Anees Jillani
Hit and left to die by S Khalid Husain
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Friday, February 05, 2010
S Khalid Husain
The Punjab chief secretary left the scene of the accident after his chauffeur-driven vehicle knocked down and killed an ex-army officer; this was a cold-blooded act no different from that of a hit-and-run driver. This was a grave error on part of the chief secretary and speaks volumes for the arrogance and colonial mindset of the country’s bureaucrats.
Maybe saying ‘colonial mindset’ is being unfair to the colonial civil servant, who would never have left the scene, and never mind if he was not driving, without making absolutely certain that the victim was fully tended, in good hands, and under professional care. The Pakistan civil service was patterned after the Indian Civil Service (ICS), but there must be something different in the training of Pakistani civil servants, for they seem to have missed the work credo of ICS and lapped up the awe-inspiring demeanour of ICS officers, which they put on to inspire awe for the Raj.
If one spends time in the British Library in London reading what the British civil servants have contributed to the knowledge of history, culture, social forces, agriculture and a lot more, one will find that the scholarship of the writers is impressive. Apparently, such written treatises on their districts, and other assignments, were a service requirement of the ICS cadre and influenced their career progression, much as research and publishing papers influence academic careers in better universities.
There are Pakistani civil servants who have made significant literary contributions, some fewer who have also contributed to enhancement of knowledge in their fields, be it administration, agriculture, industry, customs, taxation, economics, finance or foreign affairs. Almost all the vast majority, however, have counted on other factors, particularly political patronage, for career advancement. Examples of these abound in the current dispensation, including the recent en masse upgrading by the prime minister with the stroke of a pen of 54 civil servants to the highest grade.
If the quality of civil servants in Pakistan, and of their output, has steadily deteriorated over the years, and the slide continues, the reason is the patronage system that has almost entirely replaced the merit-based system, and which has turned civil servants from being the iron mesh that holds the country’s administration together into mush at the hands of political or military rulers.
The chief minister of Punjab remained aloof for many days hoping the accident would be forgotten like the other unsavoury acts in the past. All credit to the media for bringing the Sharif brothers to life and discomfiting them enough to make them visit the grieving family to condole.
It seems strange though that the senior Sharif learned about ‘new facts’ during his condolence with the grieving family. This really boggles the mind. What kind of facts was he learning for so many days before he came to condole? Or does he suffer from a short attention span?
The chief secretary said he was going on leave so the inquiry can be conducted in his absence and he is not seen as influencing this. However, replacing him as acting chief secretary was not the additional chief secretary, but a new officer said to be very close to the hit-and-run chief secretary. This could almost be as if the errant chief secretary was not on leave.
The inspector general (IG), Punjab Police, did not know what to do or say. So what came out of him was nervousness. Not in his wildest dream had he imagined that he would have had to act against a serving chief secretary so when the time came, he and his force just did not know what to do. So they did nothing except lock the thana gates to keep at bay the family of the victim, till a higher-up could tell the police what to do.
The PPP governor of Punjab, never one to miss an opportunity to be of service to his benefactor in the presidency, waded into the affair trying to gain maximum political mileage by roping the Sharifs in the sordid happening as the chief secretary’s backers, and for their inaction after the accident. He claimed the chief secretary was personally close to the Punjab chief minister, he was the CM’s chosen man, and through misuse of his position the chief secretary had turned his lands into prime property.
The governor may be right on all of the above, but he was terribly wrong in trying to gain political profit from the tragedy and grief of one family. For the governor, when it comes to showing down his benefactor’s opponents, such finesse is for the birds.
Whether or not the Sharifs will be more graceful when their time comes is not known.
The above tells the sad story of governance in the province and indeed in the country; of how shallow the system is, how ineffective it is when it comes to general, not selective, application of law; how deeply entrenched authoritarianism is even under what is loudly claimed to be democracy.
There are only three institutions the nation now looks upon with some hope – the judiciary, media and army. The last one is also looked at for doing its duty under law to aid constitutional and legal civilian institutions, if as a last resort it has to be called upon to do so.
The writer is former corporate executive. Email: husainsk@cyber.net.pkssss
Political U-turns by Anees Jillani
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August 18th by Anees Jillani.
I ONCE told a former close colleague of Nawaz Sharif, soon after Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain formed the official Muslim League in 2001, that he should remain loyal to Sharif and not leave his party.
He remarked without even looking at me that there has always been one Muslim League and that is the one which is in power.
I was thus hardly surprised when recently I came across the same leader asking President Musharraf to resign. This is what politics is all about in this country; and people who cannot do this should either switch off or leave for greener pastures abroad.
President Musharraf is going and he should go if for no other reason than the fact that he has ruled this country for nine long years and it is time for a change, unless he desires to become Pakistan’s Hosni Mubarak, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom or Robert Mugabe. The manner of his ouster, however, leaves a bad taste in the mouth and the nation even if unhappy with him is depressed at the way he is being pushed out. This is borne out by the plunge in our stocks and the constant slide in the rupee rate.
Nawaz Sharif’s and his party’s stance is understandable and justifiable as they were ousted in an unconstitutional and undemocratic manner by Musharraf; and Nawaz Sharif’s subsequent treatment left a lot to be desired. However, it is unclear as to how the PPP can justify its actions considering that its leadership was given blanket amnesty through the National Reconciliation Ordinance. Much more tragic is the way many of the PML leaders are deserting the ship which goes to show their character and the level of their integrity. Only they can answer the question as to how they face themselves each morning in front of the mirror and their families and friends.
A couple of years ago, an American attorney commented that Pakistanis can even sell their mothers for a few dollars. This generalised statement angered the whole nation and led to our favourite pastime, namely the burning of the American flag. The question is what should one make of the so-called forward bloc leaders of the Muslim League who have spent their lives switching political loyalties.
This is something that I feel strongly about. I was disappointed when a prominent Nawaz Sharif party leader told me in 2006 that his party would be willing to take back some of the official PML leaders as they had winnable seats. He named a few leaders, like Sheikh Rashid, who were totally unacceptable to Sharif, while the rest could be accepted.
I later met Javed Hashmi in Kot Lakhpat prison and broached this subject. He told me that any leader from the official League would enter his party over his dead body: he was the president of the party at that time. It was thus surprising when his party awarded a few tickets for the National Assembly to some prominent leaders of the Shujaat League in the Feb 2008 elections.
Such actions hardly provide incentives to party workers and leaders who stick with a leader, a party and a cause. These people make sacrifices and are then asked to canvass for a leader whom they had opposed and who had ridiculed them. This is obviously not just and is enough to demoralise the public in general and the party cadre in particular. One should then not be surprised if people refuse to come out on the streets over any issue. What is the point of making sacrifices when they are not acknowledged and leaders they are agitating against end up being imposed on their heads.
President Musharraf will go but the PML-N and the PPP leadership should be wary of accepting the lot that had sided with the previous regime during the past nine years and is now willing to switch loyalties. There is little doubt that Pakistan can never thrive with such folks at the helm of affairs. Anybody who desires that Pakistan should prosper must shun all such lotas regardless of their importance. A morally upright leadership needs to evolve in this country if it has to progress.
India is not a shining example of democracy but it is the largest democracy in the world. Democracy has survived there during the past 61 years. The parties take swift action against the lotas there.
During the recent imbroglio involving a vote of confidence for Premier Manmohan Singh, some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of the Lok Sabha abstained from the session and the BJP took no time in suspending their basic membership. This episode should be compared with the formation of the Patriotic wing of the PPP during the previous assembly. The PPP till the end of the assembly tenure could not make up its mind about their status and they perhaps theoretically remain basic members of the PPP even now despite joining the official Muslim League.
Way back in the seventh century, Hazrat Ali had said that beware of the wrath of the person whom you have favoured. One only wishes that President Musharraf had remembered this; one also wishes that our present rulers and the PML-N and PPP leaders keep this in mind.
It is really sad that the history of Pakistan is full of cases of so-called leaders deserting their benefactors whom they have stabbed in the back. They, of course, always have a ready excuse and explanation for their changed stance but they can never explain their allegiance to a so-called military and unconstitutional dictator in the beginning.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the tables are turned and it becomes clear that Musharraf is, after all, going to be our Hosni Mubarak and is not going anywhere for the next 10 years? All the forward blocs will have to make a quick u-turn. Jesus said that no man can serve two masters but our lotas have proven even Jesus wrong. These gentlemen have the fidelity of cats. One only wishes that they could learn something from dogs.
Our growing isolation by Anees Jillani
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August 4th by Anees Jillani.
ON July 25, eight small bombs exploded in quick succession across the south-Indian city of Bangalore, killing a woman and wounding at least 15 people.
So far the Indian police has few leads into the bombings. The Bangalore Commissioner of Police told the media that timer devices were used in all the bombs, and explosives were used in a quantity equal to one or two grenades. India’s home ministry said that it suspected “a small militant group” was behind the attacks, but has yet to give any details.
The next day, 16 blasts went off in Ahmedabad, resulting in more than 29 people getting killed and hundreds others injured. Mercifully, Pakistan and its premier intelligence agency, the ISI, have so far not been blamed. This is unlike the huge blast on July 7 at the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, blame for which was laid at the door of the ISI by a person no less than the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Next in line was Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan who called for the destruction of the ISI. “We made this point, whenever we have had a chance … There might have been some tactical restraint for some time, obviously that restraint is no longer present,” Mr Narayanan stated.
The Kabul blast was followed by several low-intensity explosions in the Pakhtun-dominated areas of Karachi which thankfully did not result in any deaths.
Hopefully, the above blasts in Kabul, Karachi and Bangalore are not interlinked and a consequence of internal turmoil. Nevertheless, there is now little doubt that India-Pakistan relations are again vulnerable despite the recent joint secretary-level talks in Islamabad, coupled with Pakistan adding 136 items to its positive list of imports from India in its 2008-09 trade policy and expressing an avowed interest in dealing with Indian traders and investors in several areas.
All these developments are not a good omen for Pakistan. They go to show the growing isolation of Pakistan in the international polity. It is high time the policymakers realised the folly of their policies and made necessary changes. There is in fact no harm in even publicly admitting the mistakes that the country made in certain arenas and showing the world and of course the citizens of Pakistan that adjustments have been made in relevant policies.
The government does not tire of stating that parliament is supreme but parliament is nowhere to be seen. This is the time to convene a session of the National Assembly and debate all these developments in detail. The country is increasingly seen by world leaders as a sanctuary for terrorists. The US Secretary of State just the other day stated that Pakistan needs to do more in its north-western region to control the Islamic militants; she rejected the plea that the terrain is difficult to operate in. The recent killing of 11 Pakistani soldiers by US air strikes showed that the American-led war in Afghanistan is relentlessly spreading into Pakistan.
The B-1 heavy-bomber and F-15 attacks were called “self-defence” by the Americans but there are reports that US and Pakistani troops engaged in a direct clash and heavy firefight that was ended by the American bombing. The US hunter-killer drones, US Special Forces and CIA teams have been launching attacks inside Fata. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has been openly advocating major ground and air attacks by US forces in Pakistan. American neoconservatives have been denouncing Pakistan as a ‘rogue state’ and a ‘sponsor of international terrorism’ and are calling for US air and missile strikes against Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and reactors.
The Indians have been accusing Pakistan for almost the past two decades for sponsoring and training the Kashmiri mujahideen who regularly hit targets inside Indian-occupied Kashmir. The Afghan president does not mince his words while holding his country’s biggest benefactor responsible for the “murder, killing, and the dishonouring of Afghans, and the resultant destruction and insecurity in the country.”
The irony is that Pakistanis are failing to realise this growing isolation of their country. They are becoming more angry with each American and Pakistan Army attack and do not see this whole campaign to suppress terrorism as their own battle; they see it as a foreign-sponsored war imposed on the country against its will. If this war is forced upon us by the Americans then it basically means that we condone whatever the militants are doing either in Afghanistan or Kashmir or for that matter even within our own country.
The militants for a number of years continued with the cruel practice of lining up Hindus in Indian-held Kashmir and spraying them with gunfire: the purpose was to force them to leave the territory and the militants succeeded to an extent in this endeavour. The Taliban are more ruthless, perhaps because non-Muslims are not so easily available and thus many a times take out their anger either in a sectarian manner or on people who refuse to cooperate with them.
The Pakistan government should come out openly with its policy regarding this campaign to control the growing Talibanisation and put a stop to this menace. This oscillation between making radical statements while meeting American and European dignitaries and sounding like a soft Taliban when conferring with the Taliban leaders has led us to the present imbroglio and can be hardly expected to get us out of it. The whole state apparatus, including our military and intelligence agencies, should be united and speak with one voice so that the terrorists take the state seriously. Otherwise, the Taliban will employ the British tactic of ‘divide and rule’ and will continue to conquer.
Reforming the police by Anees Jillani
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July 18th by Anees Jillani.
HAVE you ever seen somebody pulling a chicken out of a cage and slaughtering it in front of the other birds which remain inside the cage? The caged chickens make a lot of noise and try to fly in all directions.
However, within a few minutes of the slaughter the chickens resume eating as if nothing had happened. Our reactions in Pakistan are not much different.
On July 6, 2008 I could not resist going to attend the meeting at Lal Masjid. While returning at around 7.45pm when the meeting had ended with some offering their Maghrib prayers and the majority walking back, I saw about 25 policemen standing in line at the Saddar Road roundabout across the petrol pump, not far from the Holiday Inn. They were unarmed and innocently watching the crowd walking past them. The sun was setting and the weather was pleasant and I could not help appreciate my surroundings.
However, the first thought that came to my mind upon seeing these policemen was that they were sitting ducks for a suicide bomber. My car passed these policemen who had been deputed from Faisalabad to serve in Islamabad that day at Lal Masjid and within a minute the suicide bomber struck them. Twenty-one, including a few civilians, are said to have died.
I was told by the depressed policemen at the site that only five of their colleagues, of the hundreds who were stationed less than 50 meters away at the Aabpara police station, rushed to help the blast victims. The remaining were too scared to come forward lest there be another blast.
I experienced this myself at the time of Benazir’s assassination when only four to five persons, including myself, were trying to help the victims and the police was nowhere to be seen although there were hundreds deputed all around Liaquat Bagh. This is actually one of the key problems with the phenomenon of suicide bombing: the psyche of fear has gripped the whole nation and the police is no exception. Thus, the chances are that nobody will be on hand to give you even a few drops of water, the first thing all the injured ask for, before you die lying on the road.
This fear psychosis should be compared with the performance of the British police who grabbed a Brazilian following the July 7 London underground blasts while he was boarding a train, pinned him down and shot him dead. He was innocent and totally unarmed, and the incident was unfortunate. However, the policemen who killed him should be praised for their courage as they were grabbing and then pinning down a potential suicide bomber before he could blow up yet another train. They were willing to risk their lives to save others. How many such cases can you think of in our country?
We try to make heroes when we have none. A policeman is talking on a mobile phone while on duty, which is a common site nowadays, and is killed by an attacker. We make him a martyr. Is he? Almost all the policemen who have been killed in suicide attacks were caught off guard.
Every time one goes to a public event, like the July 6 Lal Masjid or the December 27 Liaquat Bagh meeting, the police gives the impression as if that particular day is a terrorist-free day and such incidents happen elsewhere and on other days. They exude a carefree attitude with a sub-machine gun or an old rifle in one hand, and a mobile or a cigarette or a cup of tea in the other. You will seldom see an alert policeman anywhere in the country.
The police lack proper training and are also underpaid. The policemen who were killed on July 6 had been on duty since eight in the morning and were standing in the ‘fall-in’ position when the attack took place. They were waiting for the final countdown and attendance-taking before they could rush to catch up on their sleep. What kind of service can you expect from a police contingent that has been on active duty for 12 hours, which incidentally is also against the law? There is no reason why the country cannot hire more policemen in this period of acute unemployment. To make matters worse, they are not paid overtime and are underpaid. While they stand for 12 hours without a break in the hot or cold or humid weather or in the midst of rain, their superiors sit in air-conditioned offices and engage in PR.
The suicide bomber is obviously the main culprit behind the July 6 incident. However, the officer who asked these policemen to ‘fall-in’ at that public roundabout in full view of everybody is equally at fault.
Some may ask after reading the above criticism, how can a suicide bombing attack be averted? All one has to do is see the extensive police surveillance in London nowadays. There are CCTV cameras almost everywhere which can also be installed in all our markets and roads (and they should remain functional too). In addition, two policemen or policewomen with small wirelesses in their hands — but carrying no guns — can be seen everywhere in Central London. However, they have searching eyes that look all around.
What can be a more attractive target for a terrorist than the United States nowadays? Despite this, America has not experienced any major terrorist incident since 9/11, which happened nearly seven years ago. Have you ever wondered about the reason? It is not because the American nation is homogenous and there is nobody available in the country who does not wish to harm America. The reason is that the police is simply not giving the extremists a chance to strike.
Guns are readily available but explosives are hard to find in the US (in our country, unfortunately, they are sometimes easier to find than atta). Potential terrorists are constantly being traced and monitored in every possible manner and their attempts foiled before they materialise.
One only wishes that the police and the intelligence agencies in our country wake up from their slumber and muster a little bit of courage and intelligence to catch the terrorists before they are able to press the levers of their suicide jackets. We need to remember that a thick head can do as much damage as a hard heart.
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