More ministries

October 28th, 2011

In October of last year, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani proudly announced the abolition of 10 ministries. He framed the move as part of the government’s austerity agenda but in reality it was necessitated by the passage of the 18th Amendment to the constitution, which devolved those subjects to the provinces. A year later, austerity has been shelved to conjure up more jobs for the boys. Four new ministries — those of inter-provincial coordination, national heritage and integration, food security and research and disaster management — have now been created. This is in addition to the three ministries Gilani set up in July. This government is yet to reach the heights of the Musharraf era, when there were over 50 ministries to satisfy cronies with a thirst for power but at this rate we may get there soon.

As a point of comparison, Pakistan has a cabinet that is more than double in number to that of the US. The obvious question that needs to be asked is if we can actually afford so many ministers. Each new ministry brings with it its own vast budget, a new bloated bureaucracy and the myriad expenses of a newly-minted minister. The parliamentarians who have been chosen to fill these positions were left without their offices after their previous ministries were devolved. It is not so much that these ministries needed creating as the fact that there were ministers-in-waiting who needed offices to occupy. What is equally galling is some of the ministerial choices. The food security and research ministry is being filled by Senator Israrullah Zehri, who lost the postal services ministry to the 18th Amendment. Back in 2008, there were reports that three girls and their two mothers had been buried alive in Baba Kot apparently because the girls wanted to choose who they would marry themselves and their mothers agreed to that. This led to a lot of outrage, though Zehri just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He defended the women being buried alive as a tradition in Balochistan and one that was applicable only to “immoral” women. That a wholly unnecessary new ministry has been created just to reward this man stings even more than Gilani’s decision to have these new ministries in the first place.

SC’s campaign against corruption

October 28th, 2011

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has added a new list of plaints to the already swollen roster of objections to executive conduct in his latest statement. The target this time is rental power projects (RPPs) and the perceived corruption in handling them. Lamenting the breakdown of all accountability-related institutions, he announced a judicial commission which would do the work of the Federal Investigation Authority that had become dysfunctional and the office of the ombudsman which was lying vacant. He could have added the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) whose appointed head was legally disputed.

The chief justice was of the opinion that “non-completion of these projects was due to deliberate negligence, which was driven by hidden motives and was badly hurting the public exchequer”, adding that the court would now send such cases of negligence to the NAB (sic!). His list of plaints also included non-compliance on the part of officers whose removal the Court had advised but who had actually been promoted to even better positions while “officers who were working properly and dutifully are being transferred to Gilgit-Baltistan”.

Iftikhar Chaudhry was on the bench hearing two petitions — by political opponents of the government of one shade or another, one a serving minister in the cabinet — about corruption allegedly behind delays in the inauguration of two RPPs. At one point he also conceded that the Court was not fully decided about the extent of powers it had to intervene in the matter of the appointment of the NAB chief, but he felt surer about the RPPs on the basis of the petitions before the Court and stated that the “court would take expert opinion from relevant quarters and then send the cases to NAB”. His determination to arrest the unending march of corruption was firm as he ignored pleas from the government’s defence that at least one petitioner who was in the cabinet should have resigned before appearing in the court against the government.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan under Iftikhar Chaudhry has regained much of its lost prestige. It is considered the first ‘independent’ apex court that has not only taken on the brute power of the executive but has become ‘activist’ in the pursuit of executive malfunctions. A broad range of public opinion backs this activism while ‘lawyer power’ stands behind it as its expression of street clout. What one cannot ignore is also the opposition to the PPP-led government whose motives are clearly more political than moral, further backed by a section of Pakistan’s powerful media where some journalists are more overtly anti-PPP than justified by their profession. The apex court and the authority of the chief justice has not gone without challenge by the Supreme Court Bar Association, whose leaders, it must be admitted, have not always been of high professional quality in the past.

The appearance of judicial bias is implied in some political commentaries where the incumbent government is often seen as besieged by elements hard at work to topple it from power by hook or by crook. Any state in the world faced with a seriously curtailed writ, terrorism, resultant intimidation and economic collapse would be faced with dysfunction. This is proved in the provinces where no government has shown even tolerable performance.

Quite wrongly, the perception is that the powers that are out to get the government will lean on the anti-executive mood of the Supreme Court to accomplish their mission to take Pakistan back to the 1990s when governments were toppled while the Court selectively supported their dismissal. It must be said today that the present Court in its suo motu methodology can also be perceived by some to be partisan, given the background of the facts of its restoration. In the past, the ‘expert’ advice rendered to the Court may not have led to good results, as in the case of the Steel Mills and the sugar crisis, both causing more losses to the state than preventing them. The crisis of trespass into the domain of the executive could be faced by any ‘activist’ Court in the world.

Pakistan and the Silk Road project

October 29th, 2011

Leaders from 12 nations are meeting in Istanbul on November 2 to plan a stable and independent Afghanistan after American withdrawal. Countries who will discuss regional economic cooperation in this context are: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, USA and the United Kingdom. This will be a prelude to the Bonn Conference, where delegations from 90 countries will discuss post-2014 developments in the region.

Some commentators in Pakistan are looking at this development as a strategy to cut China off from Central Asia and bring the United States into the region ‘by other means’. Pakistan therefore is being presented as a victim of an either/or situation: join the Northern Silk Road Project and ditch China or keep out of the project and prove its strategic loyalty to China who is presumed to be an outsider opposed to the project. This is a wrong assumption because China is very much there in Central Asia and any Silk Road Project will redound to its regional advantage. The project may at best be negatively described as a plan to diversify the rapidly developing economic domination of China in the region.

A former foreign secretary was right when he said on these pages: “It would be in Pakistan’s interest to become a partner in any regional arrangement, better sooner than later”. China has economic presence in Afghanistan after buying copper deposits in Central Afghanistan and winning the contract to prospect for oil along the Amy Darya River in Northern Afghanistan. It has completed the project of constructing an important ‘gateway’ to Central Asia — of which China is a part — at Gwadar in Pakistan. It can be said that it was Pakistan in tandem with China who thought of the Central Asian connection in the early 1990s. It is perhaps in answer to this move that America began researching the Northern Silk Road project in 2004. But organisations like the World Bank were thinking of the Pakistan-China plan when they took notice of it. In October 2008, an official of the World Bank in Islamabad said the bank was ready to lend Pakistan $2.25 billion for a trade and energy corridor focusing mostly on Gwadar Port and its land link with China: “The trade and energy corridor would serve as a gateway for commerce and transport between South Asia, Central Asia, China and the Gulf countries. Pakistan will set up a big oil terminal at Gwadar together with refineries, with Chinese help, because most of the oil will be transported to China from there.”

The Americans were already moving ahead with research. Scholars from 16 countries gathered in Kabul in 2006 at the First Kabul Conference on Partnership, Trade and Development in Greater Central Asia. Also present were the Kazakhstan Institute, the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of Johns Hopkins University, foreign minister of Kazakhstan, and the then US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.

Pakistan is negotiating a Turkmen gas pipeline project through Afghanistan, which will serve both India and Pakistan, but China, beginning late on the project, has already got the Turkmen gas through one of the longest gas pipelines going to China. China is also the dominant buyer of Kazakhstan’s natural resources. Meanwhile, Pakistan has expressed readiness to allow India to take its exports to Afghanistan through a land route, a pledge in line with the ‘connectivity’ agreements signed by Pakistan as a member of Saarc. India and Bangladesh recently already agreed to allow a Myanmar gas pipeline to pass through Bangladesh to India.

Contrary to the myth of America-grabs-oil-through-invasion, the Iraqi oil contracts have gone to China and India. The latest ‘scandal’ of giving China the contract to dig for oil in Northern Afghanistan seems to be a case of America making a silent deal with China over Afghanistan in return for support to the Northern Silk Road Project. One can say with some certainty that the project will benefit Pakistan through the development of co-dependencies with its neighbours. No doubt, Islamabad will move after consulting with China. By the same token, Pakistan becomes an important participant at Istanbul.

Lighting up Diwali

October 29th, 2011

The president’s greeting to the Hindu community on the occasion of Diwali is a welcome change from the past, when occasions such as these were totally ignored. A handful of other politicians have also come forward with similar messages, and in many places Hindus have been able to celebrate Diwali at temples and within their homes without the restrictions they faced in the past.

But we and most notably our leaders, should also keep in mind that greetings alone are not enough. We need to do much more to draw our minority communities back into the mainstream from which they have now been completely sidelined. Forced marriages and conversion of Hindu girls in Sindh has become a regular feature in the life of that community; complaints of places of worship being taken over by land mafias made repeatedly by Hindu community leaders have been ignored; the kidnapping of Hindu traders continues in both Sindh and Balochistan and thousands have left for India or other destinations, sensing they have no place in a society that has rapidly become less and less narrow in its vision and thinking.

The same problems hold true for other minority communities in the country: Christians, Sikhs and perhaps most of all the Ahmadis. Systematic discrimination, in certain cases protected by law, has made life more and more arduous for non-Muslim citizens, in some cases depriving them of jobs or even access to education. The situation has grown rapidly worse over the years. We have seen intolerance and blind hatred grow before our eyes, with no real effort to stem this tide, which has created so much suffering in many places.

What we need desperately is a change in the direction from which the wind blows, bringing with it the worst kind of communalism. A gentle breeze of change must be wafted across the country. Mere greetings on special occasions can only do so much. A far bigger change is required if anything substantial is to be achieved and a real change brought in the lives of people who, regardless of religious beliefs, need to be treated as equal citizens.

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Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

PML-N’s ‘revolution’ kicks off

October 30th, 2011

The PML-N kicked off its ‘go Zardari go’ campaign in Lahore on October 28. The procession was not attended by the party’s main leader Mian Nawaz Sharif, who was away on a foreign visit. Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister’s son, came to speak, but it seems that the crowds wanted his father who spoke to the crowd later (this newspaper also reported that a significant proportion of the participants seems to have been brought to the venue from outside Lahore).

There is no way a Pakistani popular leader can be told what his representational flaws are. Who can tell Shahbaz Sharif that his rather tiresome style of singing Habib Jalib has run its course and arouses no emotion; that his wild flailing of arms across the bristling mikes in front of him is now nothing more than a boring pantomime. His accusations contained all the predictable charges against the PPP government and President Asif Ali Zardari: corruption; abysmal governance causing shortages of public amenities all over Pakistan; and slavery of the US.

Zardari’s hate-speech troubleshooter Babar Awan was on hand in Lahore to direct barbs at the flaws in Shahbaz Sharif’s own kingdom where he rules autocratically, using public funds and local government transport to do the party’s work. Governor Khosa pitched in too, accusing the Punjab government of abusing its authority at the rally, indicating the shape of things to come in the battle ahead which the PML-N firebrand Saad Rafiq says will reach its climax in December-January with a ‘Long March’ to Islamabad. The crowds thought Nawaz Sharif would be there at Bhaati Gate but he was out of the country, although he did address his own rally a couple of days ago where he railed against the president and the ruling party.

If there were two poles in the party — the hawks led by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the lone moderate Nawaz Sharif — that of Chaudhry Nisar won the day. This pole has fostered the development of the typical PML-N voter who was brought up on the reflex of the mid-term toppling of governments in the 1990s. Of course, one reason for this rally is to forestall the Senate elections that are scheduled for March 2012 and which could see the PPP gain a commanding lead in the upper house of parliament. To this end, Shahbaz Sharif, who seems to be in the camp opposing his elder brother, had been predicting a ‘bloody revolution’. The other factor which must have goaded the party to make its presence known to all and sundry must be the Imran Khan factor, with his rallies in Punjab increasingly gaining a large audience.

The rise of Imran Khan and his formerly rather amoebic party — people still don’t know who the man next to Imran Khan is — has startled the PML-N. While Shahbaz Sharif avoided reference to him in Lahore, Khan was busy attending a jirga in Islamabad protesting American drone attacks, endearing him to the anti-US establishment. Nawaz Sharif is anti-American too, but not as tough and rash as Khan. And agitation experts know that politics of Manichaean contrasts works far better with the common man. Khan’s right-wing pro-Taliban posture threatens to go down well with the pro-Taliban Sipah-e-Sahaba elements that the PML-N has been wooing. A word of support from North Waziristan may be all that is needed.

Surveys show that Nawaz Sharif is the most popular leader in the country, although he is a few notches down from his standing in the past. Shahbaz Sharif is next, followed by Imran Khan; but Zardari is plumbing the depths of unpopularity. This index is upset by the fact that Khan and Nawaz Sharif are going to damage each other at the polls whenever they take place. Hence the subliminal message is that the PML-N will accept an ouster of the PPP through non-electoral means. That will suit Khan too because then he will get into the ruling echelon on the basis of his increased street clout instead of the elections where he is not expected to do much more than improve his party’s standing in the country. After the All Parties Conference, this is the next instalment of political abdication in Pakistan.

Challenge before the SBP governor

October 30th, 2011

For the first time in several decades, the occupant of the governor’s office at the State Bank of Pakistan is a man who was familiar with the institution before being given the job. Having been the deputy governor since March 2007, Yaseen Anwar has been around the central bank for some time, an experience we hope will come in handy as he takes up the top job on a more permanent basis, having served as interim governor twice.

There has been much speculation about whether Anwar was the most appropriate choice for the job. We have no reason to believe that a man who has nearly 40 years of experience in international banking, as well as working within the operational heart of the State Bank itself, is not up to the task. Whether he is able to resist political pressures and maintain the central bank’s independence remains to be seen, but we believe he deserves a fair chance.

Many have speculated that the most recent cut in interest rates was made under political duress by a man who was eager to please the government. Yet, what many often forget is that the last time Anwar was serving as acting governor, he raised interest rates, suggesting that he is not quite the malleable sort he is being made out to be. The governor’s central challenge now will be to maintain the health of a financial system that has a worrying number of struggling banks, all the while ensuring that businesses get better access to credit. And did we mention that he has to do all of this while keeping a check on inflation?

We wish the governor luck in his new job, but we also have some requests. He could start, for instance, by releasing the central bank’s investigation reports into allegations of financial malfeasance at the state-owned National Bank and the Bank of Punjab. No financial system can possibly hope to maintain the confidence of the public if there are serious question marks over the creditworthiness of two of the 10 largest banks in the country.

We would also hope that the governor is able to curb government borrowing from the central bank itself, an act that does little except spur inflation to ever greater heights.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Problems for pensioners

October 31st, 2011

With 90,000 employees, Pakistan Railways is one of the largest employers in the country and has been so almost since its very inception 150 years ago. So when it fails to pay its pensioners for several months on end, it has a big impact across virtually every district in Pakistan. Yet, even as the crisis at the railways has come front and centre on the national agenda, there is depressingly little talk of sustainable and lasting solutions.

One would have hoped that a man dying outside a bank branch while waiting for his pension would have shocked the ministry and the company’s management out of their complacency. It appears, however, that nearly everybody who has a say in the matter is still looking to make ad hoc decisions.

President Asif Ali Zardari has taken action against branch managers at the National Bank of Pakistan, which was responsible for disbursing the pensions. The chief justice of Pakistan has taken a somewhat more interesting approach of threatening the railways’ management’s salaries if they fail to pay pensions to the company’s retirees. The apex court has also, thankfully, accepted the principle that the railways should be run like a commercial entity, meaning it should be required to turn a profit. It is likely that the government will release some amount of money to the railways as a means to ensure that the pensioners finally get paid.

Yet this still leaves the question unanswered as to why — if the railways are so desperate for cash — they refuse to present a credible plan to restructure the company and move it towards profitability. This very reasonable request has been made by the finance ministry, which says that it will then release funds that will eventually allow Pakistan Railways to get back on its feet. The finance ministry is acting like the grown-up in this situation. It is time the railways management did what is best for their institution and the country.

Charging Musharraf

October 31st, 2011

Three years may have passed since General Pervez Musharraf was forced from power but even now the task of recovering from his decade-long reign is far from over. Justice, for one, has yet to be served to a man who tried hard to pervert the course of justice through his meddling in judicial matters. This is the key to understanding why a local magistrate in Balochistan has just issued arrest warrants for Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz among others for the murder of Akbar Bugti. Of course, these warrants should have been issued a long time ago, especially given that both respondents are no longer in Pakistan. But it makes us feel better knowing that those who hurt this country through their illegitimate rule are not likely to come back thanks to the courts.

Reasonable people may disagree about whether the military action Musharraf took against Bugti constituted murder. What no one can deny is that Bugti’s killing reignited the uprising in Balochistan and contributed greatly to the rise of separatist sentiment in the province. For that, Musharraf should have to face the music. His actions are made all the more galling by the fact that he had no mandate to carry out this operation. The upshot of his dictatorial rule is that even when he undertook military and police operations against militants, as was the case in Lal Masjid, it led to far more anger than when civilian governments did the same thing.

The sad fact is that Musharraf will never be held fully accountable for the damage he did to the country. Despite his repeated assertions that he will return to Pakistan any day now, the truth is that he is unlikely to leave his comfortable life in London, where he gets paid to pontificate on politics and deliver diatribes against those politicians who actually have a public to answer to. As for Shaukat Aziz, he flew into the country when he was offered a position of power and he flew right out when the party was over. The only consolation we can get is that they were ignominiously drummed out of power.

Challenges of winter

October 31st, 2011

As the first winds of winter begin to blow across flood-hit Sindh, international humanitarian agencies have warned there is a desperate need for more resources to meet the needs of the millions of people who remain without adequate shelter or other means of protection. Some, according to media reports, are still living under nothing more than thin plastic sheets. The International Organisation for Migration, which is leading the effort to provide at least some kind of shelter to flood victims, says the situation will worsen rapidly if more assistance does not come in.

We have then a situation where millions of people in all 23 districts of Sindh and some in neighbouring areas of Balochistan may be forced to spend months without housing. Some, of course, have been hit for the second time, given they were also affected by the 2010 floods. The key issue is that the appeal made by the UN some months ago now for $357 million to meet the needs of flood victims has not been met. Only a tiny proportion of that amount has trickled in. At the same time, aid workers also say donations have been thin on the ground at the local level in contrast to last year. The National Disaster Management Authority meanwhile speaks of tens of thousands of houses which have been completely destroyed and acre after acre of crop washed away.

The advent of winter also brings with it the threat of more disease as winds from the north are known to cause respiratory tract infections, with children and the elderly most at risk. Also, though the province is in the country’s south, most of its interior districts, which is where the bulk of the affectees are, apart from Badin district by the coast, do experience a winter that would be cold enough for anyone without adequate shelter. The plight of the flood victims has been ignored by far too many of us already. If this situation continues, without greater effort made by the government and other authorities to step in, we could see the disaster that already exists growing even more grim. This is something we need to avoid at all costs by putting in a collective effort.

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Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

The rise of Imran Khan

November 01st, 2011

Many Pakistanis have either lived through or grew up listening to stories of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his electrifying rallies as he spearheaded the first grassroots political movement in the country’s history. A movement that, like Imran Khan’s, if one goes by what he said in Lahore on October 30, wanted a change in the prevailing status quo. And while comparisons between the two are perhaps premature (some people in the blogosphere and on Twitter were already wondering whether another Bhutto has been born) no one can deny that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader has quite substantially shaken the country’s political landscape with his massive rally in Lahore. Not only was he able to easily beat the numbers that the far more established PML-N was able to bring out at their own rally, with conservative estimates putting 75,000 people or more at the PTI rally, he did so with those who are normally not associated with the political process, those who have become disaffected with the mainstream parties and are tiring of what they see as elected governments whose leaders enrich only themselves and provide no semblance of good governance.

Whatever disagreements one may have with Imran Khan’s ideology or views, one can no longer dismiss Khan and his party as something of an irritant on the national political scene. From now on till the next election is held, he will have to be taken seriously and his party’s electoral fortunes will most probably be far better than they have been in the past — the best being when Mr Khan himself won a seat to the National Assembly from Mianwali in the 2002 elections. It will be fair to say that the PTI chief has now arrived as a political force to be reckoned with. The massive turnout at his party’s rally could, in all likelihood, garner it even more support, given that many voters who sit on the fence and are disillusioned with mainstream parties such as the PPP and the PML-N would have wanted to first wait and see what kind of support Imran Khan would get in his first major rally before throwing in their weight behind him.

So the coming weeks and months could well see some significant defections from some of the bigger parties. The most immediate threat is going to be felt by the PML-N, since the PTI managed to get far more people at its rally compared to the party of the Sharifs, and that too in the latter’s stronghold of Lahore. One would have to see how the ruling party in Punjab responds, but if the provincial law minister is a man of his word he may well have to relinquish his post, since he had said that if the PTI rally attracted more than 50,000 people, he would resign. Other than that, and perhaps it’s a bit early, it remains to be seen how the PML-N responds. The initial reaction has been one of confusion, with senior party leaders clearly put on the defensive by the PTI’s rally and trying to justify their own rally of two days earlier so that the parties now seem to have the same objective: that of ousting the PPP from power.

That said, it is important not to confuse approval of the youthful energy for change that Imran is tapping into with support for his agenda. For one, it is hard to claim to be an agent for complete change when tired has-beens share the same stage as you — many former legislators with not-so-good reputations have joined the PTI in recent weeks. This is a contradiction Imran may never be able to reconcile, especially given his ‘in-100-days-I-will-rid-this-country-of-corruption’ agenda. His only route to power is by playing the same grubby political game as everyone else and making alliances that force you to hold your nose, while at the same time his appeal is based on the fact that he promises to consign the prevailing political forces to the dustbin of history. And it also remains to be seen how many seats his party actually wins since to become prime minister, which surely would be his objective (and the dream of his passionate supporters) after October 30, a party needs to have dozens of candidates capable of winning seats on their own.

Imran’s full-throated declaration that the Baloch will be treated like friends and not colonised was a very welcome sentiment, all the more so given how much speculation there has been that Imran’s recent ascent was the result of support from the establishment. Distancing himself from the army’s Balochistan policy is a good first move for someone who wants to highlight his independence and integrity. Imran also reiterated his support for women and minorities which, when coupled with the fact that he was one of the rare politicians to condemn the murder of Salmaan Taseer, should be viewed with optimism not cynicism.

But those who believe Imran is hopelessly naive would also have felt vindicated after hearing portions of his speech. His stance on the Taliban, although not rising to the level of outright support, is nonetheless very dangerous. He pledged never to use the army to carry out military operations against its own people, and that tribal elders would be able to eliminate the scourge of terrorism if the problem is left to them to deal with. Leave aside the fact that even a personality as strong and charismatic as Imran will never be able to get the army to bend to his will, just the fact that he doesn’t recognise that the Taliban and affiliated groups have spread their tentacles outside of Fata to the rest of the country is reason enough to doubt his judgement. Imran also seems to believe that the singular, transformative act of voting him into power will lead to an immediate end to corruption and that the absence of corruption alone will strengthen our economy to such an extent that there will be no need for us to ask for any foreign aid. Political maturity is a twin process and along with a vote bank Imran Khan will also need to develop a coherent agenda.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Getting back on track

November 2nd, 2011

The fact that Pakistan Railways waited until it got sued for not paying its employees and pensioners just means that instead of being able to negotiate with the finance ministry on the contours of a deal, they will now get a court-ordered restructuring, likely to be a far more painful process than would otherwise have been possible had Pakistan Railways, and the railways ministry, acted earlier.

October 31’s hearing in the Supreme Court of Pakistan into the case of railway pensioners not being paid on time suggested that the apex court will likely address the broader issues of the finances of the national carrier. The court’s questions about the purchases and repairs of locomotives means that the superior judiciary recognises that the root of the problem is not a temporary financial one, but a broader one that involves grossly incompetent management and an utter failure to come up with and execute a strategic vision.

The railways are an important national institution. Few realise that, even with the badly maintained locomotives, rail transportation is by far the cheapest way to move goods across the country. Getting this institution back on its feet is important, which is why it is equally crucial to diagnose the problem properly. Pakistan Railways should also consider following India’s example. They have computerised their ticketing system to minimise theft, which in the Pakistani case is quite significant.

The issue with the railways is not government corruption, but rather that of bad management and a refusal to adapt to changing circumstances to come up with innovative solutions. The problem did not originate under this administration and we would like to commend Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh for seeking more permanent solutions. Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of the Awami National Party, however, has consistently refused to cooperate and seems to lack the vision and leadership capacity necessary to turn around an important national institution. If he cannot do the job himself, he should perhaps turn it over to somebody who can.

Road re-opening in Kurram

November 2nd, 2011

The decision by the Shia Turi and Sunni Bangash tribes in sectarian-torn Kurram Agency to re-open the Parachinar-Thall Road comes as a moment to celebrate for everyone living in that region. For years, the road has remained blocked — cutting off people living in the higher reaches of the region from the rest of the country. The result has been a state of siege, with severe food and medicine shortages in Parachinar. People have been forced to take routes through Afghanistan to travel south and there have been multiple attacks, usually of a sectarian nature, on people travelling along that road.

The fact that the road can now be re-used again is thus excellent news. The real question though is if the accord that makes this possible, and seems to be based around an agreement reached in Murree in 2008 can be sustained. Past agreements have repeatedly broken down; oddly enough the last one reached was brokered by the Taliban — who should, of course, have no role in the matter.

Ultimately of course it is the State which must take responsibility for upholding peace in Kurram and protecting the people who have lived in such hardship for the last four years. The question that arises is whether it is capable of this. Its security apparatus has over the years failed to keep the Highway safe. Can it do so now? We can only wonder. But it is vital the State work to enforce its writ over all its territory — and also prove to people it is capable of protecting them. So far those that live in Parachinar have no confidence in this ability of authorities to protect lives. The same holds true for those who live elsewhere. What is vital at this point is that peace be restored in Kurram, the vital Thall-Parachinar Road be kept open and the factors that have destroyed peace in the area — including the role played by militants — examined in depth so that further violence can be prevented.

Palestine’s step forward

November 2nd, 2011

Palestine has moved a small step closer towards gaining recognition as a full-fledged state and full membership of the UN General Assembly. Despite efforts led by the US and France to block entry, it was accepted as a full member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), backed by most Arab and many other states — 107 nations voted for membership, 14 against, while 52 abstained.

The response has come quickly and harshly. Reacting with fury, Israel has condemned the move, saying it will hamper peace efforts. In logical terms, this makes very little sense. But even tougher on Unesco will be the US decision to suspend funding, immediately removing from the organisation some 22 per cent of its budget. This will make the running of some programmes much harder and have a negative impact on people around the world who benefit from them. Unesco had suffered a similar blockade of US funding from 1984 to 2003, as a consequence of what the US termed ‘disparities’ between its policies and that of the UN body.

Palestine has also applied for full membership of the UN General Assembly, with the matter due to come up for vote later this month. The US will certainly use its veto — unavailable to it in Unesco — to prevent this. But regardless of this, the Palestinians have demonstrated that they are gathering support in the international community, building up support for their stance as a nation that has remained stateless for far too long. These short strides forward will, inevitably, meet one day with success. Many hurdles stand in the way of the Palestinian people, who have lived for so long in a state of limbo, suffering more than six decades of acute hardship. The success in Unesco represents a small triumph, even if the reaction from the US and Israel reminds us we still live in times when deep differences prevent any solution to the long-standing crisis of the Middle East, where tensions still result in new deaths with each passing year and a lasting settlement still seems a long way away.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

A welcome verdict

November 3rd, 2011

The guilty verdict by a court in Britain in the cases of Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif has put a lot of minds — and hearts — at ease. It’s about time that those who throw away matches and their country’s name were made to pay for their sins. One has to wonder, in fact, at their defiance and persistent confidence prior to the verdict because whenever they were asked in public about the matter, they would deny that they had done anything wrong — despite considerable evidence to the contrary. A unanimous verdict, on the charge of “conspiracy to cheat” and guilty by a 10-2 majority decision on the charge of “conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments” was delivered to end the 16-hour deliberation. The subsequent confirmation that Mohammad Amir, the third player to be charged, had pleaded guilty prior to the trial, revealed a sweetly timed stroke that the teenager unleashed. Citing “extreme pressure” and threats to his place in the playing eleven if he refused to go along, Amir, seemingly, used his age, lack of experience and his eagerness for his own advantage. Also, his admission of guilt may have, to some extent, helped in the conviction of Butt and Asif.

It has to be said that even a layperson with little knowledge of law but some amount of common sense would have expected such a decision from the court. Also, these kinds of allegations have been dogging Pakistan cricket for a long time but the Pakistan Cricket Board never acted on its own and the job was left to a sting operation carried out by the reporter of a now-defunct British tabloid to expose some of the culprits. As if the crime committed was not enough to hang their heads in shame, the trio insisted all along that they were innocent, aided by some local TV channels who invited them as ‘experts’ during events such as the World Cup and as ‘guests’ on Eid shows. They not only let down millions who had invested their trust in them but their continued intransigence stomped upon and ridiculed every ounce of love the country’s cricket followers had bestowed on them. But perhaps that is an apt reflection of the society that we are part of. No sense of accountability, denials following all wrongdoings, defiance when confronted, finding scapegoats to vent our anger and frustration on and, in the end, the power of moving on.

A difficult peace

November 3rd, 2011

A trilateral summit of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan has yielded three agreements but very little common understanding of the problems faced in Afghanistan. In the abstract, a joint mechanism looked like the right thing to do to pacify a violent region, but when it came to specifics, like the joint investigation of the assassination of Afghan peace committee head Burhanuddin Rabbani, the three were deadlocked for lack of trust and confidence. Anybody who is in a hurry to settle matters in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal will be disappointed. Afghanistan and Pakistan are at loggerheads despite the various sweeteners at the level of diplomatic rhetoric. Pakistan talks tough because it holds some trump cards in the coming shape of things. Afghanistan is deeply offended but, as the weak state confronting Pakistan, is compelled to use flexible vocabulary while offering comment on Pakistan whom it accuses of unleashing terror through the Taliban. Turkey represents Nato because under that organisation its troops are deployed in Afghanistan; it also indirectly represents all neighbouring Central Asian states because of their Turkic stock, in addition to being the emerging leader in the Islamic world.

The question of investigation into Rabbani’s assassination is fraught with obstacles. Any investigation will lead to the terrain inside Pakistan, which is not under Pakistani control but over which Pakistan claims sovereignty. The Afghan side, feeling strong in the company of Turkish interlocutors, has waxed emotional, which was not advisable when Pakistan has reached some kind of agreement with the US over the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. That Pakistan was not overly pleased with the role Rabbani played in Kabul after the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan does not help when talking about the assassination. Hence, ‘evolving’ a ‘joint mechanism’ for probing into the death will, at the most, yield a vague undertaking with no promising future.

The concrete achievement at the summit was the signing of agreements on a currency-swap between Pakistan and Turkey, and on joint military training and exercises between the militaries of the three countries. It is difficult to say whether they will offset the training facilities that India has agreed to offer to the Afghan security forces under the India-Afghanistan strategic accord signed recently. It is easy to see that Pakistan cannot let Kabul have an easy ride at the discussions that will ensue at Istanbul after the trilateral summit. Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s assertion that Pakistan has to end terrorism coming from across the Durand Line will be countered by Pakistan with complaints about similar incursions from the other side, plus details of how chaotic the administration under Karzai has been. Of course, there will be the ghost of India presiding over this exchange, compelling Pakistan not to show its hand on real policy.

The solution may be evolving between the US and Pakistan as they move closer on the modalities of talking to the Taliban. It appears that Pakistan is agreeable to being instrumental in bringing the Taliban to the table together with the Americans to help the US leave Afghanistan. Both sides have been hinting at an ‘agreement’ on this, but for Pakistan, the most crucial factor will be its presence at the table when the future shape of things in post-invasion Afghanistan is discussed. That doesn’t mean that if Pakistan’s standoff with America comes to an end, Pakistan will become a peaceful place. Its relationship with the Taliban is fuzzy at best and no one in the world can be certain, including Pakistanis, if the Taliban — of both varieties — will stick to anything they commit. Pakistan’s perennial favourite Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has fired his latest volley of condemnation of Pakistan, which contains many of the grudges the Taliban nurse against their most generous patron. He has been quoted as saying, “In its quest for US favours, Pakistan has alienated the Afghan people and mujahideen. Now Islamabad cannot play any role in stabilising Afghanistan and restoring peace there.”

Will Islamabad keep this in mind as it seeks an international consensus behind its ‘national interest’ in Afghanistan?

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

An expected sentencing

November 4th, 2011

The sentencing of convicted Pakistan cricketers, former captain Salman Butt, and fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, to prison terms ranging from six to 30 months was expected after their conviction in a court in Britain on charges of involvement in fixing outcomes of matches. That three former Pakistan cricketers, all stars in their own right, will be spending time in jail in a British prison will rankle many a Pakistani, regardless of whether he follows cricket or not. But one needs to look at this dispassionately and from the point of view of whether justice has been done, and what this unpleasant and unsavoury episode means for cricket. Clearly, the judge felt that there was enough evidence to convict all three players. Amir, who is a teenager, had appealed for leniency citing his lack of experience and age, however, it seems this was ignored by the judge who said that sending him to jail would be a deterrent to other budding cricketers. Also, evidence may have come up in the court hearings suggesting that Amir had been involved in another incident related to spot-fixing, so his plea that he was coerced on this particular occasion may have been undermined by this. However, lawyers may argue that this other instance wasn’t proven and the judge should have asked the jury to disregard it and should not have considered it when sentencing him.

Has justice been served? Partly. The Pakistan Cricket Board should now wake up and ensure that all its players know what is expected of them as far as match-fixing and spot-fixing are concerned. Of course, the ability to choose between right and wrong is something that is usually instilled in all of us from our early years, but there is a need now to ensure that our cricketers are made aware of the consequences of actions such as trying to fix outcomes of matches when they are contracted to play by the board. Beyond Pakistan, the issue needs to be thoroughly investigated by all Test-playing nations because the betting networks have spread their tentacles far and wide and in the past allegations have been made against players from other countries as well.

Liberalising trade with India

November 4th, 2011

It has been a long time coming. Fifteen years after New Delhi granted Pakistan ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) status in 1996, Islamabad has finally decided to reciprocate, a move this newspaper welcomes. That it comes as part of a broader negotiation process with India to liberalise trade between the two countries is even more encouraging.

South Asia is, by most measures, the least economically integrated region in the world, largely due to animosity between India and Pakistan. At independence, Pakistan’s trade with India accounted for 60 per cent of our total foreign trade. That number is now barely above three per cent, an economic travesty considering the scale of unmet demand for Indian goods in Pakistan and vice versa (measured through the roaring smuggling trade between the two countries). We agree with Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood that normalisation of ties regularises trade and increases it, rather than being disruptive for local industries.

Yet much work remains to be done. As was made evident in the commerce ministry’s statement on November 2, normalisation of trade does not automatically follow the granting of MFN status. Indeed, New Delhi maintains extensive non-tariff barriers to Pakistani goods entering India, even more than a decade and a half after granting Pakistan MFN status. Pakistan also has high tariffs and even outright bans on the import of most goods from India.

What was encouraging about the talks in Mumbai last month was that both countries had candid and detailed discussion about the specific barriers to trade between India and Pakistan. Indian regulators agreed to review their regulations on the import of Pakistani goods (which Pakistani traders describe as burdensome) and the Pakistani commerce ministry appears to have been given authorisation to move from a ‘positive’ list — where trade in only a few items is allowed and the rest is banned — to a ‘negative’ list: where trade in only a few items is banned.

The next round of talks is scheduled for later this month. In Mumbai, the Indians had been insistent that Pakistan reciprocate MFN status for India. Now that Pakistan appears to have done so, one hopes that New Delhi will begin the process of removing its own barriers to trade in earnest.

Power solutions

November 4th, 2011

With frequent power cuts crippling Pakistani industry, the decision to import 500 MW of electricity from India should raise no objections. Not only will it foster improved ties between the two countries, we will also get a desperately-needed source of energy. While welcoming this move, though, it is important not to overstate the impact it will have. We currently face an electricity shortage of 800 MW and the government has been unable to improve power generation by completing work on hydel projects. This deal should not obscure the complete and utter failure of the government’s energy policy. Indeed, it would not be too cynical to suggest that the government’s prime motive behind seeking electricity from India is not the chance to improve ties with our neighbour but to ensure its own survival. Keep in mind that India made the offer to export electricity back in April; the government has accepted only after the opposition PML-N used the issue of power breakdowns to launch a mass movement.

The truth is, if importing energy is the solution to our electricity needs, we need to look towards Iran. The Iranian government has offered to export double what we will be importing from India, but the government has so far been curiously hesitant to accept the offer. This can only be attributed to the US, which has been trying to stymie economic ties between the two nations. Had it not been for American pressure, a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan which would have provided a minimum of 1000 MW of electricity may have been a reality by now. We often talk about how it is in our national interest to cooperate with the US on issues of terrorism no matter how much we might dislike it; here is an instance where it is imperative that we defy the US in the name of national interest. Of course, we should never have been in such a situation in the first place. Had successive governments done a better job of producing electricity through hydel projects, we would not have had to pay through our nose for imported electricity.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Bodies and blood

November 5th, 2011

The bodies that continue to turn up in towns across Balochistan represent a tragedy we have essentially ignored for far too long. Four more bodies were discovered on November 3, bringing the count to an alarming 230 since June 2010. In the latest case, two of the bodies were those of students who died a terrible death. Bullet and torture marks scarred their bodies. The young men had vanished from Mand a few months ago. The other two victims were Baloch Students Organisation activists, killed like others before them.

This brings us to a crucial question. Why has there been so much indifference in the country to the situation in Balochistan? Within that province, anger runs high. It exists even among school children and ordinary housewives. International, as well as local, human rights monitoring bodies have repeatedly drawn attention to the atrocities in Balochistan. The reports have been seething and make no bones about the forces they believe are involved in Balochistan. But why, we need to ask, do our own authorities seem so unmoved? Why have visits by the prime minister and the president to Quetta failed to produce any tangible results and why is the provincial government, elected by people, able to do so little? Who, we ask, has control over the affairs of Balochistan; who is actually running the province and where are things headed? At the very least, a credible inquiry should be conducted to find out who is behind the killings.

These queries are not being asked often enough. They have certainly not entered the realm of mainstream thinking in the country or been taken up by television anchors who act increasingly to shape opinion and set the agenda for news. Yet everything about our history indicates we need to look at Balochistan with a far more proactive approach. The events in what was once East Pakistan must not be forgotten. The miniscule population size of Balochistan means these events have not yet been repeated, at least on a full scale. But who knows what the future will hold, and what may yet happen in a province where bodies strew the streets like fallen fruit.

The men in black coats

November 5th, 2011

There is a tendency for yesterday’s optimists to become tomorrow’s cynics. During the height of its activism, the lawyers’ movement was lauded as a mass movement that brought down a dictator. The men in black coats were celebrated for their idealism, passion and dedication. The observance on November 3 of the fourth anniversary of Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency, when he sent the courts packing and suspended the Constitution for a second time, should have been a day to remember the ultimately successful efforts of the lawyers’ movement. But the day was one of mixed emotions. Nothing can eradicate what the movement managed to achieve — giving the country a truly independent judiciary for the first time — but it is equally hard to overlook the fact that perhaps lawyers aren’t the liberal icons we have made them out to be.

The less savoury aspects of the lawyers’ movement became apparent in April 2008 when, instead of continuing with their peaceful protests, they thrashed the Musharraf regime’s apparatchik Sher Afghan, and this too over the protests of Aitzaz Ahsan, the symbolic leader of the movement. On that day, the non-violent gathering turned into a mob. Later it became apparent that a large proportion of the movement protested against Musharraf not because of democratic ideals but simply because they couldn’t stand his alliance with the US. The nadir of the lawyers came when Mumtaz Qadri, the confessed killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, was greeted with rose petals as he made his way to court.

The fault is partly ours for putting the lawyers’ movement on a pedestal. Before the movement, lawyers in Pakistan never had a good reputation per se. None of this is to say that the lawyers should not have been supported in their quest to restore Justice Iftikhar Chauhdry, a just cause if ever there was one. But we should have subjected them to greater scrutiny. Hopefully we have learnt our lesson — the enemy of our enemy doesn’t always turn out to be our friend.

From villages to cities

November 5th, 2011

As Eid approaches, we once again see our major cities begin to empty out as people return to their home villages and towns. The trend is visible in all our major cities. Lahore, which once housed a population that, almost exclusively, had its roots in the city, turns into a place, which resembles — compared to its usual bustling self — a ghost town. The disappearance of people may not be quite so visible in the bustling metropolis of Karachi but the exodus still takes place.

What is illustrated by this is the massive, rural-urban movement we have seen most notably over the past three decades or so. People have poured into cities in search of work, of opportunity, of a better future for their children. Their decision is a logical one but it has had a devastating impact on the infrastructure of our cities and their ability to cater to the influx. New shanty towns have crept up; most lack adequate sewage and other basic facilities. Streets have been overwhelmed by new demands placed by growing traffic and the desperate lack of housing means more and more people stay out on the streets even through the bitter chill of winter. Yet the numbers coming in continue steadily to increase.

Urgent measures are needed. Our cities cannot bear the strain. What we need to do is expand employment in smaller towns and villages, improve facilities there and even out the framework for development. Not much has been done elsewhere, but in Punjab, for instance, most would agree that Lahore, home of the Sharifs, has fared better than other cities and towns. This balance needs to be amended and adjustments made, especially as far as the south of the province is concerned, since it lags behind the central and northern districts on most socio-economic indicators. The rapid growth in population is choking cities, while it is also a tragedy that people have to move so many miles away from their homes and sometimes families, simply to survive.

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Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Pakistan-India trade breakthrough

November 6th, 2011

By approving the grant of ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) status to India, the cabinet in Islamabad has done what it was supposed to do 16 years ago after becoming a founding member of the World Trade Organisation. By staying away from this requirement, it retarded the benefits that were going to accrue from the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) of 2004. Trading with India on the basis of a 2,000-item ‘positive list’, Pakistanis kept complaining of India’s non-tariff barriers, only to hear the counter-accusation that Pakistan was withholding the MFN status it had given to all other trading partners in the world. India had sensibly granted that status to Pakistan in 1996.

The opposition in parliament has complained that the decision of opening up trade with India was not taken with the approval of parliament. As per the constitution both in India and Pakistan, only the annual budget is put before the parliament for scrutiny and criticism and voting. Even now, the members can present a motion for the discussion of the MFN status, but unless the opposition has the required numbers in the house, they can hardly do anything. The stance taken by the PML-N is even stranger because its leader Nawaz Sharif has recently expressed enthusiasm for improving relations with India. Outside parliament, there are other offended voices too.

Many other voices are being heard over the media saying the same sort of incongruous things, but the truth is that human memory remembers only one truth: when there is trade there is no war, and vice versa. The world, including Pakistan’s all-weather friend China, has welcomed the inauguration of free trade between India and Pakistan. The world has welcomed the development being aware of the India-Pakistan trade imbalance. Those who lean on this argument project statistics from a period where trade was not liberalised. Looking at Sri Lanka-India figures after the two went into free trade relations would have been more relevant.

One should also recall that Pakistan is ready to allow India passage of goods to Afghanistan through a transit route and that Pakistan is already preparing a ‘negative list’ of tradable goods. On the other side of India, Bangladesh too is moving from a semi-free trade regime with India to a full-dress Safta arrangement. According to estimates, the bilateral trade which grew tenfold from 2000 to 2010, will now touch the figure of $10 billion in two years. There is no doubt that the two sides will have to thrash out the problems faced by all free-trading states and the foremost among these would be India’s non-trade barriers. All the smuggling that goes on and the extra money Pakistanis have to pay for Indian goods because of the UAE route will be removed.

The Saarc Chamber of Commerce & Industry in its 2011 session in Sri Lanka discussed the issues of South Asian connectivity, which is the next step India and Pakistan need to take after they have normalised bilateral trade. It was observed that due to poor connectivity, South Asian countries had failed to tap into 72 per cent of the trade potential of $65 billion available in 2011. The issues of connectivity in the region should not be confined to trade, but need to “reach the realms of not only railway and road corridors but also to inland waterway transport and aviation”.

Another name for avoidance of war is codependency. Any pledge of avoidance of war given in a treaty is not as reliable as the ground reality of benefit derived by neighbouring states from each other. In the coming days, one very important factor of codependency is going to be connected with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, which India, despite its consistent hesitation, will be in a better position to exploit than Pakistan because of its much larger economy. The transit route Pakistan is now envisaging for India through its territory will be historically transformational for Pakistan itself — though not so much for India — and will change its political stance forever in favour of the vision it has subscribed to under Saarc.

Backwards or forwards?

November 6th, 2011

Even a decade ago, very few in the country were familiar with the rites that make up Halloween, or the other events that many Pakistanis seem to have adopted with equal gusto, such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. To some degree, this is inevitable; we live in a time when the world is becoming smaller and smaller as a result of globalisation. The world — and most notably the US — has entered our lives through TV Channels and the internet, available especially to the elite but also to the common man thanks to cable. Local-level commercialisation also means that black cat masks, red roses, colourful devil’s horns and Santa hats — sold aggressively even by roadside vendors who rush up to parked cars — has spurred the phenomena on to newer and greater heights. This year, Halloween was marked even in the conservative city of Peshawar. Whether the people understand the history and reasons behind these holidays is, of course, uncertain.

Many hail this trend as a sign of progression; as evidence that we are moving on with the world. But is this really true? Perhaps we also need to ask if we are in real danger of losing our own sense of identity. This is especially true as the issue of identity has always been a confused one in our part of the world. Since 1947, we have struggled to decide just who we are in terms of religion and nationality amongst other factors, clinging on to our long subcontinental heritage in many aspects of life — such as the rituals typical of a wedding — but especially since the 1980s, also making a move towards the Middle East, as doubts grow over the meaning of religion in life. Our tradition of music has suffered, with classical music struggling to stay alive in a hostile environment.

We should also ask ourselves what has happened to other practices. The festival of Basant, observed in Lahore for centuries, has vanished completely, chiefly as a result of official narrow-mindedness and a lack of awareness of what impact stealing away the past can have. A generation who may never feel the exhilarating tug of a kite is growing up; even celebration of festivals like Shab-e-Barat and Eid has changed. The impact of all this must be considered, for in many ways keeping heritage alive keeps nations alive.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga