WATER is life. More so for the people of Balochistan. Alexander’s army suffered much when it passed through Balochistan, owing to the rough and inhospitable area, its harsh climate and scarcity of drinking water.

The state of affairs in 300 BC is still intact in 2001. The major part of the province, save the canal-irrigated Nasirabad division, has no perennial sources of water, for farming and drinking needs. Since Balochistan is an arid area, the scarcity of water is, therefore, typical of much of the province.

Water enables and sets limits on settlement patterns and population growth, agriculture and industry. Access to a reliable supply of clean water is fundamental to the growth and prosperity of the province. The prediction that by 2000 the water supply of Quetta would collapse, livestock populations would decline drastically and the area under irrigated agriculture would decrease has started happening steadily and there are no grounds for complacency.

The supply and demand for water must thoroughly be understood if this resource is to be managed on a sustainable basis. There are two sources of supply: surface water and groundwater. The former comes from precipitation, in the form of surface runoff, and from the province’s share of water from the Indus River. Precipitation is concentrated in winter in most of the province, and may accumulate as snow on the higher mountains.

Eastern areas of the province, particularly on the fringes of the Indus basin, receive some monsoon rains. Overall, precipitation is erratic and accurate information on it lacking.

On the other hand, the geology of the province favours the formation of groundwater reservoirs. Water is recharged primarily in the mountains and nullahs and, to a lesser extent, on alluvial fans and plains.

One of the oldest and permanent sources of groundwater supply is karez system in Balochistan. Some of the principal staples, including dates and rice, depend entirely on permanent irrigation and as explained above cultivation can only be practised with certainty when the scanty rainfall is stored by natural or artificial means. Hence the importance of the karez (Kahn in Baloch areas).

The karez system originated about 3,000 years ago in north- western Iran. The art of constructing them spread with the Persian Achaemenian empire. The karez, or qanat, was devised as a means of tapping groundwater supplies using gravity flow.

It is a gently sloping tunnel that conveys water from below the water-table to the ground surface. The origins of the karez system are uncertain, but may stem from the practice of opening up natural seepage areas to enhance water flow.

Before going into the details of the working of the system it may be interesting to quote a piece from the District Gazetteer of Balochistan pertaining to Makran. “The importance attached to irrigation from karizes may be gauged from the Baloch saying: ‘A mosque should be demolished if it obstructs the course of kariz (Makran District Gazetteer, P-187, published 1906, reprinted 1986).’”

Specialists, known as maqannis, construct karezes. The traditional method of construction is to sink a well (the mother well) to the water-table and this is usually done at the apex of an alluvial fan. The depth to the water-table is usually less than 50 metres. The point where the gently sloping tunnel will reach the surface is then calculated and the tunnel dug to the mother well. In Iran, these tunnels can be up to 50-kilometre-long, but they are generally about 0.5-5 kilometres in length, according to the slope of the ground. Vertical shafts are dug along the tunnel to provide ventilation and to enable removal of spoil.

The average karez can irrigate 24 to 48 acres. The crucial factor for water production from a karez is the length of water-bearing section — the part of the system that is below the water-table; this may be in excess of one kilometre. Also, since the level of the water-table will fluctuate seasonally, there will be a variation in flow during the year. In drought condition, the variation period will obviously be longer.

The karez represents an enormous capital investment. It takes many years to construct, so there is a long period between the initial investment and any returns. On the other hand, once constructed, operating costs can be minimal. Karezes are used in conjunction with other systems of irrigation; only in the most arid areas are they the sole source of water.

In Balochistan, the karez system is usually constructed on a communal basis. A karez is owned by shares, each representing the amount of time that water is available for irrigation purposes. Typically a karez yields up to 200 litres/second and serve a maximum of 200 shareholding families. These shares may in turn be rented out and are often fragmented into very small units. Karezes help to create particular societal relationships and socio-economic conditions in the villages they serve.

Building a karez in Balochistan can cost from Rs0.45 million (Qila Saifullah, two years) to Rs2.70 million (Muradabad, 1968-91). Renovation of the Temerek Karez in Pishin took 11 years and cost Rs2.0 million (Balochistan Conservation Strategy: GOB/IUCN).

POSTSCRIPT: Unfortunately, internationally-sponsored irrigation surveys in the 1970s viewed the karez as traditional and outdated, and not amenable to updating. The transition to tubewells and dug-wells was encouraged, lowering the water-table and decreasing the flow of water in the karez.

SINCE the day Gen Pervez Musharraf left for Pakistan events in Afghanistan have taken a dramatic turn. The Taliban, who looked firm and unwavering in the early days of the war, started to unravel so fast that it caught the international community in general and Pakistan in particular off guards.

The Northern Alliance which had been asked by both President Bush and Gen Musharraf on Sunday not to enter Kabul did not listen to the calls. Pakistan’s Afghan policy was in a shambles. There are reports that Taliban forces are finding refuge in the NWFP despite the fact that the border is being guarded by the Pakistan army. The feudal lords of the Frontier province who paid no heed to the Pakistan government or army orders have decided to give them shelter. As one Pakistani activist here put it, for Gen Musharraf the time of reckoning has come, he has to put his incisive and analytical abilities to rein in the pro- Taliban elements in the Pakistan army and the ISI to keep the situation under control, otherwise Pakistan could find itself facing a civil unrest which could undermine the integrity of the country.

As President Musharraf himself put it: “National interest is paramount, the rest comes later.”

Gen Musharraf’s visit to New York could indeed be termed a turning-point for Pakistan in more ways than one. Pakistan, which was once regarded a pariah among the international community, had the world’s eyes fixed on it because of the geo-political and strategic importance of the country.

Despite the changing scenario, Pakistan’s position in the region cannot be underestimated and those who are in a hurry to judge that Pakistan has lost its significance after the fall of Kabul forget that Pakistan is still there and would continue to play a vital role in the region.

It also became a rallying point for the general to call upon the “silent majority” to rise and curb the rise of fundamentalists in the country. Although his intentions are most sincere and were applauded by the majority of Pakistanis here, the task ahead is fraught with danger and foreboding.

One has been arguing that the extremists, who are a handful compared to the majority which abhors them, particularly in Sindh and Punjab, have the courage of convictions. In other words they are willing to lay down their lives for the cause they believe in, while the silent majority prefers to sit back in their living rooms and tea houses et al. It neither has the courage of conviction to put themselves in the harms way nor an organization to carry it through. They prefer to hold conferences and meetings of like-minded people and then disperse without putting their thoughts and words into action.

This is where the so-called violent, fundamentalist minority has the edge over the silent majority. So what is the general to do?

For starters, as he said, he would mobilize the moderates by speeches and through TV to come out and rally for Pakistan and for the national interest which is paramount and hope that these people would come out. But that’s easier said than done. The general has to pull out all stops to put his plan in action since failure is not an option.

As for the impression of the expatriates here about Gen Musharraf’s US visit, a Pakistani political activist, Shaheryar Azhar, has recorded his impression which, in my opinion, reflects the general sentiments of Pakistanis here.

Mr Azhar, who followed Gen Musharraf ‘s visit keenly, writes: “Gen Musharraf was accorded a lot of attention by both the media, the US establishment and world leaders. He came across as well prepared, confident and forthright.

The Americans I spoke to who had seen him on TV said they were very impressed. His single most refreshing quality that distinguishes him from many world leaders (including Khatami) is his direct manner of responding to questions, a response that reflects that he is very pragmatic, focused and refreshingly brief. Of course, like other leaders he doesn’t always respond to the question he is asked, but the question he wants to answer.

“What were the highlights that stand out in my mind? On the positive side these were: he came across as one who has an easy grasp of the complex issues facing Pakistan. He came across as a modern man with fresh thinking on many subjects. His speech to the UN was well written and well delivered.

“In his television interview he was a steadfast supporter of the United States, one who could be trusted to deliver. He also came across as one who was firmly in charge in Pakistan and was sure of his backing from the army and the people of Pakistan. When Tim Russet quoted from Osama bin Laden’s interview with Hamid Mir(published in Dawn) in which he had said that he was disappointed of Musharraf and that the people and the army of Pakistan will punish him for the support he has given to the United States, Musharraf responded without batting an eye that it is, in fact, he (Musharraf) who is disappointed in Osama and that he held him responsible for the misery and suffering of the Afghan people, including the deaths of many civilians. All of this delivered in his low-key, confident style.

“In his banquet speech to the Pakistanis in the US he was thrice given standing ovations (one at the beginning, one at the end and one in the middle when he said that the Afghan situation has presented a unique opportunity to draw the line in the stand against a tiny minority of “unenlightened, obscurantist and backward-looking” religious extremists who hold the majority of “moderate, dynamic and futuristic-looking” Pakistanis hostage).

“On the latter point he became sentimental, saying he would appear on TV in Pakistan and would ask the moderates to get up in a mosque on a Friday and challenge “the Maulvi” if they find him spewing hate by saying to him that people were there for prayers and not to listen to his ranting and ravings. The standing ovation he got for this came from, my estimation, two-thirds of the 1,700 people.

“On the negative side it seemed that the news of a rapprochement with Benazir Bhutto may not be true. When asked by Tim Russet whether he stood by his May 2001 statement in which he had said that Benazir will be arrested upon her entry in Pakistan for alleged loot and plunder and that she must face the court on those charges, he said that he stood by every word. He also said that while he will hold the elections on schedule in October 2002 whatever the situation in the region, he himself would continue to be the president well beyond that date and that he was looking at the legal modalities to make that happen. When asked will he seek elections for himself, he replied in the negative saying he is not a politician (sic)! and would prefer to remain a neutral arbiter (sic)!

“So, he is definitely in for a long haul, seeking a seemingly weak prime minister whose strings he can control. For himself he will devise some indirect (and perhaps not very legitimate) method of election (a la Zia).

“Will this work for ? Only if he and the ‘new leaders’ that he is trying to create to lead PPP and PML can fill the political vacuum, which will only be possible if his scheme will generate real interest amongst the people at the election time. A lot can go wrong — he and his scheme may not be able to get any legitimacy because of people’s indifference. Benazir may make a common cause with the religious parties for the restoration of ‘genuine’ democracy and the ensuing turmoil may end up taking its toll.

“Another negative scenario is that the coalition gets bogged down in a mire in Afghanistan or India may seek to raise cross-border temperature and Musharraf may find his domestic flank weak and without the broad support of the people. His is a highly risky strategy because it has very slim chance of being viable, based on past history of the country. But while I am strongly against him taking such risks on behalf of Pakistan, much preferring he comes to an accommodation with Benazir and Shahbaz Sharif, I realize that a large body of Pakistani middle-class and even people on this forum find those two leaders completely unacceptable.

“So Pakistan remains highly divided, fragile and in a political limbo and only time will tell whether Musharraf’s plans will have legitimacy and, therefore, will strengthen Pakistan or will further weaken the country.

“Finally, the biggest source of worry is that his newfound stature in the world because of the regional situation will increase his domestic power many folds, which may go into his head, making him go off the track. He really has no similar check and balance for him that he wants for his elected prime minister. Who is going to check Musharraf?

“So, on the whole, my positive feelings about Musharraf on his visit were heavily tampered by my great worry about lack of any institutional check and balance on his absolute power. Those who do not remember the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it!” Azhar wrote.

IT was during the Indian election in 1989 that the senior executive of a Gulf-based newspaper dispatched a hundred thousand rupees packed in a minced meat wrapper to its Delhi correspondent, ostensibly to fund the in-depth poll coverage the newspaper needed. And so it was that a sarong-clad scooterist, who looked every bit a full-time member of the Jama Masjid fish-market union, alighted from his noisy, smoke-belching mediaeval machine, helmet in one hand and a patently filthy-looking packet in the other. He knocked at the door and asked for his client. They exchanged greetings. He said how many, the journalist said ten. He then handed over the packet without demur. No questions asked. No papers to sign. The other journalists who watched the swift, flawless transaction were impressed. That was our experience with hawala.

Suddenly these days hawala has become a key definition of the problems posed by global terrorism. Hawala fuels money laundering, which fuels terror funds, so goes the argument. In Pakistan, hawala is also called hundi, and I heard on the CNN some other names for this unique banking system that works with great facility in faraway places like China, Japan and Indonesia. Although the Western media is yet to discover its depths in its own backyard, a British friend of ours told us recently about how more and more people are turning to cash nexus in London, away from the scrutiny-prone cheque-book economy.

Hawala, a complex money-laundering regime, can be transacted in many ways. Its bank of last resort is the mafia. If you happen to pick up a minced meat packet that doesn’t belong to you, you are going to be summarily fixed. Apart from tax evasion, hawala breeds on drugs, gold, arms, smuggling of anything. A large number of Gulf-based Asian workers send money to their families through the hawala. They get a higher exchange rate and quick doorstep service. India has a huge burgeoning black economy that fuels the hawala system which has many linkages in Western capitals. So does Pakistan.

The BCCI scandal is said to have cheated depositors of over $10 billion worldwide. Many of these were lower-income people, paid off at 15 and 25 cents on the dollar for damage done by an illegal operation willingly used not only by hundreds of drug dealers and other criminals from various countries but by the intelligence services of a few nations, including the CIA.

The American media has studiously downplayed the story to the end. The reason is simple. The global trade in drugs notches up $400 billion annually. Obviously many more banks, indeed American banks are involved in the massive laundering operation that is required to run just one of the many key trades that fuel the hawala.

Talking of arms, every bullet or tank that India buys from Moscow, among other centres, invigorates an already massive hawala network that runs across the country and beyond. The rupee-rouble trade between India and Russia is a unique gift to the world of hawala. About half of India’s foreign debt of over $90 billion was accumulated over a period of time via generous soft loans from the former Soviet Union which enabled massive arms sales to New Delhi.

But after the Cold War, India was asked to cough up the money in hard currency. Since that was not immediately possible, the two countries worked out a scheme whereby India would sell one billion dollars’ worth of goods to Moscow through a special rupee account, promising to clear the remaining amount over the next 30 or so years. Since Moscow doesn’t need everything India wants to sell, it auctions off the rupees raised through the escrow account at a discount. Indian sleuths are investigating many big and small operators in this racket.

The size of India’s black economy, usually reported as percentage of the GDP at market prices, is substantial, whichever method of measurement is used. A 1985 estimate saw the size of the black economy (not counting smuggling and illegal activities) to be 20 per cent of the white economy for 1980-81. Another estimate in 1992 pointing to errors in this estimate corrected it to 42 per cent of GDP for 1980-81 and 51 per cent for 1987-88. The monetarist estimates yielded a figure of 47 per cent for 1978-79.

With regard to the external sector also, the magnitude of the black economy in relation to the official data is very significant. For instance, while official exports in 1990-91 were $18 billion, 170 tons of gold valued at Rs60,000 million ($2.2 billion) at the then current domestic prices was smuggled in. In 1990-91, there was an estimated annual flight of capital of $5 billion and smuggling of other items (silver, electronics goods and synthetics) of at least another $1.5 billion. This is financed through two sources. First, the hawala markets which short-circuit the accrual of foreign exchange to government reserves. Some of these items are remittances by non-resident Indians and under- and over-invoicing of exports and imports. Secondly, the profits from drug trafficking.

Former Indian bureaucrat S.S. Gill estimates that benefits from hawala accruing to India’s political class and the corporate sectors are competing for the number one slot. “Unofficial estimates by the IMF state that Indians have stashed away at least hundred billion dollars in foreign banks,” says Gill in his book Pathology of Corruption. According to a US research study, India’s capital flight to the US during 1994-95 was to the tune of four to eleven billion dollars.

Interest earned on the $100 billion would have been at least $6 billion annually. Adding up all this, India lost in 1990-91 foreign exchange of at least $15 billion, not counting drug traffic earnings. This amount would be equal to 80 per cent of the official exports. If this loss had not occurred, in 1990-91, the country would have had a current account surplus and not a deficit of $9.7 billion, several economists say.

As the United States hunts Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group, it knows only too well that the real source of financing a global network, like the one the Saudi fugitive is believed to be running, cannot be choked without throttling a substantial chunk of American economy.

The illegal drug trade has reached staggering proportions throughout the world and is now the most profitable and underground business — and it’s still growing, warns UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The illegal trade in narcotics, he points out, has a captive market of about 190 million addicts and users worldwide, and is estimated to be worth more than 400 billion dollars a year.

Interpol says that drug business is second only to the world’s arms trade which is estimated at more than 800 billion dollars annually. According to the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), rising profits from the global drug trade are outstripping the national wealth of rich and poor nations. The amounts of money involved in drug trafficking are assuming such proportions, it says, they are now capable of tainting or destabilizing global financial markets.

Revelations by Barry R. McCaffrey, director, office of the US National Drug Control Policy, are even more breathtaking.

The IMF, he said last year, calculated that money-laundering transactions represented about eight per cent of the total value of international commerce. A large part of this money comes from narco-trafficking. The United States spends about fifty-seven billion dollars annually on illegal drugs. Considering that approximately 80 per cent of this sum is converted into profit after the payment of costs, forty-six billion dollars from narco- trafficking are laundered each year as a result of US drug consumption.

As the world looks on helplessly at the prescriptions coming thick and fast to tame terrorism, suspension of civil liberties across some of the most durable democracies has become the easy solution. In India, too, the mad rush to eliminate terrorism has taken a perverse, if predictable, course, i.e. through a proposed set of draconian laws. The rich are again looking for scapegoats to fix the poor. For unravelling the hawala could end up unravelling an embarrassing state secret.

AS the first major instalment towards independence, the colonial British government gave the people of this sub-continent an elaborate system of local self-governance. By 1921 local self- government had begun to gel on the basis of elections on a wide enough franchise. When the people of the subcontinent secured their sovereign freedom, local self-governing institutions were firmly in place and effectively functioning.

Those institutions are no longer firmly in place, nor functioning effectively. We have sapped their vitality, distorted their form and character. Just recall what the Karachi Municipal Corporation was on August 14, 1947; see what — rather where? — it is now. The truth is that a self-governing apparatus is just NOT in place. Period.

Thus, the question of its functioning effectively even in an abstract or academic sense does not arise. On independence, we had received stoutly established local government institutions. More important, we had a local self-governing culture. Look at the imposing presence of the original house of the Karachi Municipal Corporation. Once a proud house of Karachi’s self- governance, it looks more like a tomb, reminding us of the (late) city of Karachi and pointing to its interred self-esteem.

However, we do have an elected structure that we hopefully assume to be the precursor of a self-governing culture. One will have to be a hardy optimist to trust that what this infant is suffering from at this early stage is its teething trauma. People with less rosy inclinations suspect it is unwell. Some others seem to fear it is suffering from congenital (or manufacturing) flaws.

For a city as big as Karachi, and as woefully mismanaged, it is inevitable to have problems, problems and more problems. Pubic transport is perhaps the worst of Karachi’s so many exasperating woes. Here everyone, everywhere, and all the time, is rushing to be somewhere. Nothing dismaying in this. In big cities people are on the move most of the time. You hardly have any feeling of distance in an organized city because efficient transport is within everyone’s easy reach, round the clock.

Yes, Karachi is a big city. London is considerably bigger. In Karachi movement is a torture; often a risky adventure. To be on the road can be a prelude to life’s longest journey. According to the Traffic Engineering Board, Karachi’s roads annually accounted for 600 lives — lost in accidents . Almost as a reflex, the newspapers blame these fatalities on “reckless driving.” This is the easy way out of a shattering situation.

Basic to Karachi’s transport problem is the fact that there is just too much of traffic — too much for the transport and road space available. Don’t we see people stuffed in buses worse than the doomed sardines. Every public transport — hand- cart, bicycle, motorcycle, rickshaw, coaster, bus, taxi — is stuffed with twice its capacity. The citizen’s is the Hobson’s choice. Take it or get lost.

Not that we have less of road transport vehicles on the move. The number is already more than enough to suffocate our roads. This is the cause. Absolutely the inevitable effect is road accident deaths. Where there you have swarms of pedestrians moving with no sidewalks or proper pavements, you do not need “reckless drivers” to cause injury and death. Such tragedies are inherent in the situation.

What, then, is the answer? Not more buses. Oh, no! As it is, the buses are already stuck bumper to bumper. More buses will only mean more congestion, more deaths and, hardly less to be sacred of, more of pollution of our already dangerously polluted air and environment. Enlightened communities are moving towards smaller public buses, not larger. That is why, the manufacturers are keen to unload huge vehicles on foolish administrations like ours so manifestly is.

If you wish to see Karachi with an acceptable transport system, talk of the urban railway. By all reckoning, rail is much quicker, safer; less expensive, less noisy, more environment friendly. There is a basic (if not adequate) infrastructure available. It was functioning at one time not very long ago. If not famously, definitely in a modestly tolerable sort of way. If you recall, this was so during the Ayub era. No friend of Karachi by any means, the Ayub administration still possessed some remnants of sanity bequeathed to us by a sensible colonial power.

Today, bribe — taking and giving — carries no shame, certainly no stigma. Thus the decline and fall of many institutions in our country can be explained by just one word: Bribe! What has brought our national railway system, once comparable to the best anywhere, to this pass? Bribe, gladly extended by the road transport mafia, greedily accepted by the PR brass. Why nobody in Karachi is willing to talk about the only solution to its transport trauma? The same one word: bribe!

Dear citizens, where money can buy anything and everything, the one thing at total discount is good governance. It is the same, be it the federal government or the provincial — or the lowly local outfit. If the citizens will not stand up and demand a decent transport system, they shall never get it.

Is this so difficult to understand?

KARACHI: Men and women who go in for court marriage because of opposition from their families run the risk of facing trial under the Hudood Ordinances. This results in undue suffering and imprisonment.

“Usually men and women who do not meet all the requirements of a court marriage fall into trouble if the legality of their marriage is later challenged,” says Shakira Tariq of the War against Rape.

These requirements include a copy of the NIC or matriculation certificate to certify the girl’s age for the free-will certificate and two witnesses at the time of Nikah.

However, Javed Iqbal Burki of the Prison Reform International claims that the failure of court to maintain the record of free-will marriage tends to lead to complications when estranged families dispute the legality of marriage. He gives the instance of a case he recently handled, that of Mohammed Yusuf.

Yusuf married Salma Naz, the girl he liked, in court after his family turned down his proposal. When the family learnt of the marriage they, with the help of police, forced the girl, who had returned home, to level wrong charges of abduction and zina against the boy. An FIR under section 16, 10 (3) of the ZHO was lodged against Yusuf. He was imprisoned and spent two years behind bars for no fault whatsoever.

Police also falsely implicated his friend Imran, who was staying in the same locality, as a co-accused in the case.

The girl spent four months in Darul Aman. Finally, her parents sought compromise and Yousuf and Imran were acquitted when the girl denied all the charges in the trial court.

Commenting on the couple’s two year ordeal, Javed Iqbal said: “If the record of the free-will marriage had been maintained in the court and at the area police station, then no FIR could have been registered against Mohammed Yusuf and Imran.”

“A court marriage when the boy is 18 and the girl 16 years of age is legal. It is also Islamic. Therefore, no criminal charge can be levelled against such a couple,” he added.

Given this, he advocated certain procedural measures to be undertaken by court to forestall estranged family members from instituting case.

First, he says, a proper record of court marriages should be maintained in courts. “Now, all what the couple gets is a signed affidavit which mentions the free consent of the girl.” Proper maintenance of such record means that it can be referred to in case if a dispute arises about the legality of such a marriage.

Second, court should intimate the area police station of such marriage, so that no FIR against such a couple can be registered there.

Third, court should intimate (through a letter) family concerned of marriage.

Fourth, any legal measure taken against a couple should be a family suit and not a criminal case.

Fifth, advocate must submit his Vakalatnama at the time of free will from court, as he is a substantial witness in case the legality of marriage is disputed by a third party.

At present, Javed Iqbal is handling another case of a free-will marriage and involving wrong charges levelled against the couple.

“There are several such cases and many girls and boys are suffering imprisonment because of wrong charges levelled against them under the Hudood Ordinances,” he says.

Talking about how to prevent this, he was of the view that the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the Chief Justices of High Courts should take note of this misuse of the law by estranged families and direct the courts to follow the prescribed procedure. “This will help in alleviating much suffering,” he says.