the longer-term Pakistan Investment Bonds that the numbers are a little startling. For instance, one PIB auction in 2011 that attracted a total of Rs42bn in bids was described as an “overwhelming market response” in subsequent press commentary. But today, the last PIB auction drew almost Rs200bn in bids, and other auctions this year have seen that amount rise to Rs425bn. This turning of the tide would be welcome if it was driven by confidence in the government’s financing plan. But as it turns out, this move is largely explained by the lure of higher returns on PIBs, which offer three percentage points above T-bills, and the continuing reluctance of banks to increase exposure to the private sector. The government should ensure that the banks’ appetite for easy money is not whetted so easily. Perhaps it is time to force the banks’ hand into engaging with the private sector as well.

Talking to the military

AS the current political stand-off continues and crisis has seemingly become the new normal, there are a few — perhaps too few — individuals in the political spectrum looking past the present situation and suggesting fixes for the institutional dilemma that is civil-military relations. Senators Raza Rabbani and Farhatullah Babar have in the course of the past week reminded everyone of the most obvious — but also perhaps one of the most surprising — of democratic deficits: no parliamentary oversight of national security, with a committee not even existing in name, as it does in the case of the defence committee, which nominally oversees the functioning of the military. To be sure, the present crisis is as much about Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri as it is about yet another PML-N government that once more has prickly relations with the army leadership. But electoral reforms — the core constitutional and democratic demand of at least Mr Khan — are perhaps more within the realm of the possible as compared to reform of the power structure of the state itself at this stage. Consider how both senators have framed their comments on the need for a national security committee in parliament: rather than immediately go to the issue of civilian oversight of the military.

They have cautiously talked about the need for having a proper, institutionalised means of communication between the military and parliament. Clearly, much of the careful language is meant to assuage military leadership concerns of being made subservient to a political class that perhaps many in the armed forces still consider ill-equipped and unsuited to making decisions on matters of national security. But the PPP senators are right. Without a formal, regular channel of communication between the military and parliament, old suspicions and beliefs — on both sides — will never really change. And without old suspicions and beliefs giving way to a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the other, neither the civilian nor the military side will truly be able to move the power structure of the state towards the constitutional ideal of civilian supremacy over the armed forces. Unhappily, the PML-N government appears to be uninterested in the idea of structural reforms. Consider the one change that has been effected: revamping the Defence Committee of the Cabinet and renaming it the Cabinet Committee on National Security that was supposed to have its own secretariat and work with a full-time staff on policy matters. Instead, it is the fate of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf that is talked about when it comes to debate on the future of ties between the PML-N and the army. When personalities, and not institutions, dominate the agenda, crises become all that much more difficult to avoid or manage. But is the PML-N willing to listen?

No sign of the census

A body formed under Article 154(3) of the Constitution, the CCI is a forum for sorting out differences among the constituent units. On the census issue, however, the CCI’s inaction seems to stem not from differences but from some kind of a tacit and deplorable agreement among the provinces and the federal government. At its Wednesday’s meeting, the ECP rightly said that a “realistic delimitation” of constituencies could not be held without a fresh census because of the demographic changes since the last census held in 1998 — when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party was in power. While a general election was held last year, only Balochistan has had the benefit of a local bodies’ election, the other three provinces apparently joining hands in an unholy alliance to deny democracy to those at the grass roots. The provinces alone are not to blame. The CCI is headed by the prime minister, whose party rules Punjab, which like Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has defied the Supreme Court’s ruling of March 9 asking the provinces to hold LG elections within five months.

Also Read: LG polls forgotten

Even when the situation was relatively ‘normal’, the three provinces did not care to hold LG elections; now with the Islamabad sit-ins and the floods ravaging Punjab and heading towards Sindh — even if potentially less destructive now — the provincial governments have a readymade pretext for avoiding LG polls.

Normally, a census must be held every 10 years as recommended by the UN; in Pakistan’s case, we have not held it for 16 years. A census is needed not just for delimiting electoral constituencies but also for economic planning. With dwindling water resources, a yawning energy deficit, and an expanding population with higher expectations — and an acute security problem to boot — Pakistan needs a fresh census to give planners the essential tools for future projections. Without the census data, they would be operating in a vacuum. The reason why the three provinces are afraid of holding a census and local bodies’ elections is obvious: they are not sure which way the people would vote. A ‘wrong’ verdict would undermine the ruling parties’ right to govern and perhaps strengthen elements that want fresh general elections. It is this fear that stands between the nation and the census, with the imperatives of economic planning being sacrificed at the altar of partisan interests.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014

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"I am still learning."

Flood warning fiasco

IT did not have to be this way. This is the fourth major flood to have hit Pakistan since 2010, and in each case the cause has been heavy rains. The first flood alert issued this year by the Pakistan Meteorological Department was on the morning of Sept 3, more than three days before the arrival of the flood peak at the Marala headworks on the Chenab, where the river enters Pakistan from India. That same evening, a meeting was convened by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to discuss flood preparation plans, with almost the entire government machinery present, including the chief secretary. But the Federal Flood Commission seems to have taken its time waking up to the flood alert. Its first record of a meeting since the alert was issued is on Sept 6, by which point the flood peak of 900,000 cusecs was only hours away from the Marala headworks. Moreover, a report published in this paper detailed how the various government bodies, led by the FFC, preferred bickering over turf when they should have been coordinating their response. It appears the country has learned no major lessons from the previous three flood episodes, preferring to act only once disaster has struck. More distressing is the lack of effort going into flood forecasting. Our forecasting models are designed to anticipate the arrival of rains more for crop management than for flood warning.

The Met Department did issue an advisory of a low pressure system forming over Rajasthan as early as Aug 28, but its technology and models could only warn of “scattered thundershowers with heavy to very heavy [rain]falls in isolated places in the upper catchments of rivers Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab” as late as Sept 2. The flood alert was issued the following day, which turned into a flood warning on Sept 4, only two days before the flood peak arrived. Yet today, meteorological models exist that can provide up to 10 days of flood warning with very high probability. Bangladesh has been using such a system successfully for almost a decade now, which has on two occasions given accurate forecasts of floods 10 days in advance. Yet more troubling are the things being said in some places. Describing the floods as an “Indian water bomb” plumbs the lowest depths of ignorance. Instead of pointing fingers at India, what is needed is a serious approach for sharing of meteorological and hydrological data to enable more accurate forecasting. Better coordination amongst government departments is also critical. Currently, it is not clear who has the responsibility to coordinate the response once a flood alert has been issued. The Met Department ought to take better advantage of the latest scientific knowhow to upgrade its forecasting capabilities. With this being the fourth flood in recent years, it’s a travesty that none of this has yet been done.

Murdered professor

LIFE comes cheap on Karachi’s streets. Despite the authorities’ tall claims that the ongoing law-enforcement operation has produced results, the near daily dose of killings in the metropolis exposes such rhetoric. It also seems that the killers don’t discriminate: from working-class victims such as small-time shopkeepers and mechanics to professionals such as doctors and academics, anyone in Karachi can fall prey to the assassin’s bullet. Take the brutal slaying of Prof Dr Shakeel Auj, who served as dean of the University of Karachi’s Faculty of Islamic Studies, on Thursday. The highly accomplished, soft-spoken academic received a bullet in the head, mowed down in a drive-by shooting while on the way to attend an award ceremony in his honour on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. In this chaotic city, one can be killed for one’s religion, ethnicity or political affiliation, while life can also be cut short if one dares resist armed criminals. It is unclear what the motive behind Dr Auj’s murder was. What is true is that in the vast majority of cases the killers are never caught. The police will file the murder in the ‘targeted killing’ cabinet, or sweep it aside as the result of ‘personal enmity’.

The victim will soon be forgotten and become just another statistic in this city’s rising crime graph. Police are looking at two possible motives for Dr Auj’s murder. Firstly, the scholar had received threatening text messages in the past and some in orthodox religious circles were not happy with his academic work and opinions. Secondly, the late professor had been vocal about the alleged racket of fake degrees. Without pointing fingers, we must remember that in today’s Pakistan both these activities — holding religious views that differ even slightly from orthodoxy, as well as exposing corrupt practices — can have lethal consequences. While it would be a futile exercise to speculate about who was responsible for Dr Auj’s murder, the police must probe all angles to unveil the culprits and bring them to justice. Also, the authorities need to seriously consider what efficacy — if any — the ‘operation’ has had in Karachi if killers can carry on with their trade unhindered. It is sad that while murderers, militants and fanatics roam freely, ordinary citizens in the city fear for their lives. It is up to the administration and law-enforcement czars to explain why this is the twisted norm in Karachi.

Protecting women’s vote

SOMETIMES, when obduracy springs from antediluvian notions of ‘honour’ and ‘tradition’, it makes sense to spell out the obvious. And the proposal by the ECP, to expand the scope of “undue influence” to include agreements to restrain women from either voting or contesting an election, falls in this category. At present, Section 81 of The Representation of the People Act, 1976 which deals with “undue influence”, does not specifically refer to such agreements, although it does define “harm” (threatened by those exercising undue influence) as comprising “social ostracism or ex-communication or expulsion from any caste or community”. Punishment for “undue influence”, which falls under “corrupt practice”, is imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or a fine of up to Rs5,000, or both. The new proposal calls for empowering the ECP to declare an election void partly or entirely if it finds women voters disenfranchised under such an agreement, and to order filing of a complaint in court against those who are party to it.

In the lead-up to last year’s general elections, the ECP had stated it would go the extra mile to ensure the participation of women. To its credit, it did follow through on its pledge to some extent. For instance, it ordered re-polling at two polling stations at Battagram after receiving reports that women voters registered there were not allowed to cast their ballot on election day. However, not a single woman reportedly turned up to vote on the day of re-polling either, highlighting the intractability of a problem that is reinforced through threats of social ostracism, not to mention outright violence. Shamefully, political parties, even those who speak of women’s rights otherwise, are also often guilty of colluding to deprive women of their right of franchise. In the case of the Battagram re-poll, the ECP took no further action. The proposed electoral reform, however, should give the body the legal cover to never again accept such an outcome as a fait accompli.

Published in Dawn, September 20th , 2014

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"I am still learning."

Lessons from Scotland

The ‘nays’ have it. On Friday, it emerged that Scotland’s just over 300-year-old political union with England will survive, with more than 55pc of Scottish voters casting their ballots against independence. It was a spirited campaign. The ‘yes’ camp, led by the ruling Scottish National Party, promised voters a more just welfare state free from Westminster’s influence, while the British establishment pulled out all the stops to convince Scots to vote ‘no’, saying that Scotland and the UK were ‘better together’. We must appreciate the democratic manner in which the matter was decided. The issue was resolved through the vote; unfortunately, in countless other instances around the world we have seen attempts at separation either succeed or be put down by force after much bloodshed and acrimony. Pakistan’s own loss of its erstwhile eastern wing remains a bitter, painful memory. However, while the Scots will stay with the UK, other independence-seeking regions the world over have been emboldened by the exercise. For example, Spain’s autonomous Catalonia region may opt for a similar referendum, but unlike the UK, the central government in Madrid has vowed to oppose such a move.

Scotland’s case is an interesting one. In most instances separatist feelings are fuelled when a region suffers from poverty and discrimination and the denial of rights, or receives step-motherly treatment from the centre. Though Edinburgh’s relationship with London was not quite perfect, Scotland did not suffer from the usual causes that encourage separatism. There are lessons in the referendum for the rest of the world, including Pakistan. Firstly, even the most divisive of questions can be dealt with in a non-violent fashion provided democratic methods are used. Secondly, even prosperous and relatively peaceful regions will desire separation if they feel their voices are not being heard.To prevent separatist feelings from growing, states must ensure maximum devolution of power right down to the local level, as well as the protection of cultural, political, economic and, most important, the human rights of every citizen.

Bilawal, finally

These are not the times for politics — this has been the PPP slogan of late. The refrain takes on an entirely new meaning now that the vow to not do politics is accompanied by the PPP co-chairman’s presence among people affected by the floods. The pledge for political restraint was not entirely unwarranted. The political situation in the wake of Imran Khan’s war on the system demanded sobriety. The question asked, however, was whether the PPP was going too far with its support for the prime minister — to a point where it posed a danger to itself. The PPP leadership was staying away from the ground, especially in Punjab, which was bad politics. With Bilawal Bhutto Zardari venturing into the flood-hit areas of Punjab together with his visits to parts of Sindh, it is an attempt at better politics. The PPP politicians in Punjab have been long waiting for their leader to show up. The party is faced with a serious revival challenge in the province and its support has fallen drastically. It has in recent times been accused of failing to make even a basic effort at exploring any space emerging out of the tussle between the PTI and PML-N.

So eerie has been the PPP’s dormancy that some well-known party names in Punjab have been asked when they planned to switch to other available choices. Those among them who want to be with the PPP in its tough hour in the province would be happy that Mr Bhutto Zardari has at last found the lost map to their neighbourhood. All they can hope now is that the tour by their leader of Chiniot, Lahore and Multan is followed by more such visits and a sustained campaign aimed at kind of a reinvention of the PPP. For now it is only a ripple, not a splash. Mr Bhutto Zardari’s presence in Punjab is essential to any renewal plan the party must follow, but his challenge in Sindh, where his party is in power, is of a different nature. He must reorganise and sympathise and show solidarity in Punjab; in Sindh he must do all these things and then must provide governance as well. He has to find ways to project himself as an heir who cannot just stir emotions but who can also improvise and use the system to deliver efficiently. The rule has not changed: His delivery in Sindh will help his drive in Punjab.

Power sector billing blues

If a suggestion by the prime minister’s special assistant is accepted, the government may be poised to induct tens of thousands into an already bloated workforce in the power bureaucracy. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had tasked his special assistant, Musadik Malik, to investigate the causes behind the rise in public anger over power bills in August. The power bureaucracy had complained that a shortage of meter readers was hampering its ability to generate accurate bills, forcing them to rely on a practice known as ‘presumptive billing’, where instead of reading the meter, a bill is issued on assumptions based on past bills. The practice is commonly used to inflate bills in order to meet recovery targets. Presumptive billing allows recovery agents in the bureaucracy to elevate people’s bills, and unless there is an outpouring of complaints, the higher amounts collected pass unnoticed. Mr Sharif was told in a cabinet meeting in August that a 10-year-old ban in the recruitment of meter readers had hampered the power bureaucracy’s ability to issue proper bills. In response, the prime minister had asked his special assistant to investigate. Mr Malik has now completed his assignment and reportedly is about to submit his report. In the report he will counsel lifting of the ban on the recruitment of meter readers. Another source in the power bureaucracy has told this newspaper that the requirement of meter readers is in the “tens of thousands”.

The process of induction, training and deployment is likely to be long mired in allegations of political favouritism, and prove expensive in the long run in terms of the jump in pay and the benefits that will accrue as a result. Already the lion’s share of the expenses incurred by the power bureaucracy is on account of personnel pay, including benefits and salaries. The move to induct meter readers on this scale is likely to multiply the financial woes of the power bureaucracy. One can only hope that the forthcoming report gives a clear picture of the cost that will have to be borne if their advice is implemented. Ultimately, the power sector’s inefficiencies will only be overcome with more holistic reform, instead of isolated, ad hoc measures. Reforms must begin at the top, with accountability to independent boards as a cornerstone. They must also emphasise transparency, and the shutting down of all spaces of discretionary decision-making within the bureaucracy. A regular disclosure regime which mandates the bureaucracy to release a set of data on a regular schedule is essential. And lastly, the reforms must use power of technology. Meter readers are an antiquated notion in this era of smart meters that can report their readings back electronically. The bureaucracy’s resistance to using this technology should be questioned. Ad hoc measures will surely fail if not accompanied by reforms in the larger system.

Published in Dawn, September 21th, 2014

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"I am still learning."

Polio emergency

IT’S hard to say what it will take to shake the state out of its apathy towards polio. There’s not a shadow of doubt that the crippling disease is not just on the upsurge, but rapidly accelerating. In recent days, almost 20 new cases have been reported across the country — 13 on Sept 16 alone. The number of confirmed cases so far this year has reached 166. Punjab and Balochistan, earlier thought to be polio-free, have had that myth shattered; and the less that is said about the situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the better. In terms of the tribal areas, the authorities can to some extent hide behind the excuse of the remoteness of the area and the lawlessness that prevails. But what of Karachi, where a shocking number of cases have been confirmed? What greater indictment could be imagined of a country that has spent over two decades, and millions upon millions of rupees — much of it from global aid and polio-eradication initiatives — on the effort?

Given that Pakistan-specific strains of the virus have been found in several other countries, there is growing fear that this country stands to re-infect the global population at large. Considering this scenario, it could be argued that in merely issuing the advisory for unvaccinated travellers that was issued by the WHO in May, the world has shown a degree of forbearance towards Pakistan and invested confidence in its ability to put its house in order in this regard. But Pakistan has simply failed to make enough of a push. Consider, for example, the government’s decision that individuals would be required to produce vaccination certificates before travelling: in reality, such screening is being done sporadically, if at all. Then, there’s the problem of those who refuse to let the vaccinations be administered. With a WHO review meeting due on Sept 30 regarding the travel advisory, it may well be time to start mulling mechanisms that penalise the refusal to vaccinate; at the very least, we need to seriously step up the vaccination effort.

Politics & development

NOTWITHSTANDING the ongoing sit-ins in Islamabad — which have by now settled into something that more closely resembles routine rather than crisis — since the elections in 2008 there is some evidence that, politically, Pakistan has made several crucial gains. It is noteworthy that an elected government managed to ride out various crises and complete its full term in a country where civilian rule has historically always been cut short. This was followed by the peaceful handover to another elected government. These past few years have seen several important pieces of legislation and long-awaited constitutional amendments, including the reduction of discretionary presidential powers and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Some might even hold up with triumph evidence of some of the country’s leading politicians and largest political parties having learned, through their years in the wilderness during the Musharraf era, that the politics of constantly undermining one another are detrimental in the long term, and that it is the system that is of paramount importance. Recognition of the latter, after all, is what led the majority in parliament to stand behind the embattled government as Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri threw down the gauntlet.

But has this growth in political maturity translated into solid gains on the ground for this country’s impoverished and beleaguered citizenry? The short answer is no — or not yet, anyway. For the average Pakistani, life remains a matter of scaling mountains of challenges. This is the unfortunate reality that was underscored by a UNDP report discussed in Islamabad on Friday — the Human Development Report 2014. Placing Pakistan at the 146th position amongst the 187 countries ranked, it points out that this country’s human development index has been stagnating over the past five years, meaning there has been extremely slow growth in the building of citizens’ capacity. This importance source of information regarding Pakistan’s hard realities is confirmed by even a cursory glance at our towns and cities. The task ahead for the state and the government at the helm is therefore clear: as the political system grows stronger, they need to urgently put themselves to work by investing in the people, in measures that will improve the capacities of the workforce and bring about social and economic uplift. It needs to be recognised that progress is required in tandem, on all fronts; work in isolation will not achieve the desired results.

Afghanistan deal

THE election deal secured in Afghanistan by the international community yesterday cannot really be called democratic, but at least it has given the country a chance to establish relative peace and stability. Unhappily, three elections into a new era aspiring towards democracy, the Afghan electoral process remains hostage to back-room deals, powerbrokers and warlords. Without forgetting Pakistan’s own struggles with democracy over more than six decades, the most worrying part about the post-2001 Afghan political system is that it does not quite give an impression of being sustainable. If elections are to be a complete sham — the winner was announced yesterday by the Independent Election Commission chairman without even sharing a final vote count — and do not incrementally move towards the goal of transparency and fairness, then surely at some point behind-the-scenes powerbrokers inside Afghanistan may dispense with the façade altogether. Without belabouring the point, much of Afghanistan’s governance travails over the past decade have been because the electoral system was betrayed to install Hamid Karzai as president the first time round and then betrayed a second time as Mr Karzai turned on his original benefactors to secure more and more power and perks for his political partners and himself.

Of what use is a so-called democratic system if it leads to the most undemocratic of actions? The international community and Afghanistan’s power elite have once again sacrificed principle to salvage the veneer of stability and forward movement. Having said that, the experiment to put into effect a national government with both Pakhtun and erstwhile Northern Alliance elements seems to be the only option worth trying. At least the incoming government team will be led by the two men who Afghans have an overwhelming preference to be ruled by. Quite how president-elect Ashraf Ghani and possibly his number two, incoming chief executive officer Abdullah Abdullah, will get along in office remains to be seen. It is better though to have a peaceful settlement rather than chaos and civil war, as many of Mr Abdullah’s allies have been tacitly threatening. The big issues that will confront the two men are well known, as is their priority. First, the post-2014 future of the international presence, led by the US, in Afghanistan will have to be quickly settled. Almost as important as residual troops in Afghanistan will be the international community’s financial commitments to the country. Second will be a serious push in the peace process with the Afghan Taliban, while ensuring that the Afghan National Security Forces do not cede too much terrain to the former. Third, relations with Pakistan and the problem of a porous border and militant sanctuaries on both sides of it. Fourth, Afghanistan itself, with the incoming government having to prove it can govern better than Mr Karzai. Together, these factors constitute a towering challenge.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2014

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"I am still learning."

Monetary policy statement

THE State Bank’s monetary policy statement for the July to September period makes for confusing reading. All the caveats that peppered previous announcements are gone, and no mention is made of how key reforms in the energy and fiscal side are progressing. There is only a cursory mention of the rapidly deteriorating trade deficit, which increased by 83pc from the corresponding period last year. Plummeting levels of FDI are merely mentioned in one phrase, but there is not a word on the causes or implications of this. Bank lending to the private sector turned negative in this period, while government borrowing from the State Bank rose — a worrying sign for continuation of the nascent recovery in real economic activity. Yet the monetary policy statement makes no mention of it. In fact, one has to look in vain in the statement for any update on the nascent recovery being touted by the government all year, save for one bland claim that “real economic activity is expected to continue”.

On all the critical issues facing the economy the State Bank is suddenly silent. In both the May and July statements, it endorsed the idea that a recovery was under way in real economic activity, but cautioned that “challenges and vulnerabilities” remained, and further reforms were necessary for it to be sustainable. While those statements were not exactly shining examples of lucidity, this time even minimal hints and caveats of announcements past are conspicuous by their absence. The impression one gets is that the bank is too fearful to speak at the moment, given the politically charged atmosphere in the country, and prefers to mumble its pronouncements. Some of this reticence is understandable. These are, after all, sensitive times. But questions of credibility still linger, because it appears the bank is bartering away its hard-won autonomy without even a fight. If not, then an explanation should be furnished about why the concerns raised in earlier pronouncements have been dropped so easily this time round.

PTI show in Karachi

THE PTI’s urge to expand its protest resulted in a sizeable rally in Karachi on Sunday. The change in locale from Islamabad where Imran Khan has been holding his dharna for the last five weeks entailed a necessary adjustment of target for the party. The ‘Go Nawaz Go’ slogan remained the rallying call but underneath it much of the rhetoric was aimed at no longer just the PML-N. Mr Khan had been earlier unsuccessfully wooing the PPP in his campaign to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Now he lambasted the PPP for exploiting rural Sindh in the name of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He was not overtly critical of the MQM — although earlier the PTI had accused it of poll irregularities, the main plank of its current campaign as well. But his message was that if the people of Sindh were able to unite and rise above ethnic politics, the emerging collective would be large enough to work as an effective third force in Sindh. The MQM has shown signs that it realises the importance of the PTI’s challenge. And the PPP could always do with a nudge or two from a possible opponent. Consequently, whereas it is difficult at the moment to measure how far the PTI can go in Sindh, there is significance in Mr Khan carrying the battle to the province.

The labels do not matter much. Call it the politics of change or populist politics, so long as it brings greater choices to the people, the PTI will have a role, and Mr Khan’s opponents should not underestimate him. At the Karachi rally, Imran Khan indicated he was planning to have similar shows in Lahore and elsewhere in the country. This belies an attempt by the PTI chief to try and play to his strength — cashing in on the PTI’s popularity among the middle class in various cities. His dharna has kept him and his party centre stage since mid-August but many believed that the sit-in was not the most advisable mode for the PTI; instead, they favoured a series of public meetings all over Pakistan, which to their mind were easier organised and less taxing on the party. Now, the public meetings elsewhere in the country will complement the sit-in in Islamabad, where the numbers of participants have fluctuated. These are not bad tactics in the attempt to show the extent of support for the PTI.

Challenge for new ISI chief

SO endemically controversial has become the ISI director general’s post in recent years that if incoming DG Gen Rizwan Akhtar were to simply leave office at the end of his term with his reputation neither bolstered nor harmed, it would count as a success at this stage. Consider the deep controversy that Gen Shuja Pasha had generated by the time he retired in 2012: a one-year extension the year before, the Osama bin Laden raid and ‘memogate’ are just some of the stunning lowlights, with persistent rumours of meddling in the political process dogging the latter part of his tenure. Now Gen Zaheerul Islam is set to leave office as an ongoing national political crisis he has been accused of engineering by some quarters rumbles on. So perhaps if the new director general were simply to keep a distance from politics and avoid national security crises, it would be an improvement over his predecessors. Yet, while politics and the ISI are no strangers, the politicisation of the ISI in recent years has obscured a more fundamental challenge: getting the strategy against militancy right and helping restore internal security. In that regard, Gen Akhtar’s counterterrorism experience in Karachi as DG Rangers and counter-insurgency experience in South Waziristan as a commander will give him the kind of skill that can be invaluable in tackling the problem operationally.

The bigger challenge though may be less to develop a comprehensive strategy to fight militancy and more to wean the military leadership off its old habits of security policies rooted in fear and ambition. There is also a sense — all but confirmed in recent years — that the ISI has in some ways grown almost independent when it comes to its parent organisation, the armed forces. When reasonable and rational observers of the military and the political process begin to speculate whether an army chief has full control over the ISI or whether even a DG ISI has full control over his sprawling organisation, there is surely cause for concern. Gen Akhtar has many challenges ahead of him, but none may be as important as signalling that the armed forces are not a house divided. Finally, there is the inevitable question of civil-military relations. Even in the very announcement of Gen Akhtar’s appointment can be detected a further sidelining of the civilian government with the ISPR choosing to announce the ‘posting’ instead of the Prime Minister’s Office issuing an official statement. If form is so completely ignored, then what does that say about the substance of ties between the PML-N government and the military leadership at the moment? If Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not attempt to install a favourite of his own, did the military reciprocate by at least offering the prime minister a choice of three names? Or has the military simply indicated that the military decides and Mr Sharif complies?

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2014

__________________
"I am still learning."

War on minorities

IT should have been just another Sunday service at the All Saints Church in Peshawar a year ago. As it turned out, it was the prelude to a massacre, the worst attack against the Christian community in Pakistan, when twin suicide bombings at the end of the service claimed around 90 lives and injured over 100 people. The carnage sparked a wave of revulsion among Pakistanis, and expressions of solidarity with the community were swift in coming. Although attacks on such scale along religious lines have not occurred since then, the war on minorities in this country grinds on relentlessly. In fact, it could be said that it is expanding, claiming yet more victims and also from communities hitherto left comparatively unscathed by religious extremism. In Peshawar itself, the small Sikh community has been repeatedly targeted this year. Five Sikhs have been killed in as many months, with two fatalities in the first week of September alone. In a remote corner of Balochistan, armed men attacked a group of Zikris in their place of worship, killing six and injuring several others. Although persecution of the Zikris — a little-known Islamic sect — had surfaced during Gen Zia’s time, when religious extremism was actively harnessed and patronised to further strategic objectives, this was the first direct attack in more than two decades on their lives. Meanwhile, a reprehensible conspiracy of silence by the state surrounds the murder of Ahmadis — whose persecution is institutionalised in Pakistan — even when a woman and two girls from that community were killed in a ghastly mob attack in July. The crux of the problem is the state’s refusal to take proactive steps to control the menace of religious extremism: banned/extremist organisations extend their influence to areas so far untouched by communal strife; hate speech is freely disseminated; the blasphemy law is used as a tool of persecution; school curricula contain derogatory references to minority communities. While the government continues in a state of torpor, this fire has begun to consume the very foundations of the country.

ECP revelations

SELF-INDICTMENT or an expression of helplessness, the Election Commission of Pakistan has reconfirmed fears about the system by which lawmakers are elected. In an assessment report — which has taken its time coming — about the May 2013 general election, the ECP has identified some problems that resulted in the polls being perceived as far from ideal. Much of the blame for the ‘mess’ had already been put on the frequently maligned returning officers drawn from the judiciary. There is, however, a lot more in this self-analysis that shows the rot is much deeper and wider than it appears, and brings the working of the ECP under a dark cloud. It exposes serious flaws in ECP operations, and a remedy should go beyond the oft-made suggestion that the returning officers be put under its control. Now to the crucial question of whether the ECP’s admission and its mild complaints of having to be unnecessarily dependent on others, including the judiciary, bring the 2013 election into doubt. It is impossible to argue that this self-assessment will not embolden those campaigning against vote rigging in the last polls. They have time and again been asked to back their slogans with evidence, whereas the proof they have cited in support of their allegations has been dismissed as insufficient.

The ECP’s own report about its failings is a boon for the campaigns of both the PTI and PAT. It is an official seal on information about polls irregularities accumulated through various sources. The PTI, which has been fighting various cases within the system to prove its claims about rigging, and PAT, which wants not reform but a change of system outright, would now be justified in saying they have a case that demands not only a probe but prompt action, even if some poll results have to be nullified. The PML-N government on its part has maintained that the ECP-led system which organised the polls was not its invention. But that does not, or should not, prevent an honest scrutiny of the last polls. It might no more be sufficient to say that these things do happen during elections or that it is in the interest of democracy to ignore May 2013 and wait for the next polls in 2018, which could be conducted under a reformed, reinvigorated ECP. Those who term May 2013 a fraud would be energetically and with some justification be pushing for a mid-term solution.

The Syrian campaign

IF a few cruise missiles and bombing sorties were all it took to neutralise battle-hardened terrorist groups, the world would be a much safer place. However, this is not a practical solution, which is why we must greet with caution the start of the US-led bombing of the self-styled Islamic State in Syria. Tuesday’s air strikes mark the first time the US, aided by its allies in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, as well as Jordan, have engaged IS in Syria. An aerial campaign targeting the militant group in Iraq has been under way since August. However, in the latter case the government in Baghdad had asked for American help. In Syria’s case the regime — which has been fighting a brutal civil war against a clutch of opposition groups, including extremist outfits — has mostly been kept out of the loop. Damascus says it was “informed” about the American strikes inside Syria. However, there has been no coordination between Bashar al-Assad’s government and Washington. The Western camp and its allies have long called for regime change in Syria, which is why the US-led coalition finds itself in a dilemma. When the Syrian civil war began over three years ago, the rebels, including many extremist factions, received considerable outside help to battle Mr Assad. Now that some of these fighters have helped form the nucleus of IS and grown into veritable Frankensteins, and are out of their masters’ control, it is difficult for the West to bury the hatchet with Mr Assad and join forces against the militants.

Many questions remain about what will follow in Syria. After all, even some senior officials in the Western camp have said victory against IS will be difficult without ground forces. And with the US and many in Europe uneasy about putting their own boots on the ground, the million-dollar question is: who will do the dirty work in the field? If plans are being drawn up to arm and train the ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition, two questions emerge: how moderate are these forces and what are their fighting capabilities? It is largely true that most of the best fighters in the Syrian opposition have come from extremist factions. So would the West be replacing one set of obscurantists with another? The rise of IS has doubtless been facilitated by geopolitical machinations trumping logic and respect for the sovereignty of others. The best solution appears to be for the US and its allies to abandon plans for regime change in Damascus and work with Mr Assad to effectively counter IS and other extremists in Syria. Iran and Russia also need to be engaged considering their close relationship with Mr Assad, to form a more formidable anti-IS front and to convince the Syrian leader to agree to a negotiated solution to the Syrian crisis with the non-militant opposition once the dust settles.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2014

__________________
"I am still learning."

Redrawing boundaries

NEVER short of solutions for this country’s numerous crises, MQM chief Altaf Hussain recently weighed in on two sensitive topics that are bound to spark debate. Speaking late on Monday, the Muttahida supremo called for the formation of a government of technocrats at the centre for two years in order to carry out “ruthless accountability”. Earlier, he had called for the creation of four new provinces in Sindh. As far as the formation of a technocrats’ administration goes, this is not a new suggestion and has been often cited as a silver-bullet solution for Pakistan that would, in effect, roll up the democratic project. Coming to the division of Sindh, this is a potentially divisive issue and all political forces need to think carefully before publicly airing their views in this regard. For one, there does not seem to be much weight in the argument that Sindh should be divided along administrative lines.

For example, at a multi-party conference held in Karachi on Tuesday, organised by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan and the Qaumi Awami Tehreek, all parties present — both those sitting in the Sindh Assembly and those without elected representatives — said they opposed the division of Sindh. Although the PPP, which considers Sindh its power base, was not invited, it has also spoken clearly about its opposition to any redrawing of the provincial borders. This points to concerns that such a division of Sindh will disturb the delicate ethnic balance that exists in the province, and could unleash communal passions. What Sindh does need are empowered districts, whose elected representatives deliver good governance and security to the people. For this, elected local governments are essential; unfortunately, both the PPP and MQM have done little to revive the local bodies’ system in Sindh. But if the Muttahida feels strongly about the issue, let it take the debate about new divisions to the Sindh Assembly. The house — with elected representatives from all parts of Sindh — is the best forum to discuss the matter.

Gas infrastructure cess

A MESSY situation is developing in the gas sector. The previous government had introduced a ‘Gas Infrastructure Development Cess’ to be imposed on all consumers except for domestic. A list of rates applicable to each category of consumer — from fertiliser to CNG to industry — was attached to the original legislation, which ultimately had to be passed via the finance bill. The idea at the time was to use the cess to raise funds for building additional pipeline capacity, particularly for imported gas. In its first year of operation, the amount of money to be raised from the cess was budgeted as Rs8bn. This rose to Rs30bn subsequently. Today, the amount to be raised under this cess has risen further to Rs145bn, a staggering sum, making the cess comparable to some of the largest non-tax revenue heads in the government’s finances. From the very beginning, the cess became a controversial enterprise, thus making it necessary to seek its passage into law via the finance bill, where it did not need to be debated in committee.

More recently, the Peshawar High Court has found the cess to be illegal, and ordered the government to reimburse all money charged under it. The matter went to the Supreme Court, which found that “the cess could not have been introduced through a money bill” and upheld the judgement of the Peshawar High Court. The court’s order has hit the government hard. An option being explored is to seek an act of parliament to provide the cess with legal cover, while using a presidential ordinance in the interim period to keep the revenues coming. If the ordinance stands up to legal challenge, and if the government is successful in arranging support in parliament for the cess, the matter may yet reach smooth closure. But should the plan hit a snag, the blow to government finances could be substantial. A snag could come in the form of parliamentary parties insisting that the cess be classified as a tax, which would entitle provincial governments to their share in it under the NFC Award. In substantial measure, the mess is the result of failure in gas price deregulation. Reforms in gas pricing are important to avoid landing up in difficult situations of this sort. If the government draws the right lessons from the whole affair, perhaps the headaches created would have been worth it after all.

Suicide attack in Peshawar

IN the fight against militancy, a military operation in North Waziristan Agency was always considered a necessary step and blowback in Pakistan proper a likely price that would have to be paid. Now, with the military’s Operation Zarb-i-Azb well into its fourth month, the blowback that did not immediately materialise appears to have finally arrived, and possibly may rapidly escalate. The suicide attack on a senior commander of the Frontier Corps in Peshawar on Tuesday has indicated just how potent the Taliban threat still remains: from target selection to reconnaissance to pairing suicide bomber with munitions, the TTP still has all the elements necessary to cause much damage. It is possible to point to the escape of the senior FC commander as a sign that the TTP threat is waning, but in the world of terrorism an essential truth is that the militants only need to succeed once in many attempts to land a massive psychological blow. Yet, to definitively succeed against terrorism and militancy, the state will need a wide-ranging strategy involving many arms of the state, not just the armed forces. The weakness of the present strategy was underlined yet again on Tuesday as the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee vowed to eradicate terrorism in the country and to work tirelessly to develop and execute an effective strategy against terrorism.

That sentiment may be noble, but to what extent does it reflect reality? The military can operate in Fata, where it is waging a counter-insurgency with nearly 200,000 troops, and it can operate under the protection of Article 245 in the cities, doing selective counterterrorism operations. But does the fight against militancy need a military-led strategy or a civilian-led one? No military strategy can tackle the roots of the problem of militancy nor can any militancy strategy change the social dynamics that make violent ideologies so appealing to sections of the public. Moreover, with some doubts about whether the long-standing policy of the security establishment of differentiating between good and bad militants has truly been abandoned, is the state really poised to effectively fight militancy? Unhappily, while the focus is on military-led approaches, the civilian set-up remains ill-equipped to even understand the dimensions of the militancy problem. The previous PPP-led government was clear in its language, but more than just ambiguous in its actions. Now, the PML-N is often accused of tolerating or even collaborating with militant elements to keep the peace in Punjab — a misguided notion of peace given that it has only allowed the infrastructure of jihad (the mosque, madressah and social welfare networks) to grow without any oversight or control. Surely, where brave soldiers fight on the front lines in the war against militancy, their courage and sacrifices should be recognised and applauded. But the fight against militancy will not be won with guns alone.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2014

__________________
"I am still learning."

Extent of militancy

The outgoing Peshawar corps commander Gen Khalid Rabbani has spoken candidly about the national dimension of the militancy problem, squarely indicating that regions outside his operational command of Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have a potent, and varied, mix of militancy that needs to be tackled urgently. By citing militant hotbeds in other provinces, the commander of the military’s ongoing Operation Zarb-i-Azb in North Waziristan Agency should not be seen as trying to deflect responsibility, but should be applauded for attempting to put the fight against militancy in its proper context — which means regarding Zarb-i-Azb as an important, but by no means final, step in the right direction. Unhappily, few lessons appear to have been learned from the experience of Fata and KP, where militancy festered for years in plain sight until it exploded about a decade ago. Now for years the country has heard about a growing militant network in Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh, but for the most part such warnings have met with the same dire apathy that once greeted those about what was brewing in Fata and KP.

In many ways, the next phase of the fight against militancy — and this phase will come whether the state decides to take the fight to the militants or vice versa — presents an even bigger challenge than Fata. That is both because the non-military tools — civilian-led law enforcement and counterterrorism forces — are either non-existent or unable to perform adequately. Moreover, the militants themselves are more integrated within society in the provinces, living, recruiting, fund-raising and contributing welfare schemes to the communities in which they live. A bigger challenge with less effective resources to fight it — that is essentially the dilemma that militancy outside Fata and KP presents. Yet, Gen Rabbani left a few things unsaid and they concern his institution. For one, while highlighting the need for so-called intelligence-driven operations requiring cooperation and coordination among a host of provincial, national, military and civilian agencies, Gen Rabbani left unsaid what the eternally fraught civil-military relations, especially in light of recent events, have done to the possibility of cooperation and coordination. For another, has the military leadership really dropped the idea of a distinction between good and bad militants across Pakistan? Operation Zarb-i-Azb itself has left a question mark over whether that is truly the case. Surely, the civilian-led dispensation must perform better. But can it if the old power centre is still unable to fully move on?

Fate of Afghan refugees

MUCH hinges on the success of the new power-sharing deal in Kabul, including the fate of over a million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Along with the success of the ‘unity government accord’ between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the return of the Afghan refugees to their homeland will be determined by how stable conditions are after the foreign forces leave. Right now, the prospects for swift repatriation don’t look very bright. At a recent workshop organised in Peshawar by UNHCR and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees, participants were told that while 19,000 Afghans returned home in 2013, this year so far only 4,800 refugees had been repatriated. This is despite the fact that the UN refugee agency has increased cash assistance to the displaced Afghans and provided them transport to cross the border. The slowdown is fuelled by fears of what may happen in Afghanistan in the months ahead. For its part, Pakistan, which hosts around 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees (and reportedly over a million unregistered individuals), has much on its plate already, including hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

Pakistan has been tackling the Afghan refugee crisis for over three decades; the UNHCR has acknowledged it as the “largest protracted refugee situation globally”. This newspaper believes that repatriation should be voluntary — keeping in mind that without peace in war-torn Afghanistan, the refugees may not want to return. While the UN and those countries that have been militarily involved in Afghanistan must support Pakistan’s efforts to care for the displaced Afghans, there are steps authorities within the country can take to mitigate the problem. For one, better border management is needed as currently, individuals can slip into Pakistan without much hindrance. People have been known to take money offered by the UN, leave for Afghanistan and soon find their way back to Pakistan. Additionally, there has been no coherent refugee policy at the national level, which is hampering efforts to effectively address the problem.

Challenge within

IT is not what President Barack Obama said at the UN General Assembly that matters; it is the horror of the situation in the Middle East that must prod the Muslim world into asking itself — to borrow the title of historian Bernard Lewis’s celebrated book — what went wrong? The American leader’s focus in his speech on Wednesday was on a joint struggle that would “degrade and destroy” the self-styled Islamic State, which he called a “network of death” that was using rape as a weapon to subdue civilians, beheading journalists and killing children. Forty nations, Muslim and non-Muslim, were fighting this menace, whose reprehensible actions, he said, “no God condones”. The president’s rhetoric was aimed at two audiences — the American people, who were assured that there would be no boots on the ground; and the Muslim world. So that the latter should not misunderstand his motives, he stressed that “we reject any suggestion of a clash of civilisations” and that a “belief in permanent religious war is the misguided refuge of extremists”. Then he appealed to the Muslim world to focus “on the extraordinary potential of their people, especially the youth”.

Nobody can say when the war on the IS will end and what twists and turns it will take during what appears to be just the beginning of America’s third war in the Middle East in 25 years. But one thing is obvious — it is the people of the Arab-Islamic world who have suffered, and will continue to suffer, the consequences of their failure to take on the extremism and bigotry which were bound to take root in an atmosphere characterised by the lack of freedom and democracy. That some provocations and humiliation came from outside — as in the case of Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Kashmir — goes without saying. But it was the Muslim rulers’ failure to meet these geopolitical challenges that created frustration among the masses and gave space to the extremists now questioning and threatening the fundamentals of civilised living. Nowhere is the failure to break out of the cycle of stagnation and discard the baggage of history more evident than in the oil-rich countries’ inability to transform themselves into progressive societies. The disparity between Muslim societies and others is stark, as pointed out by former president Pervez Musharraf in a speech some three months before 9/11. For instance, while the GDP of the Muslim world was between $1,200 and $1,300, Japan’s stood at $5,550; while the Muslim world had 380 universities, Japan had 1,000; the number of PhDs a year was 500 in Muslim world, while India alone produced 5,000 annually. This means the Muslim world doesn’t have the tools — military or educational — to take on the extremists. Instead, it depends upon help from those very powers which directly or indirectly encouraged the monster of militant extremism now ravaging the Muslim world.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014

__________________
"I am still learning."

Vigilante ‘justice’

‘WHO will watch the watchmen?’ — from the Latin ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ — an expression usually alluded to in the context of political corruption, manifested itself literally in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail this week when a prison guard shot and injured an inmate convicted of committing blasphemy. The victim, an elderly British-Pakistani with a history of severe mental illness, was sentenced to death on the charge of blasphemy in January this year. The assailant evidently resorted to an elaborate ruse to get close to his target, who had been kept in a separate high-security barracks set aside on the jail premises for those accused or convicted of blasphemy. It is a particularly profound betrayal when those deputed to guard a life attempt to take it. And when that act is driven by notions of serving a ‘higher cause’, then legal safeguards, right to due process, etc are rendered meaningless, which is a dangerous situation for any society to find itself in.

However, we have been hurtling along this self-destructive path for some time. The murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer at the hands of his own guard who turned on him for advocating changes in the blasphemy law, not to mention the rapturous adulation with which the killer was greeted by many members of the legal fraternity, was a watershed moment. It signified the ultimate triumph of fevered passion over reason, vigilante justice over rule of law. Things have come to such a pass that blasphemy accused are hard-pressed to find lawyers willing, and brave enough, to defend them, especially after the murder in May of Rashid Rehman, who was threatened by fellow lawyers for defending such an individual. Even judges, especially in the lower courts, are reluctant to be seen as giving any relief to blasphemy accused. In fact, revising the blasphemy law, although necessary, would perhaps not be enough in this noxious environment: only a sustained counter-narrative on multiple levels can change a mindset that sees virtue in committing violence in the name of religion.

The threat lingers

THERE are numerous factors that contribute to Karachi’s chaotic matrix of violence. While political, ethnic and sectarian violence is witnessed far too often, as is street crime, ever so often we are reminded of the deadly capabilities religious militants in the city continue to possess. The bombing that targeted SSP Farooq Awan’s convoy on Thursday night in the Defence Housing Authority area was an example of the latter. Though the police officer was lucky to have survived the assault, two passers-by succumbed to their injuries. The Jundullah group — not to be confused with the Iranian militant outfit with the same name — reportedly claimed the attack and senior police officials have also observed that the assault was the group’s handiwork. Though Jundullah has in the past caused considerable havoc, with the 2004 assault on the then corps commander’s convoy being its most high-profile exploit in Karachi, Sindh police officials say the group has made a resurgence of late after lying low for over a year. The recent killing of a Shia cleric and an attack on a police vehicle have also been attributed to the group.

Thursday’s attack highlights two important points. Firstly, despite the year-old law-enforcement operation in the city, terrorist groups in Karachi very much retain the capability to carry out high-profile attacks. The bombing of SSP Awan’s convoy, as well as the raid on the navy dockyard earlier this month, show that unless the planning and operational capabilities of militants are neutralised through pre-emptive, intelligence-led action, they will continue to possess the capacity for destruction. Secondly, the attack exposes the vulnerability of those officers in the front line of the fight against militancy. SSP Awan was actively working against militants and had escaped at least two previous attempts on his life. Chaudhry Aslam and Shafiq Tanoli — two other officers known for their active involvement in counterterrorism operations — were brutally killed by extremists earlier in the year. While all men and women of the police force need to have sufficient training and equipment to protect themselves from terrorists and criminals, those officers who are actively taking part in anti-militancy operations in Karachi need specific protection. If officers are left with inadequate protection and are killed or injured in action, it will only demoralise the force and embolden the terrorists. Hence pre-emptive action to uproot militant networks from Karachi, coupled with added security for officers involved in counterterrorism campaigns, is essential.

Overbilling in the dark

THE recent flare-up in protests against overbilling in the power sector is yet another reminder that this sector needs greater transparency. In a nutshell, the government tried to reduce the amount being paid to subsidise the cost of electricity to end-consumers. In the last two fiscal years, the amount paid out in the form of power subsidies has been larger than the budgeted amount by 100pc. On top of this, the circular debt had risen to almost Rs500bn by the time the current government took office, further underscoring the scale of the losses being accumulated in the power sector. The government bit the bullet in its early days by paying out the full amount under the circular debt in one go. Then it made a promise to reform the sector to ensure that it is able to pay its own bills from its recoveries. In the latest budget, it allocated Rs150bn for power subsidies, and made a solemn commitment that this amount would not be allowed to be exceeded, as it had been in the previous two fiscal years. To meet this commitment, pressure was put on the Ministry of Water and Power to increase its recoveries. An increase in the power tariff was allowed up to 33pc in October, and the slabs into which various categories of consumers are divided were reformed.

The power bureaucracy responded to the pressure by resorting to an old tactic — overbilling some categories of consumers in the hope of meeting the recovery targets that had been set for them. The overbilling on a presumptive basis, combined with the effects of the tariff hike and slab reform produced bills that were far in excess of what middle-class consumers were used to paying, thus creating the furore we see. Now demands are being made for a comprehensive audit of the entire billing exercise to determine the scope and extent of this practice. Such an audit will accomplish little, since at best it will provide a one-time snapshot of the situation. Instead, what is needed is a disclosure template that mandates the power bureaucracy to regularly release a set of operational and financial data according to a preset cycle, much like the State Bank of Pakistan releases regular snapshots of various macroeconomic indicators, or the water bureaucracy releases information on inflows, outflows and water levels in the various hydro projects under its command. Donor assistance can be sought to help develop this template, ownership of which should rest outside the power bureaucracy, perhaps with the regulator. Only when a series of data released under such a mechanism begins to accumulate, will a more accurate picture emerge of the kinds of abuses of discretionary powers that are creating the inefficiencies for which the country, and ultimately the end-consumer, has to pay so dearly.

Published in Dawn, September 27th , 2014

__________________
"I am still learning."