Dams, Why Not to Damn!!
For a country blessed with many rivers, the unpleasant home truth is that there is impending scarcity of water in Pakistan because of acute shortage of storage capacity. This will become further acute in the near future, a full blown crisis not so far in the distant future. The looming disaster can be overcome in several ways, not the least being, viz (1) conserving the water we have and maximizing its effect (2) eliminating, or at least minimizing wastage and (3) apportioning it judiciously on a need-to-have basis. While there are notwithstanding alternate sources of generating electricity, power from water sources is far cheaper.
Rhetoric Yes, Solutions Also
Some of the potentially crippling problems we are faced with are not of the military regime’s making but having toppled an elected government, albeit with sufficient reason, the buck now stops firmly at their desk. Or at least till they let go the reins of absolute power inherent in any military rule and start down the road to civilianisation (as opposed to democratization, or should we call it civilization). Those without political ambition have no reason to resort to rhetoric but in the absence of any absolute denials from those who matter about the Chief Executive becoming President soon and relieving Tarar from his gilded misery it is safe to assume that those who matter in the military regime want to remain people who matter even after their military regime becomes history. The “Charge of the Light Brigade” crowd (ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die) has done “selection and maintenance of aim” as per Clausewitz principles of war, the elevation of the CE to the top slot. Except for a handful of principal supporting cast (two will supposedly take up the two four-star slots becoming available unless a third slot can be safely invented), the rest will pass into history as all extras do in a movie production. After shedding their uniforms, these khaki-collar workers will face the simmering wrath of civilian bureaucracy who will stoke the approbation of the masses into believing the ridiculous canard that all the khaki-clad made millions while in service. With all their acknowledged good intentions and their professionalism the military regime seems blissfully unaware of the major catastrophe we are heading into. It is almost as if they want to ignore problems seemingly apparent to everyone else. It is said elephants wear dark glasses so that Tarzan may not recognize them but that Tarzan wears dark glasses so that he may not recognize the elephants. The gravest water shortage in the history of the nation, potentially the most serious of a long line of our many serious problems, requires our immediate attention.
The Pussycat ain’t Purring Yet
Despite Pakistan’s economic travails and the battering it has taken with respect to fudging of statistics, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) survives in international financial perceptions as a credible institution, this reputation derived from being blessed with good leaders. While disagreeing with Dr Yaqub on some issues, among them the freezing of foreign currency accounts which made his inclusion in the military regime’s initial National Security Council incongruous, he ran a very taut ship in deteriorating economic circumstances, balancing the economy on a fail-safe line between the penchant of two successive political governments alternating in taking us down the slippery road to economic apocalypse by contradictory self-serving economic policies. Instead of abandoning ship under fire, Dr Yaqub remained on the burning deck to try and limit damage to the economic fabric of the nation, together with the then Finance Ministers holding off IMF-savaging of our poverty-stricken masses, during this period almost the whole of the lower middle class, mostly salaried persons, slid below the poverty line. Inheriting an exceptionally horrific economic situation but Dr Ishrat Hussain’s no-nonsense performance-oriented abilities have been complemented by the singular authority of a military regime, the perfect recipe prescribed for economic recovery, provided sound policies are conceived and implemented by those who are supposed to do so.
Divided, We Shall Fall
The germs of the whole range of present day crisis were really laid about 500 days ago with the failure of Ms Benazir’s first Long March in November 1992, the facts thereafter being so well-known that it serves useful purpose in referring to the salient features only. That was the symbolic high watermark from where we have been reduced to the dire straits that we find ourselves today. It would be macabre humour to put it down to poetic justice that Ms Benazir’s government has to face the present travails affecting the country in the sense that “those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind”. However, Nawaz Sharif’s government must also take its share of blame, having dispersed the Long Marchers Mian Nawaz Sharif did not take heed of the warning signals and made only half-hearted moves for rapprochement with the then Opposition. As this scribe wrote in THE NATION in November 1992, he chose to become like “the wind which cannot read”. While it is true that one must negotiate from a position of strength, once our leaders feel omnipotent their penchant is to shun negotiations. Ms Benazir does not seem to have learnt this lesson. How wise were Rome’s leaders who would place a man at Caesar’s shoulders even while he was triumphantly basking in the accolades of a hero-worshipping crowd, to repeatedly intone, “Remember, thou art mortal”!
On the eve of our 38th Republic Day, most of the wide range of problems we are facing have come to a head in reaching crisis proportions. The foundations of our economic woes were laid by the artificial limbo created by GIK to perpetuate his own rule, he held the nation hostage to his own ambitions. Till November 1992, Pakistan was moving pell mell towards economic emancipation, the flood devastation of Sept-Oct 92 and certain enthusiastic but questionable schemes of the Mian Nawaz Sharif Regime notwithstanding. The death of then COAS, Gen Asif Nawaz, was the first precursor of things to come. In short, by April 1993, the economic gains of the past two years had been brought to a jarring halt. The worsening political climate dampened, the boom climate necessary to attract the continued inflow of the massive input of foreign investment that would keep the economic locomotive humming. There was a virtual hiatus till the Moeen Qureshi Caretaker Administration took over but the Caretaker Government was hamstrung by the limited period of their reign and their non-elected status. The seeds of their non-success, if not failure lay in the public perception that their rule was temporary. Even then, one must commend Moeen Qureshi for a number of initiatives, marred only by his Administration’s studied tilt for the PPP in an election which was to have been played on neutral ground. In an holier-than-thou stance, then acting President Wasim Sajjad did nothing to ensure that the playing field remained even for his party. However, this underdog status suited Mian Nawaz Sharif politically, who by the end of the election campaign had become the first political person in more than two decades to not only stem the PPP floodwaters but give the populace of Pakistan the first genuine political alternative to the Bhuttos, late father, daughter and (now) Prodigal Son.