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System Failure?
A low-key but intense national debate has been initiated because of the comments of some foreign observers expressing doubt about Pakistan’s survival as an entity. In the immortal paraphrased words of Mark Twain, “rumours of our demise may have been greatly exaggerated”, a cursory analysis does show that the “doom and gloom” clouds are much more dense in Karachi, even among sincere, dedicated citizens, than up-country. In the face of continued insecure environment for the city’s citizens, this is not surprising. The creeping anxiety in the psyche of the intellectuals and the entrepreneurs should ring alarm bells for those who are genuinely interested in the continued sovereignty and integrity of the country.
An extremely bright, young ISI major in the then East Pakistan in November 1990 gave his visiting boss from Islamabad a presentation in Dhaka as to what was likely to happen if events continued to follow an uncertain and erratic course. He ended his detailed submission by commenting that those who strongly believed in a united Pakistan felt very insecure as they would be left in the lurch if the worst came to pass. Having said his piece with courage, the field officer waited with bated breath for pearls of wisdom to emanate from the great man. It was not long in forthcoming, “if you are feeling scared, let me shift you and your family to West Pakistan”. That astonished young man, who later rose to high military rank in Bangladesh, decided in sheer frustration at that point of time that despite his personal convictions about the survival of Pakistan, his ethnic background left him no choice but to go with the growing synergy among the masses in then East Pakistan for a separate country. Whereas the intent of the individual was to bring into focus the strategic relevance of the times, his boss, whose appointment and vision thereof should have taken in the measure of the situation, reduced the implications to that of a petty individual requirement. Of such faux pas by the high and mighty is secession born! Today if you go to Islamabad and aspire to get the attention of those who matter in between office routine, afternoon nap, golf, riding and/or tennis and before the usual evening reception (i.e. business as usual), the answer to your repeated entreaties to please focus on Karachi in supersession to everything else is, “shift your family to Islamabad!” When you pester them repeatedly in the hope that maybe your persistence would break through their veneer of calm, the telephone operator (or bearer or whoever) has a repeated message for you, “Sahib has just left for a reception”. If this was confined to one person one would dismiss it as an aberration, unfortunately the exasperation with the bearer of bad tidings about Karachi is universal in Islamabad. While the country was burning in 1970-71, the leadership was out to an extended lunch, no wonder our world collapsed around us. Such is the irony of fate that when it did collapse, all those who had gone from pillar to post predicting dire straits unless remedial measures were taken, immediately became “traitors” for having stated the obvious. Twenty-five years later this is the same labelling for those who now dare to talk (and write) about growing Mohajir alienation from the Pakistan mainstream. The tragedy is that now almost, all except some myopic parochial diehards (with what goes for brains in their shoes), accept that gross mistakes across the whole spectrum were committed in the East Pakistan, dereliction of the norms of leadership and statecraft being directly responsible for the disaster.
A Chat with Altaf Hussain Abyssyania Lines to Mill Hills
An early recollection as a teenager is of being beaten up by an elder for putting Ms Fatima Jinnah’s election flag atop his house in Abyssynia Lines in the Presidential Elections in 1964, “did he want his father to lose his government job?” Another was the Rs.14,000 his father collected after years of hard work to pay for the ownership of the house in Azizabad now known far and wide as “Nine Zero”. “My father was a Railway Station Master in 1947, a man of some means in those days, he gave that up to migrate to Pakistan, working as a clerk for many years in a distantly located factory”, he says proudly, adding that in many ways his mother did more, not only the back-breaking normal house-keeping chores but also sewing clothes single-mindedly to ensure that the children got education. From such humble non-political roots is today’s Altaf Hussain born, says Altaf Hussain, a political symbol for millions of his ethnic brethren. Loved by many, indeed also despised by many, it is unfair to pass judgment on him without a face-to-face meeting to assess the man and his politics.
Considerably more mellow than he is made out to be, the firebrand and orator in him emerges from time to time whenever a subject and theme he favours or frowns upon surfaces. Gen Babar is one such current favourite object (of hatred), “how can a man without any issue himself, have any feelings about ruthlessly persecuting the children of others? The Mohajir youth are being brutalized, their childhood has been taken away by this self-styled “conqueror” of Karachi”, he asks. Maybe Gen Babar is acting in such fashion, one suggests, as a lightning rod meant to draw the widespread criticism of Ms Benazir after her “cowards and rats” Kasur speech away from her and on himself? This line of reasoning is obviously new to Altaf Hussain, he gives this a little thought before disagreeing since it “tends to exonerate Gen Babar”. He does not condone terrorism, on the contrary he condemns it, “Agencies and hired killers do many of the dirty deeds for which MQM gets the blame”, he protests but questions what is the Mohajir youth supposed to do, uprooted from hearth and home, hungry and hunted, without leadership and out of control? Why cannot he control them through the mesmeric hold he exercises over the broad mass of his constituency? “What is the threshold of pain and endurance they have to bear? Consider their plight and answer me what choices are left to them?” he counter-questions. One concedes it is difficult but that it is the “Karma” of all leaders, to lead their flock through dire straits to the right choices. Silence and then a wry smile!
The Wind Cannot Read
Two momentous events concerning the media and Press freedom have recently taken place in Pakistan. During “the night of the Long Knives”, the PM Ms Benazir Bhutto, replaced the whole team of her media-handlers, from the Secretary Information, Hussain Haqqani, downwards, the only escapee being friend Farhat Ullah Babar, the PM’s loyal Press Secretary. Farhat is such a mild and honest soul that the PM’s hand may have been stayed by some angel.
Congratulations are in order to former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif because the incumbent PM has brought back into information power almost the whole team who had made her life miserable successfully during his tenure as PM. The PM kept one surprise choice up her sleeve, the aberration of Ms Rana Shaikh was transformed from being Secretary Culture to being the 22nd Managing Director of PTV since 1964. A former TV actress and Producer/Director, this was a natural end reward for the Herculean PR efforts of the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Najmuddin Sheikh, to display the liberal side of Pakistan culture by a special “song and dance” fashion show in the US during the PM’s Yatra, a designer-clothing performance that could not be seen (being banned for TV viewing) in Pakistan by the likes of Maulana Fazlur Rahman lest he forget his holy vows of abstinence from such worldly pursuits. Ms Rana Shaikh shrugged off accusation of plagiarism, when you copy from many plagiarism turns into research.
Missed Opportunities
It is May 26, 1993. The Supreme Court has just restored Mian Nawaz Sharif as PM of Pakistan. On the hill a lonely (and suddenly beleaguered) President waits with apprehension about his former protege’s next move. Ms. Benazir Bhutto similarly waits anxiously with her worry beads. If Mian Nawaz Sharif should choose to go to the President and make up as any politician in his place would have done in similar circumstances, showing magnanimity in victory, the game is over for her for some time. On the outside chance that the PM expands on his confrontation, there is hope yet. Riding the crest of success, Mian Sahib chooses the path of confrontation and thus takes the “laurels from his (own) brow and casts them into the dust”, to quote Churchill about Wavell after his defeat at the hands of Rommel in the desert. Next, having formed the Government after the 1993 elections and thus displaying its coalition majority, the PPP shows signs of political accommodation over the election of a compromise President, maybe even someone like Senator Sartaj Aziz from the PML(N). Again Mian Sahib’s hawks prevail, the PML(N) stands firm about a PML(N) President of their choice, seesawing between Gohar Ayub and Wasim Sajjad. Net result, PPP goes for its own candidate and we see the non-controversial and generally liked PPP stalwart Farooq Khan Leghari elected as President. Third flashback, President Leghari immediately resigns from the PPP in an effort to display genuine neutrality in his new role as President and journeys to Lahore, inviting Mian Sahib to tea in the Punjab Governor’s House and if not, requests to go over himself to Mian Sahib’s house in Model Town to call on the Leader of the Opposition, in fact leaning over backwards beyond the limits of protocol. Peevishness persists and discourtesy aside, the meeting has not yet materialised, two years later. In Mian Sahib’s political history, the field is strewn with missed opportunities, so many and so crucial that it would require much more than one single article to recount them. Teflon-like hide aside, one cannot keep on passing the buck to his Advisors.
Given the present Karachi situation and the grave danger that it poses to the existence of the country, the Leader of the Opposition has taken the initiative and called a Conference of all parties on Karachi. Given the foot-dragging of the PPP regime as far as negotiations with MQM are concerned, this is indeed a most welcome proposal to draw the MQM(A) back into the national mainstream. One should take the analogy of the ultimate symbol of terrorism, the air hijacker. Does one stop talking to the hijacker or does one immediately start talking to him in order to gain time and wear down his demands? While labelling MQM as terrorists may be a moot point in a city full of terrorist groups of various ilk and creed, the PPP should certainly not stop talking with the majority party in Sindh’s urban areas. To circumvent PPP’s obduracy on this issue, Mian Sahib took a political lead of great significance by calling this Conference and then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot by refusing to invite PPP.
The Karachi Situation Playing Blind Man’s (?) Bluff
Even for those who have admired the many qualities of Ms Benazir Bhutto over the years and have been taken in by her charm and charisma, her recent speech in Kasur was shocking. It brought our Princess down to a particular low water mark unbecoming of her, both as a human being and as a popularly elected leader. The dignity of the Office of the PM requires avoiding the use of intemperate language or saying anything carrying racial inferences, Ms Bhutto crossed that fail-safe line that separates politically acceptable campaign rabble-rousing from the more colourful characteristics of the parade ground. The only excuse one can justifiably give is that the PM believes she should campaign endlessly irrespective of the audience and the occasion, the studied demeanour of sophistication she displays on her frequent State visits being the exception. Well, the last election campaign has been over for nearly 20 months and the next one is yet to commence, or does she know more than she is letting on? Instead of stooping low to conquer, she is succeeding in losing a considerable amount of goodwill among the intelligentsia and the masses who have tended to always give her the benefit of the doubt in the many controversies she manages to get herself mired in from time to time. Maybe she used an exorcist to chase away the demons that seemed to possess her in Kasur, or perhaps she was inspired by self-preservation in the face of noises emanating from quarters that matter, to the profound relief of her damage-control specialists, the PM appeared at a Press Conference flanked on one side by Hamid Nasir Chattha, and “regretted” the remarks “if they have hurt anyone’s feelings.” In true Bhutto tradition of defiance unto death, there was nothing contrite or apologetic in her tone or demeanour, in fact she relished launching into another diatribe of sorts against “terrorists” (by inference the MQM(A)). Regretfully, she may have irretrievably lost the battle for the hearts and minds of Karachi’s populace, only a miracle can salvage any remaining goodwill.
For whatever it is worth, the PM is right in one respect. There is militancy that can clearly be classified as urban terrorism within the ranks of MQM(A). One cannot objectively view the situation and give them a clean bill of health just because the PM chose to go off on a tangent. However there are extenuating circumstances. Given the way the MQM have been hounded over the past three years since the start of Operation Clean-Up, this is hardly surprising or unexpected. Even if you would corner an animal in this manner you would expect a reaction, case in point PPP-in-exile during the Zia years and the terrorist Al-Zulfiqar Organisation. Also the MQM(A) is not the only one playing the urban guerrilla game, what about MQM(H), Al-Zulfiqar and Jeay Sindh? To compound all this, Indian RAW has been actively fomenting violence in Karachi to take the pressure off Kashmir. In all fairness, the PM must acknowledge that it was the State (in the form of ISI) that created a parallel “terrorist” organisation, the MQM(H), and it is the State (in the form of IB) that still sustains it. Anytime the organs of the State acquire such powers which allow them to break the laws of the land they are pledged to uphold, the reaction is bound to be commensurate, as an act of self-defence if nothing else. When criminals function in the name of justice, justice becomes a crime. Two wrongs do not make a right, or for that matter, three, four or even ten. Every political party in Karachi including the JI, PPP, JUI, PPI, ANP, etc has militant wings whose high-handedness often borders upon terrorism. MQM(A) is simply the best organised, having the maximum sympathy of Karachi’s masses, followed by MQM(H) having the support of the Establishment. PML(N) is probably the only one without a coherent militant faction and certainly that is not for want of trying. Even the President mentioned MQM(H) and Al-Zulfiqar as having terrorist factions in a recent Press Briefing for foreign journalists. MQM(A) can be held partly responsible for the bad law and order situation in those areas of Karachi which are said to be in its control, who are the “terrorists” in the Landhi, Korangi and Lines Area? Even PSF got into the act with rocket launchers near NIPA Chowrangi the other day. Given the type of provocation that the MQM is subjected to every time that calm returns to Karachi, violent reaction by their cohorts in the streets is not surprising. In countless incidents Police and Rangers have been quite high-handed, thereby alienating the populace. The immediate cause of the current unrest is the LEAs raid at Nine-Zero (the home/office of Altaf Hussain). Since this was done at the advent of Muharram, it was certainly avoidable, i.e. unless the objective was to provoke confrontation.
Pre-budget Economic Review – Economic Fortress Pakistan – III
(This is the FINAL instalment in a series of THREE articles)
Unlike Deng Tsao Peng who put economic liberalisation in China far ahead of the gradual awakening of political freedom, Gorbachev was so eulogised (and pampered) by the western media that he went overboard and attempted Glasnost (openness) ahead of Perestroika (economic revolution) in the Soviet Union. An inefficient centralized economy under the strain of the extended Afghan War was pummelled by Gorbachev’s ill-planned denationalisation and disinvestment, raising the expectations of the masses beyond the capacity of the State to fulfil and resulting in economic disaster. By focussing on Gorbachev’s ego, the west succeeded in its aim of disintegration of the Soviet Union, winning a war “without bloodying swords” (Sun Tse Tsu) against one of the two communist Superpowers. The same was precipitated to short-circuit China’s process but failed because of China’s refusal to cow down before student pressure in Tianenamen Square on prime time TV. Germany and Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the western powers, fifty years later they have put the victors to the economic sword without fighting a single battle. Arguably Soviet Union’s economic fate was best depicted by former Warsaw Pact’s Russian Commanders selling arms and equipment in Eastern Europe in order to pay salaries to their soldiers. For those keenly interested in the direction national security is taking in Pakistan, this should serve as a horrible example.
Direct Vote and Democracy
The basis of democracy is that every individual has occasion to exercise his or her vote freely to choose individuals for a particular seat or post. This vote is not transferable and cannot be exercised by proxy. Given the basic concept of adult franchise, any indirect vote is bound to be controversial, particularly since it transfers the basic individual right of choice of electors of one constituency to another individual who then takes a solitary decision on behalf of others which may not be really representative. In third world countries where individuals are invariably more susceptible to the influences of power, money etc than in western countries, there is always the possibility that for various considerations the indirect vote may be cast against the actual aspirations of the basic unit of a democracy, the individual citizen. Therefore, it inculcates an element of corruption at its very inception. Moreover, it circumvents the process of a candidate’s accountability before the masses that is one of the basic premises of democracy.
The Federal structure in Pakistan is composed of the directly elected National Assembly and an indirectly elected Upper House called the Senate. Albeit peopled by some very fine men and women for the most part, the indirect elections to the Senate (each Province has equal number of seats with a number reserved for technocrats, etc) offers an opportunity for chicanery inasmuch as the Electoral College is composed of the members of the respective Provincial Assemblies (with Punjab having the maximum of 240 electors for 20 Senate seats i.e 12 electors can vote into office a Senator while at the other end of the scale Balochistan’s 45 electors vote also for 20 Senate seats, i.e. only 2 votes to get a Senator elected). While the Senate is supposedly a higher body than the National Assembly (NA), this lop-sided indirect elections to fill its seats contradicts its higher status, undercutting the basic principle of exercise of adult franchise to fill all electable slots in a democracy. It gives an inordinate advantage to those with money and/or influence to become members of the Upper House. Conceivably those who have made their money illegally and do not want to go through the exhaustive “accountability before the masses” process of a full fledged election campaign, can avoid the elections to the Provincial (PA) or National Assemblies (NA) and “purchase” the small number of necessary voters to get elected to the Senate by either giving “donations” to individual legislators or to the political party whose support they want. One should not forget that this concept of indirect vote was firmly rejected by the Pakistani populace in the form of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s 80,000 Basic Democrats who formed an Electoral College to elect (Provincial and National) legislators, etc as well as the President. The Opposition to this concept stemmed from the fact that the masses were effectively disenfranchised by the indirect method and that the smaller number of elections could be influenced to cast their vote in particular manner by various means, some of them coercive in nature. The same principle must apply to the Senate, being a higher body than the National Assembly, it’s claim to legality can only be borne out if its members are directly elected by the populace. To give continuity to the democratic process, direct elections to the Senate, where members’ terms should only be of four years, can be held during the mid-term stage of the NA (and PA) elections (whose terms must also be shortened from five to four years as per Ms Benazir’s pre-election promise).
The Majority Vote
Over 30 million French voters went to the polls in the first round of Presidential elections to decide their preference in a full slate of 9 candidates. In a major upset that stunned political pundits, Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin secured nearly 7 million votes (or 23.24% of the votes cast) to come out first in the pack while the favourite Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist, was grateful to scrape through to the second round with about 6.2 million votes (20.64%). Chirac was just ahead of his former friend, fellow Gaullist and handpicked PM Edouard Balladur, who had deserted his mentor in a bid for the Presidency but fell just short by 600,000 votes, getting only about 5.6 million votes (or about 18.54%). Not to be denied his place under the French sun Jean Marie Le Pen, the Far Right candidate, secured 15.15% of the vote, translated into 4.6 million votes, slightly above par than his previous performances. Next came Communist Robert Hue with 2.6 million votes (3.72%), then Trotskyist Arlette Laguiller with 1.6 million votes (5.34%) followed by Nationalist Phillipe de Villiers (1.4 million votes 4.78%) and Ecologist Dominique Voynet with 3.33% of the vote representing 1 million votes. At the very tail was the Extreme Right candidate Jacques Cheminade with 83,472 votes (about 0.27%).
Since none of the candidates got an outright majority (50%), a second run-off election will be held on May 7, 1995 between the Socialist Party Candidate Lionel Jospin and “Rally for the Republic (RPR) Party” Candidate, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac. Contrary to pollsters’ speculation a few months ago that pitted Conservatives Chirac and Balladur against each other, the early front runner French PM Balladur self-destructed in the final weeks to make it a straight Left-Right contest. On the surface, the Right (Chirac, Balladur, Le Pen, Villiers and Cheminade) picked up about 18 million votes (60%) to 12 million votes of the Left (Jospin, Hiz, Laguiller, Voynet), about 40%. However, this is rather a simplistic calculation as not all the voters of the Right will vote for Chirac or for that matter Jospin will not automatically sweep up all the votes on the Left. A fair estimate is that a vast majority of each side may still favour their ideological inclination (and a fair amount may stay at home) but most voters react to individual candidates in preference to their political leanings. The inaccurate French Polls had shown Chirac getting nearly 27% of the vote or about 8 million votes, he fell short by a massive 1.8 million votes, nearly 25% less than predicated by pollsters. On the other hand Jospin did better than expected by about 1.6 million votes and Balladur was short of the projections by about a million votes. These represent very wide margins of error and expert analyst are of the opinion that Chirac almost got clobbered because of (1) voter apathy inasfar that they expected him to win anyway and stayed at home (2) the Right-Right split of the Gaullist vote and (3) desperate Socialist attempt to keep their candidate Jospin alive by concentrating the left vote. At the same time Le Pen, who had no chance anyway, profited from his rabid rhetoric against immigrants, the symbolic backlash maintaining his performance of the past. The Extreme Left (in Hue, Laguiller and Voynet) got a better than expected 5 million votes (about 17%).
Back Home All is Not Well
Even her detractors do not attempt to deny that Ms Benazir is a charismatic figure tailor-made to exploit the best out of the western media. Given a gift of the rhetoric, Pakistan’s PM is also a forceful advocate of Pakistani causes when she puts her mind to it. As a well educated, intelligent leader of international acclaim, it was always an even bet that she would vow her hosts in the US. What goodies she comes back with will make a considerable impact on her fortunes at home which are dependant upon a more cynical lot who tend to be impressed more by the birds in hand (F-16s) rather than promises in the bush.
Ms Benazir’s festering problem is Karachi, Pakistan’s major and only port city. While every shade of public opinion recognizes that it is imperative to restore democracy at the grassroots level, she was recently quoted in an interview to NEWSWEEK as dismissing the Local Bodies election option in Karachi for 2 or 3 years. While she may be right in speaking about the prevailing conditions in the city as an obstacle of sorts, the fact remains that any solution requires democracy as a pre-requisite. The leadership vacuum at the street level has become too dangerous to ignore. Unfortunately since her electoral base is in rural Sindh, the PPP is heavily dependant upon the quota system to safeguard the interests of its prized constituents, that is directly in confrontation to the merit factor which is the main component of the urban-based MQM platform. While the ideological divide is such that though a temporary marriage of convenience is possible, Rudyard Kipling’s “the twain shall never meet” adequately describes the possibility of an MQM-PPP rapprochement. However one lives in hope and given the Mandela-De Klerk meeting of the minds in South Africa and the Arafat-Rabin patch-up of sorts in the Middle East, it is quite possible that our leaders will take into account the devastation that will continue to happen if an agreement of sorts is not hammered out soon. The problem for the PPP is that while MQM is central to Karachi’s quagmire, the PPP is as much incidental to the city’s present and future as the PML, as such the option is very much available to the MQM to choose either. While practically it may make sense to the MQM to come to a compromise with the rural majority, given historical connotations their preference would be the PML. We thus have an eternal triangle of sorts with no one prepared to come to terms by giving some leeway.
Streets of Fire
Where there is smoke there is bound to be a fire and since Third World-ers are great conspiracy theorists, they tend to believe that smoke is meant only as a camouflage for the perpetrators of the fire. In Karachi this fire is burning fiercely in the streets. For those who have lived in hope that somehow they will be passed by there is bad news, the spreading conflagration is cutting a wide swath across class and creed, sect and ethnicity, etc. There is no convenient fire-escape from this developing inferno, by their benign inaction the Federal Government is seen to be a part of the problem rather than a “fire brigade” dedicated to the rescue of the city’s hapless inhabitants.
Instead of addressing the core issues that have brought Karachi to the verge of absolute anarchy, Ms Benazir seems to skirt the major problems. The general public perception is that there are no solutions on offer because the logical ones tend to threaten PPP’s electoral power base in Sindh. When faced with such Hobson’s choice, Government of Pakistan (GoP) invariably tends to take the easy route of rhetoric, contributing to the PM’s rapidly declining credibility. Hard to believe that this is the same South-Asian vintage Joan of Arc of the 80s decade, holding forth the torch of democracy for the people of Pakistan. Regretfully, the PM is giving the word “obfuscation” due legitimacy much beyond what is generally attributed to bureaucracy.