Time to introspect

THE passing of the 21st Amendment was an embarrassing moment in the constitutional history of Pakistan. One would have hoped that the establishment of military courts would at least serve as a moment of awakening for the legal community. Unfortunately, a meeting of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) last month suggested otherwise.

There is a consensus on the contribution of our dysfunctional criminal justice system in pushing us towards where we stand today. The judiciary, law-enforcement agencies and the state have had their fair share of criticism but one major component of our legal system continues to evade, let alone, admit liability: the lawyers themselves.

As a lawyer, one feels responsible for the present constitutional mess. There is no doubt that the state has failed to bring adequate reforms and provide necessary resources, but we must also learn to look into ourselves and admit that our legal culture and practice has made matters worse.

After all, is the legal community not a part of the entire judicial system just as much as the judiciary itself? Does the speedy disposal of cases not depend on the lawyers just as much as it does on procedure? Does the failure of the judicial system not also indicate a failure on part of the legal community?
Then, should the 21st Amendment not be seen as an opportunity for introspection within the legal community? Is it not time that we turn inwards and reflect on our own selves? Assess our shortcomings? Evaluate our limitations and analyse the deplorable conditions in the lower courts? Should we not begin to question the legal practices we have entrenched and the legal culture we have fostered?

Consider, for instance, Pakistan’s lower courts. This is the forum an ordinary citizen approaches only to discover that the courts of first instance are in fact hostage to the municipal or provincial bar council. Calls for going on strike are a regular occurrence in Lahore, now averaging twice (or even more) in two weeks.

Reasons can vary from the killing of a bar member to a minor scuffle with the traffic police. This practice of going on strike for the most trivial reasons has now crystallised into an accepted ‘legal culture’ of our lower courts.

The success of the lawyers’ movement has had an adverse impact on our legal culture. It has given the legal community a sense of power and entitlement, a belief that they command popular support and thumping confidence that stems from having ousted a dictator.

Consequently, strikes have become a norm; threatening judges a custom; and damaging property a routine. Throughout the country, members of the bar are free to act with impunity and one may question if this really is the same profession that was once M.A. Jinnah’s?

There should be no doubt that the 21st Amendment is a watershed moment in our constitutional history. The PBC had the opportunity to use the present criticism of our judicial system as a springboard to garner support and reverse the negative imprints left behind by the lawyers’ movement. Rather, it chose to observe a black day and in doing so, legitimised the existing culture that is partially responsible for the present mess.

Would it not have been better if the PBC had held up a mirror to the legal fraternity and mustered up the courage to identify its faults? Would it not have been more fitting if it had identified what the legal community could do to improve the judicial system? Or what changes should the legal fraternity embrace in order to, at least, dispel the impression of a stuttering judicial system? Would it not have been better if the PBC had provided an action plan that the legal community should adopt in order to improve our judicial system and thereby reduce the temptation to refer to military courts?

Would it not have been more suitable if the PBC had admonished the legal community for adopting practices that contribute in delaying the resolution of disputes? Would it not have been more appropriate if the PBC had passed a resolution censuring all proponents of the rule of law who use legal procedure as a smokescreen for the abuse of law? Would it not have been better if the PBC had pushed for a stronger regulatory framework for punishing corrupt legal practices?

Maybe, the opportunity has not been lost as yet. There is still some time. With a constitution petition pending before the Supreme Court — the only sensible action taken so far — the PBC should now shift its emphasis towards winning back the public’s confidence in our judicial system. Even if the Supreme Court upholds the 21st Amendment, the legal community could still make such military courts redundant by improving its own performance.

The writer is a lawyer.

b.soofi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2015

Systemic crisis - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

IT is quite obvious that our health system is in deep crisis on all fronts. No wonder it is unravelling in full public view, unable to cope with growing demands being placed on its limited capacity and funding. Take Punjab as a case in point, where gaping deficiencies in the health system have been exposed through several tragedies in the past few years.

The most recent was the avoidable tragedy of newborn deaths in Sargodha and Vehari district hospitals. During the provincial government’s previous term, scandals such as those involving spurious and substandard medicine at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and over-ingestion of Tyno syrup in the Shahdra Town area and the resultant loss of hundreds of lives, still rankle in public memory. In the above cases, public outcry led to inquiries being launched by the government. Yet the reports have not yet been released. This has not helped the closure of wounds nor the lesson-learning exercise.

However, in the wake of the Sargodha and Vehari incidents, apart from local level inquiries and suo motu action taken by the Supreme Court, a new, wide-ranging body of experts was constituted in November to recommend ways to fix an increasingly malfunctioning health system. In December the committee finalised a range of recommendations, which can be seen as a positive step towards tackling health-sector problems.

Of its many laudable recommendations, the one pertaining to the need for a mortality audit as well as an audit of medico-legal cases at governmental hospitals is long overdue. These recommendations are tied to third-party evaluations of government hospitals. Together these inter-connected issues go to the heart of long-ignored problems of patient safety and the quality of healthcare on offer in these hospitals. Such steps are important to revive confidence in the public health system.

Part of the problem of high mortality and morbidity figures owes to shortage of staffing at all levels. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the shortage of nurses. In this regard, the committee has focused on the issue of streamlining nursing education. Pakistan produces more doctors than nurses. The nurse-patient ratio in Pakistan is reportedly 1: 50 which is extremely low.

The committee has recommended upgrading nursing schools into colleges which will presumably enhance intake, in addition to improving standards. There is also a need to bring more balance to the female-male ratio among nurses. Currently, there are overwhelmingly more female nurses than male, a fact largely attributed to the dominant perception of females as caregivers. This perception must be radically readjusted to fill the growing gap in nurse’s supply and demand.

In line with the Punjab government’s enhanced budgetary allocations for district hospitals, there appears to be renewed emphasis on upgrading and improving hospitals at district level and sub district level. To address workforce shortage at district level, it is proposed that newly qualified doctors from state medical colleges serve at least two years at the district headquarters hospitals. This recommendation should be followed through while keeping in mind lessons learnt from a largely failed experiment in the 1990s of making newly qualified doctors serve for a number of years in rural areas. Most of the basic health units in Punjab are without doctors.

In the committee report there seems a reinforced focus on newborn and child health. As the Sargodha and Vehari incidents have demonstrated, there is an urgent need to tackle the growing problem of newborn and infant death as part of broader provision for mother and child health wraparound services. What makes the committee’s recommendations on this front different from a lengthy focus on these areas with no tangible results is not clear from the press accounts.

Another good point included in the ‘must-do list’ is the introduction of an essential drugs list and improvement and transparency in the drug procurement procedures. These measures, if implemented, can prove effective in the provision of safe and affordable drugs to public health system users.

The committee has done well to quickly produce its final report, despite its long wish lists with no costs attached. The concern here is that the report may suffer the fate of similar exercises of spelling out ‘must-dos’ and ‘game changers’ without allocation of resources and sustained political will. The hope is that this time round it would be different and that this report will form the basis of an implementation plan and a wider public conversation on the vision for affordable, safe and efficient healthcare. If the government is serious about reforming the health sector, it should not allow the recent healthcare crises to have been in vain, and instead work assiduously to fix the system and make it fit for the 21st century.

The writer is a development consultant and policy analyst.

drarifazad@gmail.com

Twitter @arifazad5

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2015

If The Beatles were denied a visa

“This is to inform you that due to the inability to acquire a visa, the qawwali programme by Fariduddin Aiyaz, Abu Muhammad and Bros. from Karachi, to be held on Monday, February 9 … has been cancelled. Shruti Sadolikar will be performing light classical music on that evening instead.”

The notice by Sanatkada, a group of men and women from Lucknow who are committed to their city’s cultural revival, broke a few hearts. If there were a choice, I and many others would go for Sadolikar any day. And I wouldn’t have said Shruti Sadolikar will be performing instead of the qawwals. She is too big an artiste to be just thrown in casually.

Imagine saying ‘We regret The Beatles could not get an Indian visa so Bob Dylan will stand in.’ The Beatles, of course, came to India albeit on a spiritual journey in a different era. Hinduism was an attractive proposition at par with spiritual quest, not an ugly campaign led by trident-bearing proselytisers.

Anyway had Bob Dylan agreed to step in for the Liverpool gang, that too while not charging a paisa or without standing on prestige, he would have been like Shruti Sadolikar. The simple, friendly, unassuming singer counts among today’s topmost vocalists in India. And she has a heart of gold. “It is my duty to help music fans if they have been disappointed like you are today,” she told the small audience before starting with a serene composition in Raag Yaman. No light music. By the way, Sadolikar is the principal of the Bhatkhande College of Music, heir to the Marris College set up in Lucknow in 1926 as the fountainhead of Indian musicology.

Of course, I had not gone to Lucknow to hear the qawwals from Pakistan. They are good, and I had already enjoyed them at a private concert in Delhi. For some kind of cussedness that goes on between the two countries the Foreign Correspondents Club and the Press Club of India had abruptly called off a programme each by the team recently. Why am I sure the Karachi Press Club would never have cancelled an Indian programme because someone in Islamabad felt time was not ripe for a cross-border cultural exchange?

I knew the qawwals would not get the visas though I had hoped for the sake of their fans in Lucknow they would. A friend of the current high commissioner in Islamabad said he had called him on the phone to plead on behalf of Sanatkada. However, as far as I know, ambassadorial prerogatives between the two countries have been abridged by their respective home ministries. And home ministries are dicey institutions. Will the new Indian foreign secretary’s coming visit to Pakistan help set things right at least with embarrassing visa issues?

My plan for the Sanatkada event was to listen to Saman Habib’s reading of old letters from Lucknow, but that was only on the next day. So I cast my vote in the Delhi election in the morning and reached the fabled city of my childhood in time to enjoy a baitbaazi competition at the Baradari.

I do not know much about the origin of baitbaazi nor how to explain it to others. But I know you can’t have it in English. It is a contest between two teams that are required to have a good memory for Urdu verses. Opponents have to recite a verse that begins with the last letter of the previous verse read by a rival. The quality of repertoire and quick recall were the mainstay of the Sanatkada evening at the Baradari. My parents had heard M.S. Subbalakshmi and Kesarbai Kerkar there.

Listening to Saman Habib was the highpoint of the short visit to Lucknow. She is a polished performer with all the right inflections. She has a lovely voice for the microphone and read letters, manuscripts, colonial administrative notes with professional ease.

Sanjay Mattoo partnered her in the letter-reading event. He has a gift for creating a visual aura with his reading voice. A teacher in Delhi, Sanjay Mattoo has links with all the Kashmiri Pandit families that have lived in Lucknow for decades. Among the ones I knew was Kailash Nath Kaul, Kamla Nehru’s brother. An Urdu-English raconteur, he became celebrated for setting up the Lucknow Botanical Garden. Justice Anand Narain Mulla was another Kashmiri Pandit from Lucknow.

Justice Mulla became famous for describing Indian police as the most organised band of criminals. My father who worked with him in the administration of evacuee properties would tell a most hilarious story about Mr Mulla. They were visiting Lahore and the waiter at the circuit house got him beef curry for dinner. Realising the mistake, the waiter pleaded that he was expecting an Indian mullah not a Kashmiri Mulla. “In that case I’ll accept the curry today, but don’t bring me beef ever again,” Mulla Sahib told the Pathan waiter.

I was surprised to know that Saman the letter-reading expert, who happens to be Marxist historian Prof Irfan Habib’s daughter, is doing research on malarial parasite at Lucknow’s Central Drug Research Institute. Her reading of a colonial missive should be of interest to everyone stuck with the polio vaccination programme in the hostile terrains of Pakistan’s tribal belt. The stand-off has been blamed on fanatical Muslim groups. However, when Lucknow was hit by a drought, a British administrator observed similar misgivings from the people towards English medicines, which they thought was poisonous.

An exchange of letters between Saman and her cousins in Karachi would bring tears to the eyes of anyone who knows a thing or two about Partition. The cousins hadn’t met ever but they shared many interests together with a sentimental fondness for an ancestral mansion in Lucknow’s posh Dalibagh district that has fallen on bad times.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2015

Black money in Swiss banks

Wildly exaggerated numbers have been floated on the amount of black money belonging to Pakistanis lying in Swiss banks.

The claims with regard to such sums of money stashed abroad are being made a) without supporting evidence; b) without making a distinction between Pakistanis resident abroad and earning incomes there and those resident here and earning the bulk of their incomes from economic activities within the country; or c) without distinguishing between what could be white (and already declared as such for tax purposes by the person holding a deposit in a Swiss bank) or black.

Read| $200bn of Pakistan in Swiss banks: Dar

Moreover, officialdom seems to be confident that it can demand of the Swiss to hand over its money.

Unfortunately, however, tax evasion is not a crime under Swiss laws!

Wealthy individuals seek professional assistance from investment bankers to manage their funds which they transfer to accounts in foreign locations.

In today’s world money maintained in Swiss banks can be shifted swiftly to other off-shore tax and other havens and invested in other financial and non-financial assets or brought back to Pakistan to conduct a fresh round of business operations.

Also read: Dar rules out easy access to billions in Swiss banks

It is not possible to trace such money in off-shore locations. It can only be tracked down in Pakistan where the incomes which are its source have been earned.

Black income can arise from both legal and illegal activities. Money is black if it is earned from illegal activities — trade in drugs, gambling operations, smuggling and corruption/bribes. Income from hoarding scarce commodities (as opposed to speculation, although making a distinction between the two would be easier said than done), formation of cartels, tax evasion (of all forms of income, sales and excise and customs duties). The last-mentioned category could be money earned from perfectly legal activities/actions, eg tax-evaded on income from legitimate services provided by professionals such as lawyers, doctors, architects, accountants, engineers, tax advisers, etc.

Tax can be evaded on incomes through non-reporting or underreporting of income or by reporting higher expenditure through fictitious invoices/bills or by claiming private spending to be business-related expenditure. When it comes to GST the evasion can take place by either not reporting sales (simpler in the case of sales against cash) or by collecting it from the buyer/customer but not depositing it in government coffers. In the latter instance the same approach is adopted in the case of withholding taxes (deducted from purchases but not deposited). In the case of duties/taxes on imports the value of the consignment is under-declared.

Moreover, there is a general confusion about the nature of black money in the sense that it is widely perceived that the informal/unsanctioned sector somehow operates in isolation. In reality, the black and white money sectors of the economy are interlocked, at the disadvantage of the formal sector because, in our case, government systems expect it to perform the tax collection functions and ensure documentation of economic transactions recognising the administrative inability of official institutions to fulfil their mandates and responsibilities effectively. The two sectors buy and sell goods and services from, and to, each other, with black money also getting legitimate by transacting with the white economy, simply through the issuance of a formal receipt for expenditure incurred by the black sector. At times — fairly common in the case of property related transactions — a part of an otherwise legal transaction is concealed voluntarily by the transacting parties.

Much of black money is concealed by spending on foreign travel, education of children in universities abroad, investment in gold and jewellery, maintaining a luxurious lifestyle, electronic gadgetry, functions and festivals, acquiring property in Dubai, Abu Dhabi (following greater scrutiny of transactions in western countries post 9/11), etc. It is interesting that the system, as well as the country’s Constitution, legally protects, if not actively facilitates, capital outflows from the country, whether the source of the funds is white or black.

The factors that generate black money include the high rates and complexity of the taxation regime, an environment of inflation and scarcities, the character of the politico-social system and the electoral process overseen by weak election laws — large volumes of black money finance elections. There is also the manner of policy formation and its implementation, and the nature of the economic system and the mechanisms and institutional structures through which it operates (eg defective overly stringent regulations and controls).

Other factors include corruption or poor administrative capabilities that fail to prevent or check such outcomes making it relatively easy, say, to manipulate import costs or export receipts, long-winded procedures and processes that delay transactions. Black money is also generated through incentivising bribes to accelerate approvals and inadequate penalties for such transgressions. The last two enable those undertaking such activities to get away with it.

All these factors influence the size and range of processes and transactions generating black money, thereby placing limitations on the scope and quality of government policies aimed at tackling such activities.

The efforts of successive governments to check black money, especially that earned by evading taxes, through whitener schemes have failed miserably. In fact, tax laws and the desperate need for foreign exchange have resulted in rather low transaction costs through an efficient and officially protected hundi market for foreign exchange. At less than a cost of 2pc, black money can be taken out of the country and brought back into the country (no questions asked) as ‘foreign investment’ (including as portfolio investment in the country’s stock exchange) or ‘inflows reported as remittance for family maintenance’, way below the official tax rate, and become white legally for use again in business operations.

Incidentally, the State Bank’s monetary policy is also rendered ineffective by more currency in circulation, ie money outside the banks than within the banking system for the central bank to exercise control over it.

Finally, societal values have also changed. Even when it is known that someone with wealth and a fancy lifestyle has acquired it through dubious sources, there is no social opprobrium or shaming. If anything their conspicuous consumption is a status symbol and a perfect advertisement for more of such activities, especially since there are no penalties, either economic or social. Their wealth is an effective passport to respect, power and influence.

The writer is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2015

Lessons from Delhi

THE sheer scale of the Aam Aadmi Party’s victory in the Delhi assembly elections has taken everyone — from the commentariat and pollsters on one hand, and opposition parties on the other — by surprise.

Their 67-seat haul, in an assembly of 70 members (ie 96pc of all seats), has only been bettered thrice before in a sub-national election in Indian history. In 1989, the Sikkim Sang Parishad, won all 35 seats in the Sikkim state assembly legislature; a feat that was subsequently matched in 2004 and 2009, in the same state, by another party — the Sikkim Democratic Front.

Even the once mighty, now-decaying Indian National Congress never quite managed to produce a state election victory as comprehensive as the Arvind Kejriwal-led rout in Delhi.

What makes this result even more interesting — for election voyeurs regardless of their place of residence — is how it came after AAP had dissolved their minority government just 49 days into their term, last year.

For a rookie, populist party to voluntarily give up their mandate over the issue of one piece of anti-graft legislation, would seem suicidal. To stage a comeback with the same abandoned voters — and that too in the face of the Modi-led BJP juggernaut — is nothing short of remarkable.

For many of its supporters, those 49 days did, however, provide a glimpse of the potential their party had in government. There were positive moves on the issue of crippling electricity tariffs, and on police behaviour, accountability, and predation, especially with auto-rickshaw drivers. After doing what very few politicians have historically done — apologising for a mistake — AAP chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal gets another chance to start where they abruptly left off.

Before one draws lessons from Delhi or gets into ambitious comparisons with Pakistan, the usual cautionary notes apply. Political systems in India are fundamentally different from those found on this side of the border.

Political parties, new entrepreneurs, and social activists can not only draw on nearly 70 years worth of experience with electoral politics, but also on the assorted pockets of vibrant, fairly cross-sectional social movements and complementary civil society organisations (CSOs). In short, the Indian citizenry has considerable practice of changing their fate through popular resistance and the ballot box, an idea we here in Pakistan are still (debatably) getting used to.

That said, there are some very clear, theoretical lessons worth drawing from the AAP’s electoral designs, and its party-bordering-on-social movement model.

For starters, even after dropping out of government, the party’s many volunteers continued to work for the largest sub-section of the Delhi electorate — slum-dwellers and the urban poor. By providing free legal help, distributing food, and assisting in the provision of other services, the party retained its relationship with the segment that gets ignored most frequently in South Asia. And to their credit, it clearly paid off. Based on Lokniti-CSDS analysis, out of every 100 Dalit and 100 Muslim votes cast in the city, 68 and 77 went to the Aam Aadmi Party respectively.

Also read: Why the PTI could not do what the AAP has

The other segment where AAP did quite well, in part because of its anti-establishment, anti-corruption posturing, was the young middle class: 67pc of the 18-22 electorate voted for AAP, a figure that’s probably not too dissimilar from the vote PTI garnered from the same demographic in urban areas of Pakistan. Based on this one particular angle, however, Imran Khan’s party is often taken as the AAP of Pakistan (or vice versa). The truth, as it often is, is far more complex.

What AAP has done in Delhi is to construct a social coalition on the lines of providing for the under-served sections of society, combining it with its more abstract anti-corruption sloganeering that appeals to an efficiency-craving Indian middle class steeped in a liberalised, consumerist economy. This, at least in my mind, is the biggest departure from the PTI’s all-encompassing populism, where socio-economic class ceases to be a marker both in rhetoric and in party practice.

Another lesson, and this one is unambiguously relevant for Pakistani progressives and ‘change-seekers’, is how even safaidposh, or affluent members of AAP got down to the often-messy business of actually doing politics at the grass-roots level.

Far too often in Pakistan, ideas of welfare and social inclusion remain just that — unfulfilled ideas. What the Delhi experience showcases is how there is simply no substitute for interacting and organising at the community level. Even in the communalised, polarised environment of a right-wing-ruled India, it remains possible to create an alternative politics as long as political and social activists are willing to do the legwork where it matters.

As written on these pages earlier as well, political parties remain the only institutions capable of creating and implementing transformative, or even reformist agendas. CSOs — NGOs, committees, and other groups of well-meaning citizens — have neither the reach nor the resources required for tasks of such scale. This is especially true in Pakistan where pluralist ideas — so desperately required in such dark times — often take on rigid class boundaries and spaces, preventing their permeation across a wider cross-section of society.

It remains to be seen whether the AAP is able to fulfil its noticeably ambitious agenda in government. The jump between a populist social movement (or an outsider party), and being in the bureaucrat-ridden world of power is often quite wide, given the sort of heightened expectations that tag along. But what is a sure-shot takeaway is that engaging at the grass-roots level, and building durable coalitions that cogently represent the underserved are fundamental to the functioning of representative democracy. Pakistani parties, especially those clamouring for change, would do well to learn a few things from the Delhi experience.

The writer teaches political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

umairjaved@lumsalumni.pk

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2015

Extremism in Sindh

HERE’S the problem with a National Action Plan: once launched, it must be implemented. A state with a plan is a proactive, can-do, busy state. Never mind that policies remain muddled, ideological confusion persists, and capacity to carry out the plan is lacking. A plan gives meaning to the smallest gesture — whether effective or not — because at the very least it is ‘part of the plan’.

This must be why the security establishment made a grand announcement last week that the militant group that carried out the sectarian attack in Shikarpur had been identified. The attack was pinned on a group with links to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan based along the Sindh-Balochistan border. Arrests were made and inter-provincial committee meetings convened. This was the plan in action.

Also read: Extremism comes to Sindh — the counteraction still hasn't

The flurry of state activity in the wake of the Shikarpur attack implies that it was unprecedented. But it was not. Sectarian and militant groups have flourished in interior Sindh in recent years, and — in the days before they had a plan — the authorities did flagrantly little to check the trend.

By some estimates, sectarian groups have enlisted approximately 25,000 members across the province outside Karachi. The northern districts of Shikarpur, Khairpur and Ghotki, which are closest to the sectarian groups’ original bases in Punjab, are at the highest risk. Clashes between members of different sects in these districts erupt with growing frequency in markets and during religious festivals.

While conducting research last year for a recently published report, ‘Conflict Dynamics in Sindh’, I repeatedly heard politicians and police officials describe interior Sindh as the new base for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

The TTP, Al Qaeda and their various offshoots are also believed to have increased their presence in the province and take advantage of mushrooming madressahs to recruit new fighters, build networks and generate funds. Many of the militants who attempted to hijack a navy frigate in Karachi last year hailed from Sindh. Those who attacked the Karachi airport last June partially planned the attack in the province’s interior, purchasing SIM cards and coordinating in Nawabshah. The ISI office in Sukkur was attacked in July 2013.

In other words, the group that carried out the Shikarpur attack did not come out of nowhere.

Sectarian and militant groups have flourished in Sindh in the presence of a highly politicised and corrupt — and therefore ineffective — police force. They have also taken advantage of the fact that the security forces’ main targets remain separatist and nationalist elements.

The belief that religious fervour is the best antidote to secular nationalism has long guided security policymaking and, as in Balochistan, the authorities have not checked the entrenchment of extremist groups in Sindh probably in the hope of offering an ideological counterpoint to Sindhi separatists and nationalists.

Sadly, the rise of sectarian and militant groups has started to ravage the fabric of Sindhi society. Sufis are threatened, shrines are attacked, Hindus are forced to convert to Islam, and their corpses dragged out of graveyards where Muslims are also buried. Many Hindus who can afford to are migrating, others are relocating from rural to urban areas.

Despite enjoying control at the provincial and federal levels in recent years, the PPP has done little to stop the entrenchment of violent extremists in the province. Earlier this month, under the National Action Plan, the Sindh government called for the establishment of a 1,000-strong Anti-Terrorism Force within the police, which will coordinate with paramilitary and military forces to carry out counterterrorism operations.

Government officials have also made sure in recent days to repeatedly mention the few dozen people who have been arrested in the province on the suspicion that they are engaged in terrorist activities, or for misusing mosque loudspeakers, or for daubing hate-inciting graffiti on walls.

But history has already taught us that a securitised response will not be enough. Violent extremist groups are succeeding in a province long celebrated for its pluralism, tolerance and cultural vibrancy because they are filling a vacuum. Sindh’s feudal and tribal structures are collapsing, but the civilian government and judiciary have not effectively filled the gaps in service delivery and dispute resolution mechanisms.

Young people are migrating to cities at a higher rate than elsewhere in the country, only to find that their lack of education and skills leave them without hope. Ghost schools persist despite Supreme Court scrutiny, and madressahs run by violent extremist groups often seem to be the only alternative.

If Sindh is to be saved from a further decline into extremism, the provincial government will have to do more. They cannot get by on having a plan. The plan will have to work.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com

Twitter: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2015

Sky with diamonds

I WOULDN’T have minded being in Lahore this weekend past. At around this time of the year it really earns its a.k.a., the city of gardens.

With the promise of spring in the air and a lifting of the winter smog that has so plagued it over the last decade or more, the place positively blooms.

I’ve never in Pakistan seen a city so brimming with flowers as Lahore, except for perhaps Islamabad, but the latter doesn’t have the additional grace bestowed by a long and illustrious history, reflected in its architecture.

But then, perhaps to have been in Lahore — rhapsody though it may be — at this time of the year would have been to yet again pull the scab off a wound that refuses to heal. It may sound melodramatic to put it this way, but I believe that few Lahoris would disagree.

Also read: Basant banished & banned

You see, the second weekend of February is when Basant used to be held. The festival is a centuries-old tradition of heralding spring by taking to the roads and rooftops and flying kites, basking in the (hopefully) by now warm sunshine and enjoying the season’s last good oranges. It has always been celebrated, to a greater or a lesser degree. It didn’t bother anyone, and if the city’s garbage collectors had a bit of a mess the next morning, no one minded for it was good, clean fun.

But then, Basant grew too big for its boots — at least, in a few decision-makers’ opinion. The elites caught on, more importantly the corporates caught on, and for several years, Basant became a day and a night when the entire city spilled out on the roads to have a party.

By the last years of the dying millennium, the city would attract thousands of visitors on Basant weekend; you had to book a bus or plane ticket well in advance to make sure you’d have a seat.

And everyone benefited: the hotels and restaurants and caterers, the companies that rent out chairs and tables and music equipment, the tailors that stitched clothes in basanti colours for women at all tiers of society, and most importantly, the craftsmen who made kites and string, a skill that has in those families been handed down through the generations.

And what a party it was. The city resonated with music, the air was filled by a million fluttering kites — the convention developed that at night, everyone flew white kites that cavorted and twinkled in the floodlit sky.

Every rooftop in especially the older parts of the city — which is to say, generally east of the Canal — but by no means limited to this would be filled to capacity, the people decked out in orange, yellow and green.

It was an egalitarian festival: the class-divide that so mars Punjabi society would for a brief while become blurred because of the manner in which people of all classes engaged with each other, and there can be few equalisers more potent than a Land Cruiser-wallah having his kite downed by a barefoot urchin.

But of course, there is the dark underbelly, and in this case it was the glass-and-chemical-coated kite string that was developed to make it less susceptible to being cut through by another string, thus sharpening the thrill of the competition for kite-fliers. It caused horrifying accidents: many people had their throats cut and died; many were grievously injured.

This could go on no longer, said the authorities, pointing out that in addition to these accidents there were the cases every year when children fell from their perch on some high parapet and died, and that in any case the mess created put far too much pressure on garbage collection facilities.

These were the reasons the authorities gave. The tell, though, was the resentful little voices that had been grumbling for some time: Basant was obscenity; it wasn’t Islamic.

This, I believe, was the underpinning reason the plug was pulled on Basant. Had it been otherwise, the city/provincial government would have done much more than it did to control the production and sale of the offending string (other than simply banning it, which means nothing), a task that is really not insurmountably difficult.

Basant had to go because Basant gave people a) ownership of the city, b) a chance to enjoy themselves and, going on from this last, c) a chance to enjoy themselves through cultural activity invested in the land, and not in the religion.

So now, around this time of the year, pictures and reports filter in of the police having nabbed a serious lawbreaker — yes, flying a kite is an arrestable offence there. Any possibility of reviving the festival seems far-fetched.

Nevertheless, one can’t help but mourn for a time when Pakistan had it in it to take the time to go fly a kite — it does so feel like whimsy, now.

The writer is a member of staff.

hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2015

Game of thrones?

We will continue to suffer APS Peshawar, Shikarpur, Peshawar Imamia Masjid and Baldia colony like tragedies, for insidiousness, capable of justifying violence, has seeped deep into our body politic. Savagery itself is not problematic. Only the interests and biases it facilitates or hampers is what our state and society fuss over. Was it for religion, sect, ethnicity, power, honour or national security, we ask. To end violence we need to carve in stone the principle, that ‘your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins’.

Zarb-i-Azb was necessary because functional states retain monopoly over violence and don’t share sovereignty, we are told. Doesn’t this logic apply to sectarian groups and Karachi? We have now read confessions of a serial killer who claimed association with MQM (which MQM denied) and alleged that the Baldia colony fire was arson ordered by MQM to teach factory owners a lesson for not coughing up all the extortion money demanded.

Also read: Rangers’ report blames MQM for Baldia factory fire

This JIT report has no evidentiary value for the Baldia case as Rizwan Qureshi’s statement is based on hearsay. Everyone must be presumed innocent until proven guilty and MQM is right in asserting that its media trial on the basis of such report is unfair. But the JIT report, MQM’s reaction to it, and the Baldia colony incident together epitomise how our state is devoid of integrity, how our Constitution’s promise of protecting life and property of citizens means nothing and how our society has reconciled with these ugly truths.

The JIT report has caused excitement not due to its legal value but because of the plausibility of its content. It provides an insight into Karachi’s underworld of fear and violence: accounts of killing at leisure; shutting down markets; assassination plans (including that of Senator Shahi Syed); hit lists (including prominent anchors); and tales of extortion, including the Baldia colony arson story.

From a legal perspective, the JIT report’s only utility is that it provides names, locations and dates and can be a basis for further investigation. What is damning about this report is what isn’t in there. One, that the state (including ISI, Rangers, IB, FIA and police) has done nothing since 23.06.13, when it stumbled on this information, to determine its veracity. And two, MQM’s ferocious reaction to it that raises more questions than it answers.

MQM is right. This JIT report isn’t really about Baldia (only one paragraph records how Qureshi thinks Baldia is an arson/extortion case). An FIA report on the incident ruled out all causes for the fire erupting, calling the fire ‘accidental’. It also ruled out extortion as the factory owners filed no ‘bhatta’ complaint!

The Zahid Alavi Judicial Commission Report on Baldia is equally tentative about causation. It states in the absence of conclusive evidence that “the fire may have been caused by short circuit”. Interestingly, it is the factory owners who have been pushing for forensic tests to determine the cause of fire. On Dec 19, 2012, the Sindh High Court ordered that such tests be conducted. To date no forensic report has been produced despite court orders.

So were those named in the JIT and allegedly MQM affiliates (Asghar Baig, Rehman Bhola, Hammad Siddiqui and Farooq Saleem) ever interrogated? How did Afaq Ahmad (MQM Haqiqi) get hold of this JIT report back in February 2014 when he alleged in a press conference that Baldia was a case of arson/extortion carried out by MQM? He further alleged that the Sindh governor and an MQM minister were involved, judges were threatened, and our prime minister had to intervene to get factory owners bail.

The record suggests that the factory owners weren’t being granted bail initially. The prime minister reportedly met with the Karachi Chamber of Commerce that was perturbed by how the factory owners were being treated. A supplementary challan was submitted by the police that dropped the murder charge against them included in the FIR lodged by MQM. Then the factory owners were granted bail.

Karachi functions under a smog of fear. Isn’t this fear reinforced by the MQM itself? On May 12, 2013, didn’t Altaf Bhai threaten adversaries (including PTI) with talk of breaking bones and transforming Karachi’s ‘Teen Talwar’ into real swords? Hasn’t he threatened media with “consequences” should it not behave? Didn’t he threaten to ban Punjabi leaders from Sindh after Bau Anwar’s murder in December 2014? Didn’t he also suspend MQM Rabita Committee and chide it for making money by “selling the streets” of Karachi?

Does MQM want to be loved or feared? Machiavelli preferred fear: one’s actions can guarantee fear not love he said. Is the popular belief in MQM’s ability to inflict harm on others our establishment’s conspiracy or a consequence of MQM’s deliberate actions meant to ensure that its threats remain credible and its influence, partly rooted in fear, remains intact? If the Baldia case isn’t investigated further, does the plausibility of Qureshi’s anecdotal account together with its deniability for legal purposes enhance or hurt MQM’s influence?

We’ve had two former generals speak this past week. Musharraf explained how we nurtured the Taliban to spite India. He left out why the Indian army doesn’t need to fight its proxies within India but Pakistan does. Asad Durrani, former DG ISI, speculated that Pakistan probably knew about Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan and would have used it as a bargaining chip! Is this the mindset of a normal state?

Did ISI know about Osama bin Laden? Does it have in custody the two men wanted by UK authorities for Dr Imran Farooq’s murder? We will never know. But what we do know is this: if it did or does, such information or possession will only be used as a bargaining chip in the game of thrones our power elites play and not to do the right thing. Remember Supreme Court’s now forgotten order in the Karachi law and order case and its focus on political parties’ militant wings?

This latest JIT report will only be used as a bargaining chip by other players to negotiate with the MQM before being forgotten. It might help get the factory owners off the hook. But Karachi will bleed on.

The writer is a lawyer.

sattar@post.harvard.edu

Twitter: @babar_sattar

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2015

Single-point agenda

I BELIEVE strongly that single-point agendas can reverse the continuing decline in Pakistan. The catch is the unlikelihood of agreeing on one. But there too, I am hopeful enough to make the case.

There are literally thousands of civil society organisations (CSOs) with, rightly so, their own local objectives. The good ones among them are making a difference in their limited domains. The impact at the level of society, however, remains insignificant. This is inevitable given that CSOs are focused on many different tasks, pulling, as it were, in different directions. The cumulative impact is real but diffused.

I believe that without abandoning their local objectives, CSOs can exercise collective influence by agreeing additionally on one global single-point agenda every year. All of them would then pull in the same direction corresponding to the nature of the agenda adopted for that year. The weight of numbers would make itself felt at least to an extent greater than we have been able to exercise to date.

We can find mechanisms for a democratic choice of the annual single-point agenda for which the CSOs would then lobby collectively.

This would be different from an Imran Khan-type dharna which is also focused on a few major demands, eg an end to corruption and clean election practices, but, for one, it is very much a top-down, one man’s crusade in the old populist style of politics found wanting in the past.

For another, its demands are such that except for diehard loyalists not enough people are convinced that Khan could deliver. His party includes leaders who were allegedly on the wrong side in the past. This is inevitable given the structure of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan — it’s virtually impossible to win a plurality without compromising with traditional power brokers.

The choice of single-point agendas has to be such that they bring together citizens across the various divides — ethnicity, sect, class, etc — that ruling groups use to fracture popular movements. Single-point agendas that are impervious to such divisive possibilities are necessary as starting points to have some hope of success.

But even within such agendas, there are critical choices. Some would require more resources than others. Take for example the demand to provide clean water to all. There’s no conceivable reason for the failure to do so in the 21st century. The underlying technology is among the simplest. However, the state can plead lack of resources as it has for decades.

Similarly, the right to education is a unifying demand but one should anticipate the divisions that would ensue on the content of education.

I have a suggestion for a single-point agenda free of such constraints. CSOs should lobby to transfer the prerogative of appointing the chief executives of public sector organisations (PSOs) from the state to civil society.

The benefit-cost ratio would be infinite simply because the costs are zero and the benefits significant. There’s little doubt that competent leadership of PSOs can make a huge difference to their performance.

In theory, the state has a claim on such appointments by virtue of being the principal owner of PSOs. However, the state exercises this prerogative on behalf of citizens who are the true owners and who have delegated the responsibility to their representatives. Given that the state has so grossly abused this trust over decades, citizens are within their right to take it back into their own hands.

There is need to lobby for the creation of an independent appointments commission free of state control. Although it is possible to delegate the authority to a bipartisan parliamentary committee, the track record of parliamentarians here does not inspire confidence that the arrangement would yield the desired results.

The appointments commission should be completely under the control of civil society and comprised of a mutually agreed board of private citizens who have established their credibility over a lifetime of service.

I can allude to individuals from the past who would have been eminently qualified had they been alive. I would confidently have nominated people like Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, Prof Karrar Hussain, Justice Rustam Kayani, and Justice A.R. Cornelius. Individuals of similar integrity exist today and would step in to serve the country.

This proposal might seem far-fetched but is doable and a necessity at this point in time. Just raising consciousness about the issue would be a major contribution. Above all, it is a unifying objective that does not call for resources except for the allocation of time divided over millions of citizens. All we need are a few brave CSOs to step forward and organise the challenge.

The writer is the provost at Habib University.

Published in Dawn February 15th , 2015

Iron ore ‘discovery’

ON that bright sunny morning, the villagers must have been delighted at the unusual sight of a small propeller plane flying over their fields. It was the 1970s, and the OGDC’s aircraft was conducting an aeromagnetic survey over northern Punjab.

As it repeatedly flew over in a grid-like pattern, it was detecting a magnetic anomaly near Chiniot, pointing to the possible presence of iron ore beneath the surface. The aircraft returned to base, the data was logged and the matter rested.

It wasn’t until 1989 that the Geological Survey of Pakistan picked up the dusty file and carried out a geophysical survey, in which a small ore body was identified. Nevertheless, a geophysical survey is a limited study and does not confirm the resource with the degree of certitude that would motivate commercial interest. That would require more detailed investigations.

Yet another decade passed when in 1999, the Punjab Mineral Development Company commissioned an international geological firm to carry out the detailed investigations over a small area. After digging boreholes it confirmed the presence of a small deposit of iron ore.

While the size of the deposit was of little commercial value, more importantly, the investigations, using extrapolations and inferences from the collected data, pointed to the presence of much greater quantities of iron ore (in addition to other minerals) — over 500 million tons — in the wider area. However, to confirm that would require a larger, detailed investigation. At that the matter rested.

In 2009 I had accepted a position with the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade. It was apparent to me that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif understood the subject of iron and steel well. Perhaps for that reason I picked up this initiative as my pet project.

In November 2009 I commenced a series of strategic conversations across a range of stakeholders, businessmen and technical experts in the field who were conversant with the subject. What do we do with these bits and fragments of geological information? What would it take to have this classified as a proven reserve? And afterwards who would invest in this mega mining project?

What would be the terms of the transaction? What kind of mining methodology would be required? What kind of logistic and transport infrastructure would be needed to remove earth to the depth of a 30-storey building and then haul the millions of tons of excavated ore?

How would we depopulate the hundreds of acres of farmland and villages — underneath which the ore was located? What would we do with the iron ore? Could we convert some of it to steel? If so, where would the energy come from in an already energy-starved country? Could we also sell some of the raw iron ore?

By April 2010 our rigorous consultations had led to the development of a road map that staked out a path to commercially tap these resources. The first requirement was to carry out a full-blown geological investigation that would authenticate these deposits to an acceptable international standard. And even with the chief minister applying full force, it took a slothful Punjab bureaucracy nearly half a decade to get this done.

But finally it has happened. A Chinese company has authenticated the deposit to be qualified as “reserves”. And while they are sizeable they are not very large by global standards. The entire reserve quantity is little more than what Australian mining giant BHP-Billiton would typically produce in two years.

The hard work only now begins. The ore is lodged deep under the surface. The area is well drained by the Chenab river, which may pose hydraulic challenges during excavation. The resulting mining solution could be costly.

That would make the Punjab iron ore project marginal on a world scale. Any investor will look at a range of comparable mines in the world’s ore-producing regions and compare the extraction costs per ton. And in the presently oversupplied world market many marginal mines have become dormant and are available.

Then getting the land cleared would pose a challenge for the Punjab government. The land acquisition for the Mangla reservoir expansion took years.

Structuring a mining concession, especially against the backdrop of the Reko Diq fiasco, will pose another challenge.

If the project envisages steel production on site then the government will have to think about ways to provide energy — either coking coal or gas.

Finally, to move ore (and even steel) through overland transport to our steel mills and ports requires a modern, heavy haul rail system.

We will turn to ways of addressing these challenges at a later time.

The writer served on the Punjab Board of Investment as Director General; a position from which he led the initiative of the Punjab iron ore development road map.

moazzamhusain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn February 15th , 2015

A democratic United Nations

IN an opinion piece in the New York Times of Feb 6, former United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, bemoan that the UN has failed to serve its primary purpose to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and advance ‘Four Ideas for a Stronger UN’.

The first and main “idea” is to add an unspecified number of quasi-permanent members to the 15-member Security Council.

It is true that the spreading collapse of world order today is linked to the erosion of international legitimacy. And, the monopolisation and misuse of the Security Council’s vast powers by some of the five permanent members has contributed considerably to this erosion of international legitimacy.

A more democratic Security Council could command greater credibility. But, unless one believes in the adage ‘set a thief to catch a thief’, adding new ‘permanent’ members to the Council’s membership, instead of enhancing its legitimacy, may further erode it. It is precisely this kind of thinking that led to the “stalemate” mentioned by Annan and Brundtland.

Four states — Brazil, Germany, Japan and India (G-4) — advanced the disingenuous proposition that, to neutralise the power of the P5, these ‘new and emerging powers’ should be anointed as additional permanent members of the Security Council. Nigeria and South Africa joined in, calling for similar privileges for themselves as ‘representatives’ of Africa.

The move was vigorously opposed by the ‘Coffee Club’ — later renamed the ‘Uniting for Consensus’ group. This included Pakistan, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Canada and a score of other states, tacitly supported by China.

The UfC pointed out that if the criteria for continuous membership of the Security Council was the capacity of a state to contribute to international peace and security, several other states would also qualify, including: Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran (from Asia); Mexico, Argentina and Colombia (from Latin America); Italy, Spain and Canada (from Western Europe); and Egypt, Algeria and Angola (from Africa). The UfC proposed an alternative arrangement that would expand the Council and offer greater opportunities for representation to all UN members, big and small.

Breaking off negotiations, the G-4 launched a determined campaign in 2005 to secure adoption of their proposal by vote at the 60th anniversary session of the UN General Assembly. The move was defeated by an equally vigorous campaign by the UfC.

The G-4 have not been able to revive their proposal at the UN since then. There is growing recognition that a two-third majority cannot be secured for the G-4 proposal and, even if this was obtained, several of the P5 would not ratify the charter amendment to create the new permanent members. Among the G-4, it is only India which continues to insist on the demand for permanent membership.

The Annan-Brundtland “idea” to create additional seats with longer terms and the possibility of immediate re-election is advanced as a compromise. However, the UfC would do well to react cautiously to the suggestion. If only five or six new long-term, re-electable seats are created, it is evident that these would be almost permanently occupied by the six self-nominated states.

Other large and medium powers, including most UfC members, would be relegated to an inferior status. There would be no additional representation for the smaller states which make up the vast majority of the UN membership.

Consistent with its past positions, the UfC needs to ensure that: the Council is expanded by at least 10 members (to 25); that 10 of the 20 non-permanent seats are for longer terms of four years, not eight years (as some friends of the G-4 have suggested); that re-election to these seats would be possible for a state after a two-year interregnum.

Under such a structure, all member states which have the capability to contribute to regional and global peace and security (the G-4 and UfC) will have an opportunity to be frequently if not permanently represented on the Security Council. It would also provide larger opportunities for the vast majority of smaller UN member states to serve on the Council. The decisions of such a Council would have greater acceptability and legitimacy.

The second “idea” advanced by Annan-Brundtland: to ask the P5 to refrain from using the veto where their own “national” interests are involved is naive and has no chance of acceptance. The frequent abuse of the veto by some of the P5 needs to be neutralised. Pleading for restraint is unlikely to yield results.

The best way to oppose the P5 veto is to create larger possibilities for a counter veto by the non-permanent members of the Council. In a 25-member Council, 15 votes would be required to approve a resolution, enabling 11 of the (20) non-permanent members, if they join together, to block decisions which are unjust or inequitable. The playing field would become more level.

The third “idea”: to allow interested or affected parties to be invited to the Security Council’s closed door consultations, deserves full support. Nevertheless, to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory decisions, it would be advisable to agree on criteria to determine who would or would not be eligible to participate in such deliberations.

The fourth “idea”: that the Security Council recommend at least two candidates for the secretary general’s post to the UN General Assembly, even if accepted, may not change things very much. The Council could propose two colourless candidates instead of one.

An outstanding UN secretary general is likely to emerge only if the General Assembly is prepared to exercise its prerogative to reject the recommendations of the Security Council and, indeed, to ask the Council to consider one or more candidates which the Assembly deems fit for the office.

There is much else that is required to ensure that the UN, its secretary general and his officials represent the interests and priorities of the entire UN membership, instead of serving as the handmaiden of the great powers. The four “ideas” advanced by Annan and Brundtland would be a good place to start the process of bringing democracy to the United Nations on its 70th anniversary.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

Published in Dawn February 15th , 2015

Today’s hero

SMART coup, hard coup, calling the shots, pulling the strings, the man in-charge. Anyway you cut it, it’s good to be Raheel.

The troops adore him, the public loves him, the politicians are in awe of him. He’s our warrior-in-chief, our leading diplomat, a grand strategician, a master tactician, a do-er and a thinker. He’s what Pakistan needs, he’s what Pakistan wants and he’s what Pakistan’s got.

Cut through all of that though and it’s fairly obvious: Raheel’s really stuck his neck out and is vulnerable as hell.

Going all-in in the fight against militancy — the narrow, parochial fight against the militants who are attacking Pakistani state and society — has made the chief Pakistan’s hero.

But that may also end up being the problem — Raheel has gone all-in. What happens if the plan doesn’t work? What happens when they strike again?

Read: Militant siege of Peshawar school ends, 141 killed

The Peshawar convulsion was in at least one way a game-changer — for the chief’s approach. He threw everything AND the kitchen sink at the problem. He got military courts. He had people hanged. He dashed to Kabul. His troops turned the screws in North Waziristan. His planes pummelled chunks of Fata.

He worked the phones. He spoke to world leaders. He cajoled Pakistan’s leaders. He got everyone to focus. This was going to be his legacy. This was going to his fight. This was going to be his victory.

But what happens if the plan doesn’t work? What happens when they strike again?

Also read: Parliament passes 21st Constitutional Amendment, Army Act Amendment

Shikarpur and the latest Peshawar attack don’t count. It’s too close to the December convulsion. Too near the school carnage. Nobody really thought that would be the last attack so quickly.

If anything, Shikarpur and this week’s Peshawar have underlined the threat that’s out there. If anything, Shikarpur and this week’s Peshawar have proved why we need Raheel.

Go get them for us, General. Finish them. End this. Godspeed.

Which is great — for us, for Raheel, for now. But fast forward a bit. Six months down the road. Maybe nine months or a year.

What if they strike again then? What if they top Peshawar? What’s Raheel got left in the bag?

Hangings, done. Military courts, done. Military operations, done. Aerial pounding, done. Ground attacks, done. Dashes to Afghanistan, done. Raids in the cities — so-called intelligence-based operations — done.

What would there be left for the chief to do? Before Peshawar, before the school carnage, there was so much room. Hence the hangings and military courts and countrywide raids and cross-border diplomacy and clandestine intelligence and military operations.

From NWA in June to Peshawar in December, Raheel cut a path that has put him and his approach front and centre. Because it hasn’t had time to work — or not work — he’s still the darling of the country.

A fearful public isn’t going to abandon its one last hope in the midst of the darkness. But hope has a funny way of turning sour. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s villain. See, Musharraf and Kayani. Each of them had a different approach.

Musharraf was the swaggering commando who straddled the country and vowed to break backbones and snap spines — and wowed the country in the process. He was scared of nobody and everyone loved the brashness — until they started to hate it.

Because, ultimately, things didn’t get better, they got worse. And all the braggadocio in the world can’t hide things going boom and stuff burning and people dying. And that’s really all the public wants — for things not to go boom, for stuff not to burn and people not to die.

Kayani was the mumbly general who saw what happened to the brash Musharraf and learned from it. So he promised little and delivered little.

Rather, Kayani got the cyclical nature of a militarised strategy to fight militancy: sometimes you’re on top — Swat, South Waziristan — sometimes you’re not — pretty much everything in the second term.

Ultimately though, all the philosophising in the world can’t make people accept things sometimes going boom and stuff burning now and then and people dying in waves, cyclical or not.

So both Musharraf and Kayani got it wrong. Now we have Raheel trying to be the best of both of them — decisive but smart; inclined towards action but thinking along the way; fierce but sympathetic; both heard from and listened to.

Once again, it looks good — until it won’t. Because any militarised strategy to fight militancy will meet the same fate. But Raheel has an extra burden — what’s he going to do when the next devastation is wrought, if it’s on his watch in the next two years?

What big move has he got left?

You can sense the government has figured this out. Let him enjoy his moment in the sun. In the meantime, keep him as close to us as possible. Let him lead the way. We’ll follow and take all the flak and insults and taunts.

Then, if it happens again, if something tops Peshawar, we’ll look the nation in the eye and solemnly say, your government and your armed forces have done everything we can, this is a long fight, please bear with us, we’re all in this together.

If you can’t rise, wait for your enemy to fall.

Raheel would have two choices at that point. Go the dictator route: our country is in trouble, I needed to do this, blah, blah, blah. But he’d be a Yahya by then — doomed before he can settle in.

Or he could go the Musharraf and Kayani route, harkening back to a great start, chafing against/resigned to a lousy end.

So yes, Raheel is king today. But only if you ignore the risk — he’s left nothing in the bag and doesn’t have an exit strategy.

Today’s hero is usually tomorrow’s villain here. With a caveat: politicians get a second chance, generals don’t.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Twitter: @cyalm

Published in Dawn February 15th , 2015

Karachi horror story

APPROPRIATELY, the PPP announced its new partnership with the MQM just when we heard allegations of mass murder committed by thugs linked to the latter.

Both now harbour large numbers of criminals at all levels. The widely held perception is that the new deal, brokered on the basis of a 60:40 division of power, will split the loot in a similar ratio.

The growing criminalisation of politics in Sindh has made the accusations of arson by some elements of the MQM plausible. Even though it is based on the confession of a hit-man for the party, for those of us who have lived in Karachi these last 30 years, the allegation — the first of its kind — doesn’t sound far-fetched.

Even to a country long hardened to violence, the death of 258 men, women and children in a Baldia factory fire in 2012 came as a shock. At the time, the official inquiry identified an electric short-circuit as the cause of the fire. But the JIT report flatly contradicts this finding and names elements in the MQM as being behind arson and mass murder. While we can all guess, the truth remains murky.

The Sindh High Court, handed this hot potato, has directed the lower court to complete hearings and announce its verdict within a year. If it happens, it will probably set a record in a country where the judiciary is not renowned for the speed of its deliberations.

These last three decades have witnessed a steady decline of security in Karachi. Unsurprisingly, this same period has also seen the rise of the MQM as a political force whose strength is based as much on the violence of its militant wing as on the popularity of its leader.

Those of us who lived in Pakistan’s biggest city in the 1980s and 1990s recall all too well the bodies found in gunny bags almost every morning.

The same period has marked an explosive increase in the bhatta, or protection money, paid by businessmen. Even petty street vendors aren’t spared. While the MQM reportedly had a monopoly on the racket for years, others like the Taliban and the People’s Aman Committee have now muscled in. Hence the turf battles constantly being fought on Karachi’s mean streets.

Each time an MQM activist ‘confesses’ to murder or extortion, the party disassociates itself from him. And the constant defensive mantra hinges around anti-MQM conspiracies, whether it is the Scotland Yard inquiry of murder and money-laundering in London, or the widely witnessed violence it launched against a pro-Iftikhar Chaudhry rally in Karachi in May 2007 in which 45 people were killed.

And in case you think the PPP government in Sindh will initiate a fresh inquiry into the case, don’t hold your breath. In his five years as president, Zardari did precious little to solve the mystery of Benazir Bhutto’s murder. So to imagine he would rock the boat to investigate the death of 258 innocent people is to ignore reality.

Soon after Musharraf seized power, he inducted the MQM into the provincial government in Sindh as well as the federal administration. I asked one of his closest advisers why, knowing what he did about the party and its leader, Musharraf had taken such a step.

My friend explained that it was better to have the MQM onside rather than in the opposition from where it would blackmail the government with constant threats to lock down Karachi. And this is where its true power lies.

But although it has enjoyed the perks of power, it has always behaved like an opposition party. Over the years, its unpredictable tactics and its leader’s increasingly bizarre pronouncements have been a major factor in driving many industries and business houses away. This has directly led to job losses and soaring crime, and yet, the party continues to win millions of votes in urban Sindh.

Critics allege that the MQM’s vote bank has shrunk, and it relies on massive rigging to ensure its significant presence in the national and provincial assemblies. But this does not explain the rapt attention of thousands at party rallies who sit in the heat for hours while their leader harangues them from London in interminable, rambling monologues.

Whether it is fear or genuine love for Altaf Bhai, the numbers cannot be ignored or denied. And whether we like it or not, the party and its leader have empowered two generations of Mohajir youths: now, kids with little education and no job prospects can swagger around and get respect.

And it is also a fact that despite all its faults, the MQM remains a secular party and opposed to feudalism. While Imran Khan’s critique of the party is valid, he can afford to take potshots from the safety of Islamabad. Those living in Karachi have to be far more circumspect. That says it all for the kind of party the MQM is.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn February 14th , 2015