English Columnists
No justice for farmers by Kuldip Nayar
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Kuldip Nayar
Friday, 12 Mar, 2010
Tamar is a small Adivasi tribal village in the deep jungles of Chhattisgarh. Two farmers from the village are fighting a losing battle against a young Congress member of parliament.
He has forcibly built a factory on their fields, spread over 10 acres. He belongs to an industrialist family from Haryana.
One farmer, possessing one and a half acres, resigned from his job in the police to devote his time to getting back the land. He and the other farmer, with seven and a half acres of land, often travel 400 kilometres to Raipur, the state capital, to knock at the door of top officials because the farmers have got no justice at the district headquarters, Raigarh.
Both farmers have been dubbed Maoists who are known for their extreme left views. The two farmers have nothing to do with the Maoists or Naxalites, a group of radicals that initiated its armed struggle in 1967. Since the Maoists brought revulsion upon themselves lately after slaughtering 24 policemen in West Bengal, and 12 villagers in Bihar, the government finds it convenient to call the two farmers Maoists to divert attention from the forcible occupation of their land. But the two are not exceptions.
I met in Raipur recently many tribals who had been ousted from their land and villages to make room for industrialists, Indian and foreigner industrialists are out to exploit natural resources. The ragtag Salwa Judum force is an armed private outfit that the government has constituted to drive out tribals by force.
Some of the uprooted tribals, numbering 200,000, have crossed over from Chhattisgarh to the jungles in Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. Thousands wait to be rehabilitated. Tribals could have used their poisoned arrows to defend themselves as they have done in the past. But they say that they trust the government which has promised to shift them to other areas where they will have facilities to send their children to school and access to health centres.
The National Human Rights Commission gave a critical report regarding the treatment meted out to tribals. On the basis of the report, the Supreme Court has instructed the Chhattisgarh government to rehabilitate the dispossessed Adivasis. There is no action yet.
In fact, Chhattisgarh has some districts where the collector has no hesitation in admitting that his writ does not run in the entire area under him. But this is also the case in other parts of India. Out of 626, collectors of some 210 districts in the country say the same thing.
An overwhelming number of tribals, roughly 84 million, some eight per cent of India’s population, are not with the Maoists in their rebellion against the state. But what option do tribals have when they find the Maoists equipped with the latest weapons threatening them? Tribals are primarily victims of lack of development and corruption. In fact, they find themselves caught between the government’s neglect and the Maoists’ guns.
Tribals want to return to their old life when the forest provided them with everything they needed. They had then water, land and the natural bounty of the jungle. In fact, that is their demand and they agitate to have them back.
The Maoists have only made things more difficult for them because their war cry and violence have driven the state to adopt fascist tactics. Unthinkingly, New Delhi has given its operation the nomenclature of Green Hunt. If at all it is a hunt, it is of the red and it endangers whatever green is left. The ravages of the operation through the jungles can be devastating. The innocent will bear the brunt.
I also met Dr Vinayak Sen, reportedly a Maoist at Raipur. He is president of Chhattisgarh’s PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties). He is a doctor who has spent two years in jail. I did not see anything violent either in his deeds or words. Why the government took umbrage at his fight for civil rights for the suppressed tribals is not understandable. Such people should be given recognition for the good work they are doing to retrieve the tribals from the Maoists’ clutches.
Those who live by the gun die by the gun. How can the culture of violence be superior to the culture of peace? The bullet cannot replace the ballot. The Naxalites’ advantage is not the fear they evoke but the hope they generate through the promise of an egalitarian society.
The crisis of Indian politics is a crisis of change. It reflects the widening gap between the base of polity and its structures. Both political and economic processes have brought sections of the peripheral and deprived social strata in the open without the rulers doing anything about it. There is a growing demand for purposive and principled politics and mounting anger over the neglect of public interest by political parties and leaders.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram may be able to suppress the Maoists by employing the huge apparatus the government has built in the name of law and order, a state subject. But he should realise that some other Maoists will come up if people remain poor and if disparities are not narrowed.
Chidambaram’s advice to the Maoists to give up violence would go down better if he were to announce an economic package as well. He must have seen how the movement confined to a few villages in West Bengal some 50 years ago has spread to Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
Political parties should learn from the Maoists. Today they have come to represent a socio-economic change in the country. They alone talk about such an agenda. What is not realised is that they will be a big force to reckon with if they take to electoral politics.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.
A leaf from Turkey’s book by Ayesha Siddiqa
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Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 12 Mar, 2010
The discussion in Turkey on a botched coup attempt some years ago raised some hopes of Pakistan following a similar route. Operation Sledgehammer, as the attempted coup in Turkey was codenamed, involved senior military officers and aimed at creating internal chaos to allow for a military takeover.
The Turkish military is generally uncomfortable with an Islamic party in power. In April 2007 it had issued a general statement opposing the candidacy of the current president (Abdullah Gul) for the presidential elections, calling it a disaster for the country. However, Gul’s party still made it to power. Despite continued pressure from the armed forces, the Islamic AKP (Justice and Development Party) could not be dislodged due to popular support. Pakistan could have a similar experience but in a different context.
In Turkey’s case, the military was historically considered part of the nation-building process. It was Kemal Ataturk and his forces that got rid of the Ottoman empire and the system of khilafat to build a new republic based on secular principles. This meant that while people were allowed to pursue their faith, the state would not mix politics and religion.
Hence, the Turkish state never became a ‘faithless’ state. However, the military directly became the guarantor of the new socio-political system including the survival of secular politics and the establishment of more European social structures. The fact that the ruling elite built internal partnerships and supported the military began to create a wedge between the rulers and the ruled. Even leftist parties supported the military, which resulted in their losing some measure of popularity.
For society at large the only other option was offered by the Islamic parties that provided a different agenda to what was being offered by the elite, resulting in the AKP’s popularity. The debate on joining the European Union further strengthened the party’s position as it accepted the demand for democratisation laid down by the EU.
The AKP managed to outsmart the military, which was forced from the outside to accept the internal changes. The EU constantly challenged the power, perks and privileges of the Turkish armed forces, which had built their significance on the basis of being the guardians and guarantors of Turkey’s changing national narrative. The AKP did not talk about reinstating the khilafat; in fact, it benefited from the European demand for Turkey to become democratic.
Pakistan’s case is quite different. There are similarities but it is the differences which put Pakistan in a separate league. Firstly, its military was not part of the initial nation-building process. It was actually a post-colonial institution just like the civil bureaucracy. This means that the various stakeholders did not necessarily consider the military above board and an uncontested writer and guarantor of the social contract as in Turkey. Pakistan’s military was part of the state bureaucracy that gained power over time and began to dominate the state.
Each bout of military rule has extended the armed forces’ power even further. The power to extend the service of senior officers, which the current army chief has exercised, was never naturally his but was made so by Gen Ziaul Haq. As per the rules, the power to appoint, promote and extend service belongs to the appointing authority, which in the case of the federal government lies with the prime minister. Zia and later Musharraf were responsible for extending the military’s pervasive role in politics, society and the economy in order to wield power even though the armed forces were not in direct control.
Like Turkey, the ruling elite in Pakistan has also contributed to building the military’s power. In fact, in Pakistan’s case the civil-military divide is not simply linear but both horizontal and vertical. Eventually, all political leaders make strategic compromises with the military for short-term gains. The signing of illegal deals or hiding the military’s assets or trying to whitewash the defence establishment’s blunders is done because political leaders and significant members of civil society believe they can benefit from association with the generals.
If we were only to dig up and compare the statements of individuals regarding military rule it would be easy to see the somersaults made by so many to secure their financial and other interests. The short memory of the people helps some get away with murder.
But Pakistan does not have the convenience of foreign actors who would help with a fundamental change as in Turkey’s case. Islamabad’s international benefactors have happily rebuilt their links with GHQ, especially now that there seems to be some hope of making gains in Afghanistan. Foreign stakeholders like the US have always been shortsighted as far as Pakistan is concerned.
But it is also a fact that they want to keep the military on their side because it is not ideologically opposed to using religion as a tool. This is not to suggest there is something wrong with the idea, but it is a matter of a military not geared to apply western or even Islamic principles of secularism as done by Turkey. Therefore, the only gains the US and its allies can hope to make in the region are to get maximum support from the armed forces even though they do not hope to change the institution. The military has a radical outlook and is comfortable with some aspects of political Islam as an operational tool. The Islamists are integrated into the military machine as those who adopt a pragmatic approach in dealing with external actors.
For instance, the military is keen for the US to stay but only deal through the GHQ both nationally and regionally. Policymakers in Washington are of the view that the idea of an American withdrawal from Afghanistan has deeply perturbed Pakistan’s military.
However, the issue with a multifaceted institution, which builds multilayered partnerships, is that it is difficult to push back. It can change clothes and reappear once a crisis is over. Thus the major difference between the Turkish and Pakistan’s military is that the latter has more than nine lives and has an open field since even the opponents are ultimately its partners.
The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com
The indispensable and the helpless by Cyril Almeida
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Cyril Almeida
Friday, 12 Mar, 2010
Just how much disregard does the army have for rules and civilians? Let’s rewind to a year and a half ago. On Sept 30, 2008 the front page of Dawn announced: ‘Kayani shakes up army command’.
The accompanying article reads: “In a major reshuffle in the army’s top command, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Monday brought in a new head of the all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) …
“Perhaps the most surprising of all such changes is the appointment of Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha as the new director-general of ISI …. A highly professional soldier in his own right, Lt-Gen Pasha has, for the past over two years, been overseeing the ongoing security operation in the tribal areas and parts of the NWFP.â€
“In his capacity as the director-general military operations (DGMO) he was directly responsible for the launching and execution of all major security strikes in Fata and Swat, the latest being the major onslaught against religious extremists in the Bajaur tribal agency.â€
All stuff that’s been re-hashed in recent days, culminating with the announcement of Pasha’s one-year extension. What the report did not address, though, were two things: the prime minister’s role and how long Pasha’s term was to last.
The missing details tell a story of their own.
Several weeks ago, trying to understand the arcane rules that are meant to govern the appointment of an ISI chief, I got a quick tutorial from a former head of the spy agency.
The rules, I was told, are clear-cut. The prime minister is the appointing authority and he can appoint anyone: civilian or uniformed; man, woman or, what I suspect was a rueful joke, monkey. Of course, there is often a gulf between the de jure and the de facto when it comes to civil-military relations: traditionally, the COAS has arrogated to himself the authority to appoint his spy chief, I was also told.
The 2008 Dawn report also contains this little nugget: “Gen Kayani … has put in place a new team to implement his vision for reviving the prestige of the armed forces and for enhancing the security of the state.â€
So what, you ask. The army has always been in charge of national security. Nothing surprising there.
But someone around Kayani must have scratched his head and reached for a multi-year calendar. Right, that person must have thought, the chief wants Pasha to “implement his new vision†but Pasha is supposed to be put out to pasture in March 2010. That’s just 15 months away.…
Army folks can, of course, never question their boss about promotions and the like, so even if anyone did the little arithmetic necessary to realise the obvious he would never have dared raise the issue.
But for those of us not in uniform, we must ask: why was a man with 15 months to retirement picked as the spy chief to help steer his boss’s new vision for the country’s security policy? If the job wasn’t done in 15 months, then what?
Then he gets an extension.
I haven’t met Pasha, though I suspect that even if I were to, I wouldn’t be able to establish that he has in fact done all the great and glorious things attributed to him by, funnily enough, unnamed sources in recent weeks.
But let’s assume he has done all those great and glorious things for the nation. Even then, when it’s time for him to retire, give him a medal, shake his hand and say khuda hafiz. Pakistan zindabad.
But no. We’re told, again by those oh-so-loquacious sources, that Pasha is vital, that he’s needed for the sake of ‘continuity’, that without him the ‘new’ security policy can’t be implemented.
Welcome to Club Indispensable.
It’s a great club to be a part of. Everyone loves you, the media sings paeans to your heroic deeds, and nobody thinks to ask the obvious: how does staying on reflect on your peers?
The army, its members never tire of telling us, is an institution. It is professional, its officers are world-class, its training second to none. So is there no general in his early 50s, with several decades of training under his belt, in the entire upper echelons of the Pakistan Army who can fill Pasha’s enormous shoes?
And this whole business of a ‘critical moment’ in the counter-insurgency is a red herring. Hasn’t the army itself told us to be patient? That counter-insurgencies take years to win? Don’t the textbooks on counter-insurgency suggest that they typically last at least a decade, sometimes two? How does a one-year extension fit into that bigger picture?
The most charitable explanation for Pasha’s extension, and, let’s get real, Kayani’s later this year, is that that Kayani and Pasha are fighting the good fight, that of reorienting the Pakistan Army and changing its security outlook.
That could be true. But that would also mean Kayani has decided to wage this struggle behind closed doors, away from the scrutiny of other institutions and the public the army ostensibly protects.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not terribly confident that the army has finally produced something it never has before: a general who can, with the help of just a few uniformed allies, change the course of the country’s security policy for the better.
The least charitable explanation would be that Kayani is so disdainful of the government and the man who leads it, Zardari, that he isn’t about to waste time negotiating with them as equals, or even slight unequals.
In which case, Kayani has kept Pasha by his side because he can. After all, the generals know best and the ‘bloody civilians’ just don’t get it.
In which case, we, the people, might as well pack it all up and hand it over to the generals. Here, it’s your country anyway, you guys run it. Just do us a favour and don’t do what those other guys, Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf, did. Preposterous. That’s not Kayani, you say.
Time will tell. At the moment, only this is certain: you, me and our elected representatives are mere passengers in a vehicle that we can only pray Kayani and his boys know the destination of.
Welcome to Club Helpless.
cyril.a@gmail.com
Taking to the road by Ayaz Amir
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Islamabad diary
Friday, March 12, 2010
Ayaz Amir
It is not given to everyone to be this lucky: to be able to cast off the cares of the world and take to the road. My own fantasy used to be to put on saffron or, safer in our parts, green, and walk down the length of the Indus to Lal Shahbaz’s shrine at Sehwan. But it has remained a fantasy.
In my mind I trek the far corners of the globe. In actual fact I am a desk-bound person, overwhelmed by the thought of having to prepare for a journey.
Thirty years ago in midsummer — and summer in Sindh can be cruel business — I took the train to Sehwan to attend the annual urs. That journey remains etched in my memory.
I went in poverty and had nowhere to stay. But the assistant station master, taking pity on me, gave me a room. Only at night would I make use of that room. My days were spent wandering or sitting in chai-khanas, all by myself, alone in that bustling multitude.
I would just go and sit in the shrine and watch the faqirs, lost to the world, dancing the dhamal. Outside the shrine gypsy girls, drawn from all corners of the desert, would be dancing in a state of complete abandon: dusky and sinuous goddesses, with bright lips and laughing eyes. The drumbeaters were beside themselves too. Yet there was no levity about that performance. It was more an act of devotion, a form of worship.
Pakistanis on the whole are bad dancers not because there is anything wrong with our limbs but because there is some kind of problem with our souls. Deep down where it really matters, we are not completely free. Something hems us in, most probably because we seem to have inherited not the wisdom of the ages but the fear of the ages. The confusion in our minds about our direction as a nation arises from this disability: the imprisonment of the soul clouding the ability to think clearly.
Why is it so easy for foreigners to impose on us not so much their will as their thinking? Why do we start dancing so readily to any tune played in our ears? Why has physical liberation not been matched by mental liberation? My guess is because deep down we are unsure of ourselves. We are not a confident nation although, God knows, there is no reason to feel so insecure.
Those were the early Zia years when the malevolence of his brand of self-serving ideology — from the effects of which we are not yet wholly recovered — had begun to poison every aspect of life in Pakistan. But Sehwan was untouched by that hypocrisy. Maybe the remoteness of interior Sindh had something to do with it. Or maybe it was the power of Sindh’s foremost saint to keep evil at bay. I have no idea how things are in Sehwan today.
Years later I had the good fortune to attend the urs of Shah Abdul Latif at Bhitai. I went not in poverty, as I was a guest of the Sindh government. We were lodged well and fed well, such being the ways of government in our part of the world. But it is the poverty-attendant journey to Sehwan which casts a warmer glow in my mind.
Today a similar journey would entail slightly different problems. I would probably have to take my laptop with me, such an inseparable part of my travelling gear this wonder of marvellous science has become. In fact I can only stay in maddening Chakwal, as much of the time I do, not because there are unlisted pleasures to be had there which are unattainable elsewhere (although about this too, I suppose, a tale could be told), but because it is as connected to the god of the modern universe, the internet, as any other place on earth.
What I still do for a living, my journalism, is now wholly dependent upon this form of communion, remaining connected to the net, possibly with a fast broadband connection. So wherever I go I, who came very late to the miraculous ease of computer writing, must take my laptop with me.
All the more so, because the internet is no longer just about work. It is also about pleasure, or I should say entertainment which is the more contemporary word. This is because of its exhaustible resources, the almost trackless realms of music and literature (or, needless to say, pornography, should anyone’s inclination run in that direction) which are part of its matchless domain.
So if I am on the road to Sehwan or indeed any other shrine of the chosen I would have to take my magic box with me, addicted as I now am to my fix of music at night before slipping into the kingdom of dreams or, as is the case more often, into the stuff of troubled sleep and strange nightmares.
It could be anything: Noor Jehan at her best in semi-classical mode, and at her best there was no one like her; K L Saigal around whose voice, I am convinced, the Lord of the Hosts lingered while he went about shaping it; Lata at her best — try this one as an example: sapnon mein sajan kee do baatein, ik yaad rahi ik bhool gayi; Kamla Jharia (sample her, she’s worth it); some of Talat’s offbeat geets; some of Surraiya’s; anything in raag yaman kalyan, especially by the great Ustad Amir Khan; this from Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan which I keep listening to all the time, bahut bechain hai dil: and so on. The list is endless.
Who could have thought of YouTube only a few years ago? This is another miracle not so much of science as of the universe. For anchorites in the desert there was no more compelling, vision of Elysium than of an extended garden with enduring shades and never-ending streams. For the modern anchorite (if this be not a contradiction in terms) Elysium would be incomplete without YouTube and broadband internet access.
Indeed, even when the walls of Jericho come tumbling down and the mountains are one with the seas, cyberspace as we know it will perhaps remain unaffected. Imagine, the world coming to an end but not cyberspace.
We in Pakistan have no direct access to opera or ballet. Both are not part of our culture or tradition and on our radio and television they simply do not figure. This is a pity because both are great art forms and to be deprived of them is to miss out on a vital aspect of the human experience. This omission is easily filled with YouTube.
The great names of opera that enthusiasts of my generation are familiar with are, and this is just a rough and short list: Callas, Tebaldi, Pavarotti, Domingo, Tito Gobi, Kiri Te Kanawa, etc. But there are so many new faces out there today that are dazzling, as good as anything happening before.
In music I am an amateur. I think I have an ear for it but about its theory or philosophy I know next to nothing. A dissertation on it I would not be able to deliver. But a good voice and a good song I think I can recognise. And it is in this spirit that I say that if at all interested in opera (and here again I am at pains to stress that I am not addressing the highbrow specialist) you will thank me if you go to YouTube and click Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.
This will open a world of beauty and virtuosity that you may not have seen, the perfect antidote to the depression and anxiety of the age of terror. Netrebko is the hottest face in contemporary opera. But, more important, the hottest voice too. Villazon is handsome in a way, I am given to understand, women die for (and perhaps for this reason the kind of face most unhandsome men detest). He too is an extraordinary singer. And it doesn’t really matter if the words are not understood. Opera primarily is about mood and feeling.
Taking to the road then takes on a slightly different meaning: remaining cut off from the world but remaining connected to the mysterious world of cyberspace. I suppose this would be a new form of mysticism.
Email: winlust@yahoo.com
Pakistan needs rescuing by Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto
Among the many vicissitudes faced by Pakistan in its short history, the NRO has been one of the most damaging. It has ushered in a bogus democracy which is nothing short of a disgrace. It is the ill-conceived consequence of a deal between Musharraf and Shaheed Benazir, very obviously brokered by the Americans and the British, for the paramount purpose of escalating the civil war raging in the North-West of the country.
The collateral damage has been the murder of the most popular leader of the country, the return to government and the assemblies of corrupt and absconding politicians, and an inconceivable political dispensation, with a man like Zardari in the presidential chair who has failed on all counts to give the desperately needed leadership. On Feb 18, 2008, the people voted for roti, kapra, makan, together with the promise to avenge Benazir’s murder. They have betrayed them on both counts.
It started with the decision to place the ISI under civilian control, and then a quick retraction of the decision. Next came the refusal to restore the sacked judges followed by complete surrender under pressure, together with the rapid reversal of the impositions of emergency and governor’s rule in Punjab. Then it was the pushing of the NRO through a parliamentary committee but backing out when the time came to bring it to parliament. Finally, confronting the Supreme Court on the appointment of the judges and then backing down.
These are some of the ventures which highlight the alarming truth of a man in the presidential chair who neither has the capacity nor the calibre to be there. As if all this is not disturbing enough, we are now heading towards yet another crisis on non-implementation of the orders of the Supreme Court to restore the Swiss and other corruption cases against Zardari and his gang. The outcome will be either another humiliating retreat for him, or action by the Supreme Court under Section 190 of the Constitution. This will draw the armed forces into the fray, which may lead to undesirable consequences.
The question of Zardari’s eligibility under Sections 62 and 63 of the Constitution has already come up and been rejected by the Election Commission, but it will not end there. The Lahore High Court has already ceased the hearing of the matter on a separate petition. Also, Zardari’s being certified as mentally unfit by three American specialists is too significant a matter to remain ignored. Then there is the restriction on holding public and political office at the same time, imposed by Section 17(2), which will also spring up.
But above and beyond all else is the big question of presidential immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution. Is the president above the law and free to commit with total impunity any crime he fancies? This question will have to be answered by the Supreme Court, bearing in mind the sacred principle that no one is above the law. Recently, Musharraf was refused such immunity by the Supreme Court.
The nation cannot be allowed to live in a state of chaos, uncertainty and backwardness merely so that the accidental president may continue to have a ball at the cost of the people. Of course, there is no question of Zardari quitting. He has already said that he can only be removed from the Presidency in an ambulance. and no doubt he means it. For a person like him even ten minutes more in office is worth all the humiliation that comes his way.
Therefore, the powers that be may have to step in to adopt one of the following courses:
1. Hold a referendum, supervised by the Supreme Court, for a yes or no vote on “Zardari Khappe.”
2. Hold similarly supervised general elections, as the mandate of the people has been betrayed and withdrawn. They must have a chance to decide again.
3. Form a national government composed of clean people with unblemished records who are not affected by the provisions of Sections 62 and 63 of the Constitution.
It has become dangerous to maintain the status quo. The false promises and hollow claims of the government have exhausted the patience of the people. All the evils of the Musharraf era have grossly multiplied since the advent of this government. The shenanigans of ministers, advisors, jiyalas, hangers-on and jail mates cannot be projected as support of the people, or the Sindh card.
The war on terror has cost the nation thousands of lives and a large number of innocent people have become its victims, while its cost in monetary terms has been above Rs850 billion. Foreign debt has increased from $35 billion to an all-time-high of $56 billion, while local debt has gone up to Rs500 billion. Poverty has increased to 40 per cent and the prices of basic commodities have more than doubled in the past two years, so much so that mothers are forced to sell their infants in bazaars to buy flour.
This does not deter Zardari from taking junkets abroad, which cost people Rs700,000 per day, while the upkeep of the presidency costs Rs1 million per day. Even the much trumpeted Rs70 billion to be handed out to make beggar of the people through the Benazir Income Support Scheme (which should be invested in projects to increase production and job opportunities) have mostly disappeared and only 17 billion have been handed out.
The fear in which the rulers live necessitates elaborate security arrangements for all, right down to the level of their private servants, costing the people Rs160 billion per year, which comes out of the development outlay of Rs700 billion. Even greater damage is caused by the drastic reduction of personnel for combating crime and providing protection to the people.
The patience of the vanquished masses is wearing thin. The lava is boiling, and once it erupts, the damage will be huge. Therefore, sanity must prevail and the right steps taken to prevent the destruction of the country.
The writer is chairman of the Sindh National Front.
Water: a pre-eminent political issue by Ahmad Rafay Alam
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Urban/urbane
Friday, March 12, 2010
Ahmad Rafay Alam
The word “riparian” has been appearing in the media far too frequently for my liking. It’s usually preceded by the adjective “lower” and usually followed by an irrational rant about how the “upper riparian” is taking advantage. This is unsettling because, as one knows, when the word “riparian” becomes part of one’s day-to-day vocabulary, it means water has become a major issue. And it should be. As has been foretold, water is becoming, if not already is, the mother of all political issues.
At Partition, we are told that Pakistan had water resources in the region of 5,000 cubic meters per person. Now, we are told this resource has fallen to close to 1,200 cubic meters per person, a figure the UN warns is close to when a country is said to be “water scarce”. That may sound alarming but, as someone once said, there are lies, damn, lies and then there are statistics
Nevertheless, the fact is that Pakistan’s water resources are fast dwindling. But before someone panics, they need to understand that, more than other things, we are becoming water scarce because of the remarkable job we’ve done at breeding: it’s the increasing population that’s one of the reasons our per capita water resource statistics are falling.
There are other reasons why Pakistan’s water resources are falling. There is, for example, the remarkably outdated and inefficient irrigation system we currently have in operation. Over 90 per cent of Pakistan’s water resources are used in irrigation (with somewhere near 3 to 5 per cent servicing drinking water requirements and the remainders servicing specific industrial purposes), and over 40 per cent of irrigation water is said to be “lost” because of evaporation and theft. Then there’s the world famous Pakistani work ethic: in today’s day and age, farming is a science and economical yields simply can’t be achieved if sowing and harvest dates are left subservient to the whims of lazy farmers (with due apologies to the many hard-working members of the agricultural sector).
Pakistan’s water resources aren’t just threatened by inefficient irrigation and farming techniques. There is also the spectre of climate change. Almost all of Pakistan’s water resources originate from glacial melt off of Himalayan glaciers. Increases in global temperatures resulting from climate change are expected to affect the rate of glacial melt: At first there will be widespread flooding and then, as the glaciers melt away, there will be no water resource. This is expected to happen within the next century.
The 2003 Government of Pakistan Initial Communication on Climate Change indicates that global warming will affect every one of Pakistan’s cash crops. This will affect our agriculture — the current backbone of the national economy — and rural livelihood. As things stand, poverty in Pakistan — and nearly 30 per cent of the population hovers near the poverty line — is a rural phenomenon. The economic effects of a shortage of water will affect rural livelihood and only exacerbate the conditions of poverty that increasing numbers of children will be forced to experience.
Water shortages have affected inter-provincial relations. The waters of the Indus Basin are regulated within Pakistan by the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), which itself was created by the inter-provincial Water Accord of 1991. Sindh regularly accuses Punjab of not providing it with its share of water. Punjab, on the other hand, claims nothing more than its rightful share of water under the Water Accord. With crop productivity affected in both provinces due to water shortages, IRSA hasn’t been much successful in resolving the increasingly antagonistic positions being taken by these opposing provinces. This has the potential to affect inter-provincial harmony and, by extension, the balance of power in government.
If these factors don’t qualify water to be a pre-eminent political issue in this country, then surely the international repercussions of water will.
Just as the lower riparian Sindhi is a vicious critic of the upper riparian Punjabi, the lower riparian Pakistani holds a deep amount of scepticism of his upper riparian Indian. The flow of water in the Indus Basin is regulated by an agreement between the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan: the Indus Basin Treaty, 1960. Under the treaty, the rights over the water of the three Eastern rivers (Sutlej, Bias and Ravi) are given to India and the use of the waters of the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) is given to Pakistan. Recently, and there has been further proof that water is an pre-eminent political issue of our time–India has been accused of “stealing” Pakistan’s share of water. Even if Pakistan had the latest means to accurately measure the flows of water–and thereby substantiate its claims–this accusation cleverly hides the fact that, on account of climate change, there are circumstances of drought along the Indian side of the western rivers under Pakistan’s control.
Pakistan and India need to sit down to examine the issue of the management of their shared resource of the Indus Basin. Pakistan can only do this if it has a strong opening bargaining position vis-Ã -vis India, else it stands to lose even the precarious ground it holds under the Indus Water Treaty. This is a point that the proponents of “revisiting” the treaty on the grounds that it does not envision the impact of climate change must keep in mind.
Water also has security repercussions. It is my understanding (and I stand to be corrected here) that one of the reasons the Pakistan Army maintains the troop levels it does on the eastern border (when the fighting is so obviously along the western border) is because water is considered a security issue. If India gains control of the western rivers of the Indus Basin, it will have the advantage to literally shut off Pakistan’s water resources. In addition, since the canal irrigation system also provides security against a ground attack, Pakistan’s ability to charge these canals will determine some of its defence capabilities. Unlike other political issues in Pakistan, water is not just one- or two-dimensional. Water is multi-dimensional. No other political issue affects the Pakistani economy and society, creates internal migration, is directly linked to climate change, places stress on inter-provincial relations, has security repercussions and involves negotiations with India all at the same time.
At the moment, the types of voices that are filling the debate are unsettling. Over and above the clichéd upper and lower riparian antagonism, the debate is often fuelled by anti-Indian sentiment. One senior journalist has gone as far as offering himself as a human bomb against Indian dams. For once, I wish he would carry out his threat to prove to others who share his worldview: This is not how things are resolved.
In water, the mother of all political issues, Pakistani politics faces a great challenge. For better or worse, the full attention of the Pakistani people is soon going to focus on water-related issues. This is the time for forward and out-of-the box thinking on never-before- encountered problems. Solutions to water-related issues are hot topics globally and all eyes are fixed on how a democratic Pakistan is dealing with the issues water is throwing at it. We must not let the debate and our actions on water be hijacked by unproductive jingoism. In today’s world, Pakistan must constructively deal with its problems. If this can be done, water can be an issue on which Pakistan can be an example to the world.
The writer is an advocate of the high court and a member of the adjunct faculty at LUMS. He has an interest in urban planning.
Email: ralam@nexlinx.net.pk
A mini-lecture in Tehran by Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
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Quantum note
Friday, March 12, 2010
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
“When did they leave?” she said in a manner which clearly indicated that she was not asking a question. I looked at her veiled face and long black abaya and quickly realised that I had made a blunder in front of a gathering of five hundred plus students who had come to the main auditorium of the Tehran University to listen to the evening’s lecture on ‘Empowerment’.
“They did not really,” I corrected myself, “but most post-colonial narratives have this make-believe phase, which states that we are living in a post-colonial world.”
“One can even say that this ‘post-colonial’ world is more colonised than the one that existed prior to World War II. The routes of colonisation are now far more insidious than those of their precursors.” She said in her even tone, this time in the microphone, which one of the volunteers had handed over to her in the few seconds which I took to respond.
“Indeed, there is compelling empirical evidence that the economic, cultural, political, and outright military control–and the consequent disempowerment–of the people of the so-called less-developed world has never been so harsh as it is now in this first decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, your statement about ‘realities of daily life in the post-colonial era’ raises serious problems.”
She stressed my words “realities of daily life in the post-colonial era” with a certain degree of relish; I felt the grinding words echoing back and realised that her intelligence and quick perception had a certain degree of experiential truth which has sharpened her vision.
“I agree with you,” I had to admit, “the myth of the post-colonial era is just that–a myth repeated so many times that we often fall prey to the phantom.”
“There has only been a change of technique,” she said, conclusively, “and the new techniques are far more devastating, because most people cannot even recognise that they have been disempowered. The control is so deadly that people now happily send text messages, thoughtlessly and needlessly use their cell-phones, without realising that each time they do so, a certain amount of their life and national wealth goes out to their past colonisers–the masters of their fathers and forefathers, who said to them one day: here, we are giving you freedom and leaving your country. And now so many nations of the world have their founding fathers, fathers of the nations and so on.
“It is all a make-believe chimerical façade. Do you know who controls the uranium resources of the world today? Who controls the air traffic on the skies? The waterways in the oceans? Who has the control of the gold and copper ores? Who controls the motorways? And the airwaves over which happy-go-lucky men and women bring their mantra of expertise on millions of TV screens in all these banana republics spreading throughout South America, all the way to the Gambia, taking in the entire Middle East, Asia, and Central Asia?”
Her eloquence had made everyone breathless. By now, she had taken over the floor and the question-answer session had become a mini-lecture in itself.
“I do not mean to deliver a lecture, it is your lecture, but I expect our intellectuals and leaders to pay attention to ground realities of the world in which we are living. Look at the state of Israel; it has been exponentially expanding ever since the day it was established by the European Jews in the heart of a land which had never belonged to them in the entire history of humankind. Is it not strange that the settlements are said to be opposed by the godfather called the United States of America and the godmother called the European Union and yet, this banned activity takes place in broad daylight and no one actually moves a little finger? Is it not strange that the disempowered, rather dismembered, Palestinian nationhood–and whatever that word may mean–remains a still-born child that no one wants to own?
“I was in the Gambia recently and I went to villages where the mere appearance of a white man or woman still creates awe and terror and people are ready to bow down to these men and women just because they carry the stamp of terror unleashed on the world during the past three centuries. We cannot go on like this, in these isolated auditoriums, cut off from the realities. We need to go out and see with open eyes what life is like in those parts of the world which our intellectuals and political leaders happily call the post-colonised world, misleading everyone. “Qul, seeru fi’ld-ard,” the Quran tell us, say, travel through the lands…
“I am sorry, I am not an intellectual, just a student of history, but our teacher has taught us that we must remain objective if we want to study history in order to learn from it. Our teacher has taught us to look at the reality as it is, and he says that in reaching this conclusion he has been inspired by the most noble Messenger, upon him blessings and peace, who asked his Lord to show him the nature of things as they really are.”
When she sat down, there was pin-drop silence in the auditorium and all I could do was to pray for light and guidance.
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com
No discipline without accountability by Shafqat Mahmood
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Reality check
Friday, March 12, 2010
Shafqat Mahmood
Quaid-e-Azam understood his people well. He knew their strengths and their failings. That is why, besides unity and faith, he gave discipline as an essential aspiration for the nation. Sixty-three years down the line, we are still struggling to get there.
Discipline has many dimensions. There is the personal angle where you discipline yourself to follow a work or a health regime. In an organisation, it means following its norms and rules of behaviour. In a larger context, it is the internalising of a moral code that flows from religion, society, family and law of the land.
In all these dimensions of discipline, we as a people are woefully inadequate. This does not mean everybody, because there are many good people in this country who carry the regime of discipline as a part of their lives. It is the vast majority who don’t, that create the rot.
Basic pop psychology would perhaps tell us that discipline is not natural to human beings. Without fear or pain or deprivation of some kind, most people have a propensity to go wild. It is for this reason that societies have evolved a regime of crime and punishment to keep instinctive human behaviour in check.
The successful ones have such effective law enforcement and judicial mechanisms in place that disciplined behaviour becomes psychologically ingrained. Those that fail in governance neither apprehend nor punish. They encourage a personality type that is wild, bereft of any moral or social code, and concerned only with selfish goals.
Corruption emerges out of this, but that is not all. In social settings, it means lies, violence, fraud, cheating, blackmail, intimidation, anything as long as the desired result is achieved.
The fact that such a personality type flourishes in this blessed land is a denunciation of our governance and society. At one level, it is a failure of our law-enforcement and judicial system. But it is also a failure of society, because such types are accepted, and even supported and admired.
Our politics is a classical example of this. Granted that we live in an imperfect world and politics is a tough business that does not reward innocence. Yet, look at the types who reign supreme in the Land of the Pure. Would any lawful society tolerate them?
Known criminals not only participate in politics but flourish here. What kind of an example is this for those who are taught in schools that honesty is the best policy or do the right and fear no man. Even the better ones in politics wear a garb of piety yet are not averse to any shenanigan to increase their personal or political fortunes.
Being good in this environment is akin to being unmanly, almost cowardly. And the beautiful part is that some who are genuinely good become defenders of these criminals. In their convoluted logic, subscribing to a higher principle is more important than holding wrongdoers to account.
This confusion between means and ends has, and is, causing enormous damage. It is obvious that there is no substitute to democracy. It is a system that is morally right and practically effective. Yet, does that mean a clean chit for all looters and plunderers?
A similar confusion has prevailed in the world of cricket. For nearly twenty years, we have condoned criminal conduct and rank indiscipline from those who were undoubtedly world-class cricketers. We have done this because administrators, and by extension the nation, feared losing. The result has been utter chaos in the way we manage and play cricket.
From the mid-nineties, it was obvious that some of our best cricketers were up to dirty tricks. They were involved in match fixing, player politics and dubious commercial deals. Our cricket administrators refused to take a stand because getting rid of them would have meant losing matches. And this would make them lose their own jobs.
The players knew this and played the administrators like accordions. They would blackmail and threaten them. They would walk out in a huff or throw a match or two to get them into trouble. The administrators loved their positions so much that they swallowed it. Not only that, they were reduced to begging players to give their best.
This reprehensible charade has been going on for a long time and some of our best players were involved in this. They were so important that even after the Qayyum inquiry report held them guilty, real action was taken only against Salim Malik and a nobody like Ataur Rehman. People like Inzimam and Waqar Younis and others were let off with a slap on the wrist.
Some of us had hoped that once this feuding, and at times criminal, group of players from the nineties retired, sanity would prevail. But it was not to be. The recent debacle in Australia has shown that the next generation is equally dreadful.
Even a little pipsqueak like Umar Akmal, who had just joined the team, tried to be funny. And this after his brother, Kamran, had given the most shameful display of wicket keeping in our entire cricketing history. If Mr Ijaz Butt had any guts, he would have asked the team managers to put both brothers on the first plane back to Pakistan.
He did not, but that was then. He has shown that he has the courage to do what is necessary now. A much needed accountability at least in the cricket field has begun, and he needs to be supported.
Interested parties that include some journalists have begun to attack the decision to ban some cricketers and fine others. This is to be expected. It is these people who never allowed in the past any kind of discipline to come into cricket. They are at it again, and on the behest of those who have been proceeded against.
Stand firm, Mr Butt, even if you lose your job. A stand against immorality and indiscipline has to be taken. If it rebounds on you, it is a sacrifice worth making. Whether in cricket or in the field of politics, we have to be ready to lose a few matches for the greater good. No gain, as they say, without pain.
Many people who are worried about the future of this nation ask how this rot can be stopped. The answer is simple. We have to show zero tolerance for crime and bad behaviour. And we have to make examples, so that the message gets rammed home.
This is where leadership becomes so important. A leader cannot do everything personally. He or she can only set a direction, and if it is of moral behaviour, it gets percolated down the line. An environment of accountability is thus created, leading to discipline.
Without it, we will continue to be a rabble. And the Quaid’s dream will remain unfulfilled.
Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com
Side-effect by Harris Khalique
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Mai Jori
Friday, March 12, 2010
Harris Khalique
Habib Jalib wrote a poem for Benazir Bhutto when she came back to Pakistan in 1986 to lead the struggle against General Zia’s rule of darkness. It was titled “Aik Nihatti Larki” (One unarmed girl). He highlighted the fears of the powerful, the omnipotent dictator and the coterie of undignified men who surrounded him. They were fearful of a frail young woman, physically frail but mentally stronger than mountains in her resolve to bring change to her country. It was a replay of an earlier struggle launched by the political workers of this country led by the sister of the founder of Pakistan, Fatima Jinnah. The otherwise weak, old woman stood up to take on General Ayub Khan, the man responsible for sowing the seeds of military dictatorship in the country. The status of both these women transcends their party affiliations and many of us consider them our common heroes. For the same reason, Mai Jori, the peasant woman who ran for PB 25, Jaffarabad-I, the provincial assembly seat in Pat Feeder’s command area of eastern Balochistan, the only place irrigated by a canal from the Indus in the otherwise arid province, chose to launch her election campaign from Benazir Bhutto’s tomb in Ghari Khuda Bakhsh.
Mai Jori was a candidate of Awami Party Pakistan, the newly established political organisation of workers, peasants, middle-class professionals, youth, women and common citizens of the country. Earlier, for NA-55 Rawalpindi, the party fielded Abdul Sattar, a trades-unionist who was forcibly retired from Pakistan Railways some years ago due to his struggle for the rights of workers. Talib Hussain, a young, enthusiastic political worker who trained as a chartered accountant, ran for NA-123 on party ticket. All three of them lost. They had no money to match their competitors to invest in the campaign, they were far less known to the constituents and the vernacular media completely ignored Sattar and Talib. Mai Jori was an exception. But the statement these three candidates give out is loud and clear. Enough is enough. Commoners are finally showing their will to take charge. They are in the process of organising themselves and reaching out to people at large. They are very much in the political arena. Even after use of coercive measures by the feudal contestants in the area, disinformation disseminated among the voters, life threats to the candidate herself and massive rigging, Mai Jori stood by her commitment to fight the polls. She said in her last press conference, “Whoever sits in the assembly now doesn’t bother me. I have done what I had to. I am from the people. They will also realise one day that they can win. And that day will come sooner than most of you realise.”
Her party officials also held a press conference in Islamabad to highlight threats to her life and the failure of the Election Commission and the Balochistan government to ensure the security of the candidate and her supporters. One of the journalists with a flash of arrogance asked them why the party had given ticket to Mai Jori Jamali, an uneducated peasant woman. “What contribution could she make to the assembly?” “What contribution to the betterment of people has been made by the Harvard-, Oxford- and Cambridge-returned sons and daughters of feudal lords and capitalists, or how well have the highly qualified bureaucrats served us?” they responded. Our parliament and assemblies need true representatives of people who could seek solutions to our deep-seated problems.
The writer is a poet and advises national and international institutions on governance and public policy issues. Email: harris@ spopk.org
Unmitigable torture by I.A. Rehman
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I.A. Rehman
Thursday, 11 Mar, 2010
(1) The dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable.
(2) No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence.
— (Article 14, Constitution of Pakistan)
Last week a very large number of people in Pakistan discovered that the way some police officials thrashed a few men in their custody with leather straps (chhittar) was absolutely unconscionable.
The wave of shock and revulsion unleashed by the TV coverage of bestiality was due to the fact that millions of people who have had nothing to do with criminals and the legal system were able to see acts of brutality in graphic detail.
In many cases the display of outrage smacked of hypocrisy, for the entire police force, the judiciary, the legal community and a large part of the citizenry knows that chhitrol is the most common method used by the police to extract evidence, to break a habitual offender, or to give a detainee an idea of the power the police has over him — this despite a long history of rejection of attacks on people either as a punishment for any crime or as a means of investigation.
The constitutional guarantee against the violation of any person’s dignity has a unique position in the body of our fundamental rights. As the Sindh High Court once pointed out this is the only right the Pakistani people (citizens of, as well as any person present in, Pakistan) have that is absolute, a right that is not subject to the law.
Accordingly, the judiciary has ruled against the infringement of Article 14 in numerous cases. In one case the use of bar fetters on prisoners was held to be violative of the dignity of an individual. In another case a similar ruling was given against public hanging. Even the charge of subversion against the prime minister while dismissing him vide Article 58 (2) b in 1993 was considered violative of Article 14 (1). Besides, the courts have ordered the registration of hundreds of cases against police officials for subjecting to violence persons in their custody.
And yet no right is more commonly violated in Pakistan than the right to the dignity of the person. According to the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Pakistan figures among the countries where torture is endemic and no domestic observer has ever been able to challenge the verdict.
So widespread indeed has torture in custody been that it has acquired legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of the police force at least and one will not be surprised if it includes a substantial number of senior officers. That should explain the statement made by one of the policemen arrested after the Chiniot incident: “We have been beating up men in custody and we will go on doing so.â€
Another defence of torture in custody offered by a police official is that “we beat up criminals, and there can be nothing wrong about thatâ€. Quite obviously the police functionaries are not taught the basic principle of justice that anyone who knows that a person has committed a crime is at best a witness and even if he is a policeman or a judicial authority he cannot assume the function of a judge and start punishing the culprit. Unfortunately, this point is not understood by quite a few police officers and their patrons in political authority who often join hands to liquidate their prey in so-called police encounters.
Quite a few quarters complained that no law took cognisance of torture at the hands of policemen. “The word ‘torture’ does not occur in the Penal Codeâ€, it was said. Such commentators not only betrayed their ignorance, they seemed to be providing the administrators, especially senior police officers, with an excuse for not addressing the pernicious practice. The fact is that the Penal Code has fairly adequate provisions for cases of hurt to the human body regardless of the pretext. The police functionaries are liable to be prosecuted if a victim of torture is hurt (minor or serious or grievous injuries). In the event of death as a result of torture the police official concerned must face a murder charge.
Furthermore, Section 156 (d) of the Police Order 2002 says: “Whoever, being a police officer, inflicts torture or violence to any person in his custody shall, for every such offence, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment, for a term, which may extend to five years and with fine.†One should like to alert all those who are following the efforts of the provincial governments to make new laws to replace the Police Order to keep a watch on any move to do away with this important provision.
Experienced policemen always avoided causing their victims any hurt that could render them liable to prosecution — such as breaking of bones or leaving marks of violence on a victim’s body. That led to the adoption of the leather strap as the instrument of torture in preference to the whip which could cut and tear human skin and leave marks that could be visible for days afterward. However, as tolerance of torture grew and the system failed to introduce non-violent methods of investigating crime, the chhitrol lost its status as the only mode of torture. By now scores of forms of torture, some involving physical hurt and some others causing mental and psychological distress, have been developed.
Looking somewhat embarrassed at the unwelcome exposure they have received police and political bosses both have issued orders that all unlawful methods of investigation should cease. These orders will have little effect because the police cannot give up the only method of investigation they know. They do not have the means to use scientific methods of investigation, nor have they been trained in their use. A fairly long process of training and reorientation will be needed before the police can learn to recognise the person in their custody as a fellow human being whose dignity is inviolable.
Now that Pakistan has signed the UN Convention Against Torture the priority attached to devising new training modules for the law-enforcement personnel is obvious.
In the final analysis, torture may be a central feature of the thana culture it is not confined to the police precincts. Torture has been legitimised in prisons, in schools (especially madressahs) and in communities still in the grip of feudal/patriarchal codes. It is also time to seriously probe the contribution to the culture of torture made by the abuse of belief by armed bandits. An intolerant society can never erase torture in custody.
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