| February 11, 2002 | Monday | Ziqa’ad 27, 1422 |
Greater stress on fighting drought: DATELINE QUETTA
Looks like magic or miracle: KARACHI FILE
Not bad people to fly with
Laila and Majnun’s mother
Looking beyond October: VIEW FROM MARGALLA
Dr Khaliq’s pleasing miscellany: LITERARY ROUND-UP
IS IT a mere coincidence that India’s economic reforms have been shadowed by a matching communal upsurge across the country? Was it also a coincidence that Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee formed a minority government in 1996 with the clear knowledge that the Bharatiya Janata Party was in no position to win the crucial trust vote in the hung parliament returned by an inconclusive election? Was it part of a well-orchestrated move, albeit under the cover of parliamentary propriety, so as to help clear the sovereign guarantee for the mega-dollar Enron project, signed in a hurry to be sure, barely hours before the Vajpayee government was planning to quit rather than be forced to go. The Enron guarantee was a singular achievement of the first Vajpayee government’s 13-day rule. The succeeding coalition was equally shaky, but it had the requisite parliamentary majority owing to the support of the Congress and the Marxist-led Left Front, which made it quite improbable that the American project would be cleared as long as the communists were there to stall it.
THE prolonged drought has killed over 30 flocks and left a deep impact on the people of Balochistan — an irreparable damage to the weak economy of the most backward province of Pakistan. “We have lost everything, farmland and flocks both, Shabir Mengal of Kishingi, a human settlement some 120km away from Quetta, said.
ISN’T there a touch of pathos in the administration’s naivete about the theft, ‘taking,’ snatching of motor cars and motorcycles? Or is it pure innocence? Last Thursday, Governor Mohammadmian Soomro instructed the “authorities” to make the intelligence system more effective to check this exotic crime and its almost unstoppable march.
DR KHALIQ whose second book, Khwab Kahani, was recently launched in Islamabad, is an old Pindiite, a Dennysian and a Gordonian — terms today’s young scholars studying in bungalow schools and three-room universities of Blue Area will have difficulty in understanding, but in the Fifties, if you were lucky, you attended Denny’s School and Gordon College where the poor and the rich sat side by side to do their lessons with dedicated teachers like Master Riazuddin and Dr Stewart. But that was another century, indeed another time.
All these are questions that will probably never be discussed in parliament when it convenes on February 25 to consider Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s budget for fiscal 2002-03.
The reason for this obvious apathy towards the most crucial function of any government — the core issue of food and shelter and economic management — is inherent in the first question, the one related with communalism. Moreover, it is unlikely too that any of the political formations, barring perhaps the Left Front, would be prepared to seriously discuss the fall of the mighty Enron company and its implications for India’s reforms regime.
The Gulf War of 1990 that sent oil prices through the roof, and the fall of the Soviet Union that triggered the collapse of India’s huge captive market, combined to thrust the country into an unprecedented economic crisis. The holding operation by the V.P. Singh regime, curiously supported on one flank by the Left Front and on the other by the rightwing BJP, collapsed shortly after Lal Krishan Advani set off on his march to Ayodhya.
In 1991 Yashwant Sinha, in his first inning as an interim finance minister was forced to mortgage a chunk of India’s gold reserve to avert a debt payment crisis. This was the background to the May 1991 elections that saw the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the return of Congress government on a narrow sympathy vote. Although the Congress formed a minority government to begin with, it was by sheer bribery as it later turned out, that it managed to keep a wafer-thin majority for a full five-year term.
During the 1991-96 tenure of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, India witnessed IMF-led structural reforms. In December 1992 the Babri Masjid was demolished. In January-February 1993 the country was engulfed in communal violence and on March 13 that year a string of bomb blasts, apparently triggered by the predominantly Muslim underworld, ripped through the commercial hub of Mumbai killing 300.
Was it all a coincidence?
The communal agenda has never looked back. Nor have the reforms, although the pace of both may have faltered here and there somewhat.
Now in a mysteriously calibrated revelation, the Enron saga has featured Sonia Gandhi’s name as the leader of the opposition who met Vice President Dick Cheney during her last year’s tour of the United States. That Mr. Cheney petitioned Sonia Gandhi to help clear the Enron mess (that we shall discuss in a moment) is known. What is not so far known is the degree of lobbying and influence-peddling that the higher American echelons have been doing — and if not then why not — with Mr Vajpayee’s government to push the Enron case forward.
We know that in the early stages of the project, one state chief minister was given a hefty amount to “educate” the citizens about the feasibility of the Dhabol power station! We also know that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance that had initially opposed the project and won the Maharashtra election on an anti-Enron campaign, promptly took a U-turn and, and far from scrapping it, in fact went on to sign up a second phase of the white elephant power project.
The sudden change of political hearts has never seriously been discussed or probed, not in the state assembly, nor in parliament.
Judging by the number of days any party has devoted to a discussion on economic issues as compared with Ayodhya, Kargil, war and terrorism, the bulk of the economic reforms have been imposed on India virtually un-discussed, but not entirely without a consensus among the major political players.
Just as the Indian Constitution stands for socialism and secularism so do the political parties.
Consider the sum and substance of the speeches during the current election campaign — it is Pakistan, Ayodhya, Kashmir, terrorism, patriotism versus a few words on a coffin scandal here or a name-calling there. In Punjab, the prime minister gloats about the miracles of the green revolution, although he knows it is a partial picture and that he dare not say something so impolitic in the chronically food-short Orissa for instance. Not one political party is willing to stick its neck out on Enron.
Moody’s is threatening to revise its credit-rating, US Ambassador Robert Blackwill is issuing dire warnings of a drying up of foreign investments if India doesn’t honour its commitment to Enron. And total silence from the political class? As though all of us have been bribed to keep mum. Possible, why not? After all who finances the Indian elections? Who funds the muscle power without which you cannot get five voters safely to a polling booth?
As an American analyst has said, Enron may be more than the world’s biggest corporate disaster. It could be the world’s biggest case of corporate criminality.
Enron’s demise wasn’t due to business factors like strong competition, a shrinking market or a lagging economy. It was due to deceitful, and perhaps illegal, games played by corporate executives: diverting funds into secret partnerships, cooking the books to keep those deals secret, lying to investors and employees about the financial health of the company, while selling their own stock to make sure they wouldn’t be hurt when the whole house of cards collapsed.
Unlike thousands of employees, for example, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay isn’t crying the blues. He cashed out on $123 million worth of stock options in 2000 alone, and this year pocketed another $25 million.
Even as the company started falling apart, other executives were rewarded. Just days before filing for bankruptcy, Enron handed $55 million out to some 500 senior officials: an average $110,000 bonus for screwing up.
How much of that money was lost or made in India? There are faint murmurs of protest over some corporate culpability in India, but only just. Will there be a discussion? Is it true what the eminent economic analyst C.P Chandrasekhar says? That the Enron-led Dabhol Power Project (DPP) was an enormous blunder?
“Not only has the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) been driven to near-bankruptcy, but a shadow hangs over the completion of the $1.87 billion Phase II of the project,” said Chandrasekhar presciently some time before the Enron debacle in America.
Is it true that this failure is not just a reflection of an erroneous power policy, but an indictment of economic reform itself? That’s what Dr Chandrasekhar believes. “We must recall that the terms on which the Enron-project was launched involved the provision of a sovereign guarantee that protected the group of investors led by Enron against three adverse consequences,” he argues.
First, the likelihood that demand for power produced by it would fall short of levels warranted by the size of the project; second, the likelihood that costs could rise, as they have in the wake of frequent increases in oil prices; and third, the likelihood of a depreciation of the rupee against the dollar.
Opposition to the project stemmed from the sheer absurdity of this arrangement. A sovereign guarantee of this kind, it was argued, went against the very logic of private initiative, which presumes that private investors would make their investments based on an assessment of likely returns and the risks associated with realizing them.
This would ensure that investments are directed into activities, projects and technologies where risk-adjusted returns appeared to be the maximum. They would also ensure that the risks involved in choosing between alternative scales, technologies and fuels would be taken into account when investment decisions are made. Given that the “Enron terms”, which foreclosed such influences on the investment decision, were being given the okay by a Congress-government that had launched on a reform programme in which investment decisions were to be influenced not by state support and subsidy but by market forces, the whole exercise seemed to be suspect.
“Allegations that non-economic considerations were entering into the making of the decision and that Enron was using the opportunity to inflate capital costs and earn an even higher return were other arguments advanced against the project,” Chandrasekhar says.
That’s where the present BJP government enters the fray, beginning with its 13-day wonder. And if the BJP’s not so well-concealed alliance with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is to prove its worth as a reliable friend, it is to be proved now.
Therefore, when Mr Sinha presents his budget on February 28, be sure that the cauldron is boiling for the VHP’s March 12 deadline. That’s when the groups of sadhus have threatened to resume work on the temple to Lord Rama regardless of who wins the election in Uttar Pradesh.
For the past four years severe drought has been experienced. It was felt in all the five ecological zones of Balochistan. The adjoining areas of Iranian Balochistan and southern Afghanistan were also severely affected. Rather the adjoining regions proved to be an additional burden on the weak economy of Balochistan. Food and cattle are being smuggled out and sold constantly at higher prices in Iranian Balochistan.
The adjoining regions of southern Afghanistan are supposed to supplement the supplies of flocks, but the drought has dried up this source of flocks, forcing the prices to shoot up further. The local administration in Quetta has launched a campaign against butchers for selling mutton at a price higher than that fixed by the city government. A number of butchers were caught, fined and jailed on this count.
Mr Ismail, a butcher, says that animals are smuggled to Iran through unregistered routes and solid at more attractive prices than in Balochistan.
Before this severe drought set in, independent economists held the firm view that about half of the rural population of Balochistan lived below the poverty line. The prolonged drought has affected 20 out of 22 districts, forcing about 70 per cent of the rural population to live below the poverty line.
The world standard of poverty line is measured in this province through the average income of one US dollar a day, a family consuming 2,250 calories a day, a certain level of expenditure for sustainable living. Keeping in view all the four criteria, about 70 per cent people in rural areas are living below the poverty line.
Government efforts are yet to have an impact on the rural people. A number of countries have converted the debt burden of hundreds of millions of dollars into grant-in-aid for poverty alleviation alone. Canada alone has converted over $400 million foreign debt into grant for spending the same on social development and combating backwardness.
The United Nations Development Programme is the only international agency which is constantly trying to reduce the level of poverty in remote regions. It has launched the Area Development Programme in Balochistan (ADPB) without much inflow of real resources or investing money. But the emphasis is laid on improving the quality of life of the rural people by rendering technical and other assistance in different sectors.
The main task is to use the available resources for giving a boost to economic activities in the rural areas. It is merely transferring technology. The solar pumps, cookers and other gadgets using the sunlight are being introduced and popularized among the rural people reducing their cost and making cheaper energy resources available.
“We have succeeded to a great extent in using solar energy in Panjpai, Kharan, Chaghai, Awaran, more backward than other areas within the province,” Dr Rashid Javed told this scribe.
In recent years, the UNDP launched a programme ensuring sustainable living in urban areas in the Rawalpindi division. Now the same programme is being launched in Quetta, the city catering the needs of a large population of surrounding regions of central and northern Balochistan, besides adjacent areas of Afghanistan and Iran, the ADPB chief said.
The UNDP has confined its activities to mere eight districts, more backward than the other districts of Balochistan. The UNDP is undertaking the plan with no or minimum expenses. The main purpose is to involve the community in a valley selected. The prime object is to make the life sustainable under the present drought condition. For this, the problems are first identified and later on addressed in a planned manner, involving the communities itself.
The UNDP technocrats claimed that they were surprised to see a positive response from the people in a more conservative society in the least developed regions of Balochistan. The UNDP launched training programmes for the communities in Kingri, Sinjavi, Muslim Bagh in northern Balochistan where 60 children, including 35 girls, responded positively to what the expert wanted to teach them. The exposure to the computer and other modern gadgets was more successful, and the children expressed their desire to stay back in the training camp for a longer period than what was originally fixed, Dr Rashid Javed said.
Similar was the situation in Ornach, Khuzdar, Kalat, Sorab and other adjoining areas of central Balochistan where children and youth wanted to break the vicious circle of backwardness and poverty, he added.
The Area Development Programme is providing assistance in different sectors, including agriculture, livestock, environment, forest, range management, drainage, bacteria-free drinking water supply, education, health, crop selection and social services in general.
The UNDP provided equipment to the local met office in regard to geographic information system, making correct and error-free forecast about weather. The advanced information system can make prediction about rain and drought for the next 15 years, a UNDP technocrat told this correspondent. It is very useful in combating drought and planning vegetation, the ADPB chief said.
The main tool for area development is the manpower training, introducing new and compatible technology having deep linkages with reduction of poverty under the plan.
The ADPB is putting a greater emphasis on programmes to combat drought and make life sustainable for the communities in remote regions. Under the Vegetation Management Project, 400 acres were cultivated and brought under forest in Ornach in central Balochistan. The ADPB merely provided a tractor, helped the community to dig ditches and planted saplings converting the area into a lush green forest.
The United Nations is helping the government of Balochistan in different fields also. The people in remote areas feel the real impact under the poverty reduction and sustainable living programmes.
In the first place, be it noted that the Governor himself is at the apex of the pyramid alluded to as “authorities.” He and the “authorities” are inseparable. As the poet said...
Khud kooza o khud koozagar o khud gill-e-kooza
(Himself the cup, the cup-maker and the cup’s clay)
This crime, now more of big-time commerce than crime, is not new. The people of Karachi have been made to live with it for some years. In the process, the people of this city have been robbed of billions of rupees. The robbers are richer by the billions that Karachi has lost. Somebody, may be the Governor himself, has to tell the citizens whether until now the “authorities” did not consider taking this daylight plunder with the seriousness now being bestowed upon it?
Putting plain clothed police, backed by intelligence sleuths, is not a very novel kind of strategy or device. We have had police in plain clothes since the Arabian Nights tales were written. If this two-pronged strategy is what was needed, why the “authorities” had to wait all these years to think of it? ‘Khufia Police,’ the gentlemen in plain clothes, or the invisible eyes of the “authorities,” have always been very much a part of the establishment. And not always so invisible, either.
It would appear that with the emphasis on plain-clothed police and intelligence, what has been decided now is to add an element of sophistication. Happily, we have a very high level of sophistication already in the facilities available with the CPLC. Recently, a highly refined central control device of car-tracking has been deployed at the CPLC establishment. Motor-car owners can buy the needed gadget from the market. Anyone who can afford a brand new five-seater motor car should be able to afford this accessory, too.
The amusing side to this rather unamusing affair is that the “authorities” give the impression as if they are looking for a needle lost in a haystack. Karachi’s thoroughfares, from where these motor cars and motorcycles are lifted, are always full of traffic. Indeed, they are usually too full to permit comfortable driving. The supreme ease with which the thieves manage to vanish with their prize must be seen as magic or miracle.
One can understand difficulty in tracing stolen paper currency, or even gold ornaments or diamonds or, as some might add, stolen kisses. But motor cycles cannot be stolen favours. Surely not five-seater sedans. One is reminded of the wonder in the old saying “hauda hazir, hathi ghaib.”
This means the saddle is there, the elephant has vanished. In Karachi there is nothing surprising in a bandit putting the gun the a driver’s head and grabbing the car key.
Now, visualize a thief having succeeded in securing the possession of the car with its ignition key and getting into the driving seat. The real action comes after this bit — driving it away without the least let or hindrance from anyone. And driving it all the way to the market where it will be converted into cash, and turned into a vehicle with its identity altered beyond easy recognition. For all you know, the market may be at the other end of our Islamic republic.
All this would take a bit of doing. If the “authorities” have a normal pair of eyes and those eyes are open, it should be possible see the gallant bandit, gun in hand. Then there is the drama: the bandit getting hold, possession and control of the car of his choice. Finally, the crowning act: making the escape good with the vehicle, without a scratch on the car or on the hero of this theatre. It is great action. Readers give the bandit a big hand.
Those who are in this game are no believers in art for art’s sake. All of this is money at the end of the day. It is mighty big money, too. More than half a million per piece. This commerce must have a market. And the big market, where these stolen Karachi vehicles are headed, must have ‘a habitation and a name,’ so to say. Are we to believe that our intelligence wizards, now being called in, do not have the faintest clue to this well established, deep-rooted, money spinning commerce? It is by now an almost age-old feature of the daily life in Karachi.
A normal human being in Karachi finds it a little hard to believe that this totally risk-free enterprise of vehicle lifting is as innocent an affair as it is made out to be. Quite as difficult it is to be convinced that nobody knows where the car thieves come from and where they go to with their booty to live happily ever after. There is of course no harm in pressing the intelligence experts into service. But how is one to get rid of the gnawing feeling that the car thieves cannot, entirely on their own, pull off this grand slams of making the “authorities” look so helpless and clueless as they have looked all this long while.
Now that the Governor has been pleased to take notice of this crime and, in a manner of speaking, put the “authorities” on notice, one should expect some results quickly. What can an amateur citizen say except that for every good intention, there would be nothing but good wishes. Good luck Guv and Godspeed to the police in plain clothes and the intelligence hawks in the rear.
MANY people I know, myself included, are often in the habit of complaining and whining all the time. A lot of this complaining is directed at government departments — who can blame you for doing that — like the traffic licence office, the passport or ID card office or KESC and PTCL. However, the most popular one seems to be PIA. The national airline has seen as many chiefs as the country has seen governments in the past few years.
It’s management — this and the ones before it — have made all sorts of claims, most of which have proven patently false. Some time back it asked the government for a cash injection of several billion rupees but the finance ministry politely refused that request. The main problem — before I go ahead and give the ‘credit’ that is due — is that it’s usually next to impossible to book a seat. The reason for that it is almost impossible to get through to the reservations number at 111-786-786. I have tried several times in past weeks and wasn’t able to get through to anyone despite having been on the phone for sometimes up to an hour.
The other problem is that even when you do manage to get through, and want to book a flight, say, two weeks in advance, you will more often than not be told that your seat is on ‘chance’ or ‘request’. Understandably, you will try and pull all kinds of strings and eventually get it confirmed two days before departure, only to find that when you board the plane it is half empty. Now why does that happen, can someone in PIA please tell me, because it tells travellers that something is terribly wrong with the airline’s reservations system.
Having said that, I must confess that the airline’s service seems to have drastically improved of late. I had to go to Lahore for a couple of days and on both flights the level of service was excellent. People sitting in economy were given unlimited drinks and even extra meals if they wanted to. Water was served before the flight took off, and in both cases this happened right on time. There were more than enough newspapers for most passengers, and the steward promptly responded to requests for, say, a tissue or an extra pillow. Even the in-flight magazine, Humsafar, had an interesting article on surfing possibilities off the Mekran coast — something that I haven’t seen even in the mainstream print media here.
Some of you must be wondering why would I be wasting valuable column space to praise what many believe to be a true white elephant. Or why should I say ‘excellent’ when someone is simply doing their job?
But then again, what’s the harm in praising something good since encouragement never hurt anyone.
“No one does haircuts better than Bombaywala,” say all those who go to the barber shop where he works. So what if the man is over 80 years old and almost if not totally blind? His employers have yet to receive a single complaint about his work.
In fact, clients demand he do their hair and are willing to wait for hours for the maestro and his expert fingers to snip away to perfection. That Bombaywala continuously talks while going about his work is an added bonus for the man has many stories to tell. Stories about himself and how he was dumped by all his dozen, or so, wives and so on.
A deeply romantic soul, Bombaywala had only believed in love marriage. He first fell in love with a woman in Bombay, and after a quick conversion and wedding, brought his sweetheart home to Karachi. Those were pre-Partition days and soon after 1947, the woman eloped with a Hindu neighbour who was heading back to her native city. This, he says, was his second ‘heartbreak’. The first is the going away of the English who apparently used to tip him quite well.
In the years to come this ‘Angrezon ke zamane ka barber’ fell in love many more times and got married too but sadly each and every one of his wives dumped him or ran away with someone. What could be the reason, someone asked him.
“Well,” Bombaywala explains, “there is bewafai in Karachi’s water.”
That’s why all those women left him and that is why all those gora sahibs, whose fathers or grandfathers tell them about Bombaywala and his magical fingers, cannot come here to have their hair cut by him. “They are afraid they’d get sick because of our water.” But why did the women leave him and what’s the connection to water?
Apparently, so the people who visit him say, he doesn’t drink too much of this city’s water, preferring instead to drink a liquid of another kind, the one that makes all your worries and sorrows go away.
A colleague, a woman herself, at work felt the need recently to comment on the many forms of purdah prevalent in Karachi. Like in Egypt or Iran, dressing this way does not mean that you can’t be fashionable. For example, chadors or burqas these days can come in a variety of colours and shapes although in Afghanistan they only have shades of blue.
There are those who wear a sheath of black from head to toe. Only the eyes are visible to the outside world. Black gloves cover the hands and socks the feet. Of course, the colleague says, the eyes are usually heavily made up so the message being given out could be one of confusion.
Another category available to those who want to dress this way does away with the facial covering, sticking to the more formless cloak with a tight scarf that goes around the face.
Apparently, activists of a well-known religious party have their own chador which they sell after their lectures. And anyone who’s driven by Gulf just past the Teen Talwar roundabout will see on any given day many women dressed this way, with books and all, coming out of Farhat Hashmi’s institute.
There are also the young girls who wear a headscarf with Western clothing, not to mention the born-again aunties who seem to have suddenly undergone a radical self-discovery. The colleague says she doesn’t mean to frown on this kind of attire — after all who are we to judge anyone — but the overall message does seem confusing. Does modesty and adherence to religious principles lie merely in dressing this way, she asks. It’s funny the ways we try to deceive ourselves and others, yards of cloth won’t hide what’s within.
General Musharraf recently invited students from all over the country to Islamabad for giving them cash prizes in recognition of superior academic achievement. The monetary awards ranged from Rs 50,000 to Rs 200,000 with the president telling all of them that his government was working towards establishing a society where merit would be the sole criterion for achievement or recognition.
However, a position holder from Karachi, Muniba Zafar, seems to have been left out of the president’s recognition ceremony in Islamabad. Ms Zafar, who secured first position in the 2000 SSC examination, was understandably quite upset upon finding that she had been left out for no fault of her, and especially after doing so well academically.
In all probability, this must have happened because some low-level bureaucrat or section officer in the education department did not do his job properly and forgot to forward her name. So what sort of message do people like Ms Zafar get, especially when they see the country’s president proclaim loudly that we should all work towards building a society where everything is done on merit? — By Karachian
NEWS report:
“ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: The government has, in principle, decided to withdraw the condition of graduation for the candidates of national and provincial assemblies...
“.... but NRB think tanks engaged in hammering out a package of constitutional reforms are still not clear whether it should be brought down to intermediate or matriculation or waived altogether....”
I always knew that something like this was always on the cards. I am, therefore, reminded of a page from the Laila-Majnun romance.
You see, Laila’s mother always had a soft corner for Majnun. But she also had Laila’s good at heart. One day, she decided to put Majnun’s love for Laila to the test. So she called him and quoth thus: “Look here, son. If you graduate, I will at once give Laila’s hand in marriage to you.”
Majnun scratched his head and thought hard. Getting a BA degree was next to impossible, he thought. Finally, he sighed resignedly and told Laila’s Mom: “Look here Ma, if this is the precondition for Laila’s hand, then in much despair and with great sorrow, I withdraw my candidature for marrying her. Why, if I could graduate, I would go to Pakistan and contest a National Assembly seat there! So, Mom, fare thoe well. It is easier by far to dig a canal in which milk and honey flow than to graduate.” So saying, Majnun, completely crestfallen, went into the wood close by and spent the rest of his days in great misery.
Question: Is President Musharraf Laila’s mother? If your answer is ‘yes’, then the general is a genius. But if you come up with a negative response, you obviously haven’t read Akbar Allahbadi.
I read somewhere in a biography of Max Perkin, the great American editor: “I do wish he did not look as if he had been weaned on a pickle. And then Harding who “was not a bad man. He was just a slob.”
The following few lines might be of some interest to you:
I ain’t got no use for the women,
Not ladies nor gals of the town.
They will use a man for his money
And laugh in his face when he’s down.
ITEM
“ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: The National Reconstruction Bureau has proposed key changes in the Constitution, envisaging an increase in the number of provinces to 26 by upgrading the status of (administrative) divisions.”
But why confine ourselves to divisions? Why not have a province in every district? We can thus have a hundred-plus governors, a hundred-plus chief ministers, chief secretaries, inspectors-general of police and provincial assemblies and what have you. And not one district government will ever be able to dislodge the president. District-provinces or provincial districts will usher in an era of great political stability and economic prosperity. In five years time, the rupee will fall to the level of the Afghani and my salary will be Rs100 million a month. I tell you if the newspaper (Dawn) report is reliable, I’ll become a car-dealer and sell the smallest Suzuki available for Rs99 million.
But if we turn our divisions into provinces, we’ll have nine inter-provincial squabble in the Punjab alone.
THERE was a recent report to say that the galleries in the Punjab Assembly would be demolished to make room for the additional seats required under the proposed enlarged membership of the assembly. Then came the story that no new assembly hall was being planned. But, as a friend suggests, why not have a farshi house with all MPAs sitting on a well-carpeted floor, Gau-takias and all? Not a bad idea. Let’s give it a try.
COMMENTING on the researched piece I did on Ashok Kumar, on December 17 last, Sheikh Muhammad Aslam from whose letter I had quoted last week also had things to say about the legendary matinee idol of the Indian Cinema. Sheikh Sahib wrote
“... No doubt, the movie, Kismet, was a super hit which ran for over a year. Ashok Kumar played the role of an anti-hero.
“I also saw the film many times — just because of one scene which left a lasting impact on me. Mumtaz Shanti — a romantic and fascinating name — was a dancing girl in a theatre. Ashok Kumar and Mumtaz Shanti were in love and the former regularly visited the theatre to watch her perform.
“Ashok was a wanted man. A trap had been laid to capture him at the theatre. However, Ashok was determined to watch her perform... despite tight security in and around the hall. Then suddenly, Mumtaz Shanti’s steps became normal and she began to dance perfectly with her eyes fixed on one of the balconies.
“Ashok Kumar had dodged all security with a perfect disguise. It was an electrifying moment for the audience who went wild with joy, boisterously clapping and thumping the seats.
“That scene is etched vividly in my mind. I went to watch it again and again. Perhaps there were others like me, too. Though Ashok Kumar had an ordinary face with his jaws jutting out, he dominated the Indian cinema for decades with great success. I wish you had said something about Mumtaz Shanti but then perhaps you may not have watched Kismet.” Regrettably, I never saw Mumtaz Shanti perform or if I did I must have been too young to remember personal performances. All I remember is that as young boys we used to sing Shanti, Shanti, Kaha nahin manti! But to remind you once again, Sheikh Muhammad Aslam Sahib lives in Faisalabad from where he writes to me from time to time and right glad I am whenever I receive a letter from him. It is good to know that someone can communicate with you from that city where otherwise I have no friends or relations.
SOMETIMES one tends to miss the obvious while selecting a book from the shelf.
This is precisely what I did last week. The one that caught my fancy was M. Siddiq Kalim’s Studies in Education. I should have noted that the preface to the book was written in Lahore on June 12, 1991 — more than 10 years ago. Again, I failed to note that the book was first published in 1993.
Now, anyone reserves the right to write on any book at any time. Otherwise, people would not be writing on Ghalib and Iqbal and Saadat Hasan Manto any more. It appears, however, that Prof Siddiq Kalim Sahib has decided to select those who are permitted to write on him as and when he so desires. Anyhow, like the lady who ran a cathouse in the United States, To confess I am not Ashamed (title of the autobiographical book she wrote on her retirement). So I confess that I made a bloody jackass of myself. But, unlike the professor’s “young men and women”, I am not, “healthy, intelligent and vivacious”. I undertake never again to write on the venerable professor. For my earlier impertinence, a thousand apologies.
RIAZ Ahmad Saghar writes small political poems for the Nawa-i-Waqt. On Feb 5, he wrote the following lines:
Hum nahin kehte siasat chorr doa
Hum toa kehte hein sayahat chorr doa
Chorr doa hum ko hamare haal pur
Mut karo hum se mohabbat chorr doa
Kya khabar dil mein hukoomat ki heh kya
Abb tamanna-i-Zamanat chorr doa
Haal-i-Zardari heh sub ke samne
Mat karo uski wakalat chorr doa
Khul kar aa jao ub apni aiee pur
Chorr doa rasm-i-murrawat chorr doa
Mashwara heh tum ko Saghar ka yehi
Ghair mulki har sahoolat chorr do. As they say in Persian, Naql-i-kufr kufr nabashad.
WITH only eight months to go before power is transferred(?) to an elected parliament, the power wielders of today are finding it increasingly difficult to visualize a post-October government that would not go the way the governments of Junejo, Benazir and Nawaz went, notwithstanding all the so-called reforms that they believe they have successfully implemented, the foremost of them being the local governments. But this is nothing unusual at least in Pakistan. When the time comes for the military governments to go back to the barracks, they find to consternation that not only they have not been able to completely reform the society but the elements, which seem about to replace them in the corridors of power through a fair and free election process, are not at all unfit for the job. In fact they come to the sad conclusion that the people of Pakistan themselves had not yet acquired the sagacity and wisdom to elect people who would be able to govern the country as sagaciously and as wisely as the military leaders had done. That is when they start thinking of saving the country from its own people by tinkering with the elections. To justify what they are about to do they start asking: “What is more important? Pakistan or the kind of government it should have?” Naturally, every one would say Pakistan was more important than anything else ignoring the fact that the greatest danger to this country is being posed by military dictatorships no matter how democratic and how benign. But this threat to its very existence from military dictatorships is attempted to camouflaged by kicking a lot of dust about what the previous democratic governments had done to this country. This untruth is repeated so many times that it starts sounding like the very truth to even people with proven faculty to discern the truth from falsehood. And once the concocted ‘truth’ is established here and abroad, it then becomes very easy to talk about putting together a democracy which would suit the genius of our people and also of the realization that God Himself has chosen the present rulers to rule this country and the nation is, therefore, advised to have no doubts about the abilities of such a ruler to deliver. Have confidence in me, don’t ask me unnecessary questions, the nation is told with the straight face.
The fact that this country itself came into being as a result of a democratic exercise has never been a point of inspiration for our military dictators. Nor have they ever been inspired by Quaid-i-Azam’s own democratic vision for this country. In fact at times these military dictators have used even Islam to justify their rule. But even this justification appears totally self-serving in the light of the following excerpts reproduced here from an article (Governing under Islam and the Islamic political system) by Murad Wilfried (American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. Summer 2001, No.3).
“The state of Madinah was a federal republic, not a monarchy. Muhammad (PBUH) had declined the crown offered to him by his Makkan adversaries, and he never tolerated being treated like an Arab king. Indeed, he made no effort to play power into the hands of one of his daughters, including Fatima. This is remarkable because there were no other republics in existence at the time. There were only monarchs in sight, like the emperors of Byzantium and of Persia and the king of Ethiopia. In addition, the Quran has nothing flattering to say about monarchs. In spite of being Allah’s Messenger, Muhammad (PBUH) did not run his community like an autocrat. On the contrary, he observed the Quranic command of consultation (Shura) as embodied in 2:233, 3:159 and 42:38. At least in one incident the prophetic Sunnah indicates that decisions reached through consultation are binding: before the fateful battle of Uhud on 23 March 625, the Prophet (PBUH) had wisely counselled against giving open battle. He rightly believed that the Muslims could oppose Makkan numerical superiority better in door-to-door street fighting. During Shura he did not prevail because a majority of the Muslims, eager to show their prowess, voted for giving battle from the slopes of Mount Uhud. The Prophet (PBUH) consented against his better judgment, and we know the rest. So it may be concluded that consultation is both obligatory and binding. When dictating the constitution of al-Madinnah the Prophet (PBUH) took into account that its population was composed of different tribes, and of tribes of different religions. Thus, he created a confederation. We can conclude that an Islamic state need not, and should not be centralized. Moving to the Golden Period, one is struck, above all, by the unique fact that the first four caliphs were elected. This is remarkable because, at that time, no other head of state had been elected. The Muslims innovated politically. True, the electorate was limited, and the procedure followed differed in each case. However, in Abu Bakr’s and Utmann’s cases, there was competition between different candidates and discussion of their merits. No doubt, the modern principle of government by popular election can be based on these early precedents. The caliphs left another precious legacy, implemented vigorously by at least ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab and Ali ibn Ali Talib: the rule of law. Consequently, judges could rule against the caliph, and did. When a judge of the name Shuraih rose from his seat because Ali entered, the caliph told him: “This is your first injustice!” This attitude was astounding because, at the time, no other ruler worldwide considered himself bound by the legal order — but rather above it.” —Onlooker
Khwab Kahani is a book of what the Doc himself calls, rather indulgently, shagufta prose, which it is without doubt, that you read on and on journeying through the maze of his thought that quite too often he embellishes with appropriate couplets and authenticates with dates adding pieces of information to your knowledge culled from a bewildering variety of sources until you put the book aside and start wondering. Dr Khaliq knows much having learned much but he is not exactly someone you would compare to Maugham’s Mr Know All, though the good man that he is, and always has been, does bring to mind that far resemblance.
I remember him from his days at Gordon College when he was probably the only male student whom the college management — the frail and austere Miss Khan — and the parents could trust enough to allow him to escort home some girls of the medical group who came from his neighbourhood, Mohanpura probably. The retention span of this memory can serve as a measure of the deep green envy this singular preference of the fair sex must have caused at that time.
There never was any doubt about his capability as a student of medical science. A physician it was certain he would become, a gynaecologist most probably, but never a politician or ever a writer of shagufta mazameen. But Dr Khaliq has proved us all very wrong. He has turned out to be smarter than we thought. Entering politics when politics was game and quitting it before the goal post became the gallows is the kind of timing the more known among politicians of that period have demonstrated without losing face. Also, he is more cosmopolitan than provincial that most of us who went to school with him thought him to be. A much travelled man across the continents he has made the most of his time, reading voraciously, learning languages and subjects as far apart as Hanson’s economics and pre-Islamic Arab poetry while keeping abreast with trivia like who married Mussarrat Nazir and who senator Nargis Kiyani was and how his name caused gender confusion. This vast and varied terrain of knowledge furnishes him with the kind of uncontainable abundance that he must share with his reader. What adds to the readability of his material is its natural, unassuming flow, unimpeded by supercilious sophistication and intellectual snobberies, as the express train of his anecdotes whistles past making whimsical stops at junctions of his ready memory.
The discourse on Aab-i-Zamzam reveals little known facts about the cubic architecture of the Ka’aba Sharif; in Autograph you get a glimpse of Faiz Sahib’s shyness in Lata Mangeshkar’s presence; in Ankhen Khuljana you learn that President Musharraf cannot read Urdu in small print and that both Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Begum Abida Hussain have blinkered their vision with contact lenses; in Adab aur Adeeb the economics of literary pursuits is explained as a zero sum game. The essay on Bulbul is very amusing but I am afraid Khaliq may be confusing the nightingale with the cuckoo. Moreover I have never noticed a Bulbul (the bird with the red spot under its tail) suck nectar from a rose. In the section on dreams he discusses Alice in Wonderland, Finnegan’s Wake, surrealism as well as the dreams of Prophets, of Nebuchadnezzar, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, Bismarck, Shiekh Noor Mohammad (Allama Iqbal’s father) and that of Justice Nusrat who foresaw General Zia’s end. There is much, much else to list and Khaliq has miles to go and promises to keep.
Akhbar-i-Urdu’s software number: The Urdu script, which was once considered to be the biggest hurdle in the efforts to universalize the national language, has now become a handy tool for most if not all purposes that the use of English alone could achieve. This has all come about in a matter of just two decades thanks to the pioneering efforts of men like Ahmad Mirza Jamil, Tahir Mufti, Tafseer Ahmad and the key supporting and guiding role of the Muqtadera, the National Language Authority, that has had the unique privilege of having remained for a long period within safe distance of the bureaucracy which, fortunately for all of us, considers the subject beneath its status and attention as also probably unproductive. The fascinating story of this success, Urdu’s entry in the cyberspace, can be read in the special issue of Akhbar-i-Urdu that has just come out.
Developments in the field of Urdu software have been highlighted in interviews with Ahmad Mirza Jamil, the inventor of Nuri Nastaliq and Tafseer Ahmad, the inventor of the translator, in addition to informative articles on standardization of the ‘Urdu Code Plate’, ‘Urdu Code Page’, important softwares like ‘Urdu Mahir’ which enables the use of the windows programme, and the ‘Kutab Navees’ system for library computerization, besides advance Urdu is making in information technology, proliferation of Urdu websites, and computer terminology.
The establishment of the Urdu IT Division in the Muqtadera and its reorganization with a view to facilitating work on the script, spelling and voice use as well as exploiting developments in IT and telecommunication is a major development. Its objectives are to provide software instruments and standards for the ‘Urdu Code Plate’, ‘Keyboard’ and accessories, develop Urdu’s usability in offices, preserving the cultural heritage associated with Urdu, providing facilities for development of required hard and soft wares and research in the technical fields of the language. The division is being headed honorarily by Saeed Ahmad, the director of Pakistan Computer Bureau. He has been associated with Muqtadera’s work as a member of its committee on Urdu Code Plate and sub-committee on Unicode.
This special issue of the Akhbar is dedicated to Dr Masooma Hassan, the former cabinet secretary, whose active support and personal interest in these projects was a key factor in their success.