AS the election planned for October draws nearer, the government should give a serious thought to the creation of a federal structure in which the provinces should be given their rightful place in a true federation. The importance of this should not be minimized and the history of these provinces as well as their experience of the last fifty years should not be ignored.

Of the four provinces of Pakistan, Balochistan has a special geographical and historical position. Because of its location, it has been isolated culturally, socially and economically from the areas that constitute Pakistan today. Its location and history give it a distinctive character and position, an understanding of which is essential for a realistic appreciation of the federal character of the state.

Punjab, even when it was not the largest province of Pakistan, enjoyed power and influence far more than its size and number would have justified. The fact that the armed forces were largely from this province and that they had begun to exercise political power further reduced the political influences of the other provinces including the majority province of East Pakistan. Of the four remaining provinces of Pakistan, each has a distinctive character.

The 50 years of Pakistan have to some extent changed the situation and the NWFP and Punjab have come closer economically and politically. This inter-action is greater between these two provinces than that between Punjab and Sindh or between Punjab and Balochistan. In fact, the sense of alienation could be said to be greater between Punjab and the other two provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. Each has its own history and culture and deserves an understanding of its historical background and political individuality.

With an area of 134,000 square miles, roughly about 40 per cent of the total area of the country, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces. Its area and population is comparable to that of Norway. It is known to have unexplored mineral resources of copper, fluorite, limestone and oil. It is estimated that gold deposits in Balochistan exceed the value of 12 billion dollars and the proven iron-ore deposits are in excess of 23 million tonnes.

It has the reserves to expand considerably its existing production of natural gas, coal, limestone, magnelite, marble, sulphur and barite. Balochistan has a coastline of 750 miles and its port of Gwadar, which because of Chinese help in its development, has acquired greater importance, is barely some 250 miles from the Straits of Hormuz the focal point in the oil route from the Persian Gulf to western Europe and the East. Its frontiers in the north and west, border on Afghanistan and Iran, which have Baloch populations of 100,000 and 1,000,000 respectively.

The province of Balochistan has three broad ethnic groups, which differ racially and linguistically. The Pakhtuns who are about a third of the population, are racially and linguistically akin to the people of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and eastern Afghanistan. The Punjabi settlers who are of relatively recent domicile, number less than 5 per cent of the population of the province. Both the Pakhtuns and the Punjabis are relatively more prosperous than the Baloch and have proportionately greater representation in lucrative jobs in Balochistan.

The Baloch are a collection of some five hundred tribes and clans who have lived in these parts for almost 2000 years. There are various theories about their origin. The one which is widely held is that they were living in the southern coast of the Caspian at the time of Christ. There is evidence to suggest that the Balochi language is derived from a lost language, which flourished in the Caspian area in the pre-Christ era. It is closely related to the Kurdish language in the area south of the Caspian at the conflux of Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Another theory of relatively recent origin is that they are of Semitic origin and came from Aleppo in present day Syria.

Except for relatively brief periods in their history, the Baloch tribes have not been united in one national entity; the process having been rendered difficult by the unusually inhospitable terrain and vast distances separating sparsely populated centres of population. Mir Chakar Khan Rind with his capital at Sibi, ruled over a Baloch tribal confederacy from 1487 until his death in 1511.

Subsequently, the tribes of Balochistan, though they managed to preserve their independence from India’s Moghul rulers’ attempts to subdue them, remained disunited until a century and a half later, when the Ahmadzai tribe established the Kalat confederacy in 1666. It remained a loosely knit confederacy until Nasir Khan, the Sixth Khan of Kalat, who ruled for 50 years in the eighteenth century, formed effective bureaucratic administrative machinery and unified army.

The boundaries of Nasir Khan’s confederacy spilled over into the southern districts of Afghanistan and Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab and parts of present-day Sindh. Nasir Khan paid tributes to the Persian emperor Nadir Shah until the latter’s death in 1747 and then to Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan for eleven years. In 1758, Nasir Khan, after fighting against Ahmad Shah’s forces, established his independence which he and his successors were able to maintain until the arrival of the British in the sub-continent. Between 1805, when Nasir Khan died, and 1876 when the British succeeded in obtaining treaty rights to station troops in Kalat, the Baloch confederacy assumed special importance in the Big Game between Czarist Russia and the British. The British lost no time in establishing themselves in Balochistan after 1876, divided it into a centrally administered area, a reduced Kalat confederacy and smaller principalities with sardars owing allegiance directly to the British Raj through the British agent in Balochistan. The Khan of Kalat, the descendant of Nasir Khan, had special treaty rights with the British government.

When it was decided to partition India, the last ruler of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Khan opted for an independent Balochistan and in 1946 submitted a memorandum to the British Government, which had pledged to “respect the sovereignty and independence of Kalat’. The matter was not resolved by the British to the Khan’s satisfaction and on August 15, 1947, the day after Pakistan emerged on the political map, the Khan of Kalat declared the independence of his state and formed lower and upper houses of the Kalat Assembly.

In the first meeting of the Lower House, in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of Kalat, though it favoured an alliance on terms of equality with Pakistan. Amongst those who, in this meeting of the Kalat Assembly spoke in clear terms about the justification for an independent Balochistan was Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, who later became a leader of the National Awami Party and also the Governor of Balochistan for a short period. On April 1, 1948, the Pakistan Army moved into Kalat, forced the Khan to sign an instrument of accession and ended the 225 days’ independence of the Kalat confederacy formed by Mir Ahmad Khan’s ancestors almost 300 years earlier.

Although the flag of revolt was kept aloft by Mir Ahmad Khan’s brother Mir Abdul Karim who moved into Afghanistan, there was no significant military activity in Balochistan for the next ten years. During this period the formation of One Unit uniting West Pakistan including Balochistan into one province in 1955, created resentment and unrest in Kalat and the political circles of Balochistan.

The Khan of Kalat became active in demanding the dissolution of One Unit and with the help of the sardars, organized an agitation against the central government. On October 6, 1958, only a day before Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan overthrew the civilian government of Feroze Khan Noon, the Khan of Kalat was arrested by the army, as were also a large number of other Baloch leaders. From 1958 for about a decade, military action in Balochistan continued until General Yahya Khan dissolved One Unit and set the stage for the 1970 general elections.

PRESIDENT Musharraf has recently reiterated that general elections will be held in October this year. He elaborated that ‘a finely tuned’ real democracy will be ushered in with proper ‘checks and balances’.

He said: “I would ensure the continuity and sustainability of reforms and the restructuring done so far, by my government”. He termed his reforms as a ‘silent revolution’ in the country. Bold words!

The world has changed beyond recognition during the last couple of years, fair has become foul and foul has become fair. Hopefully, the elections will not be partyless as the age of Zia-ul-Haq is resting in history.

The modalities are yet to be announced, but there are indications that political parties, however truncated will be playing a role in the envisaged general elections. Only time will show whether the political elements have learnt from their past mistakes, and will use the opportunity coming their way, to lay the foundation of a consolidated, self-propelled democratic process in the country, or they will be content with enjoying the limelight for a moment or two and then throw back the ball to those from whom they had received it.

The question is not of the futility of a new round of musical chairs. Civil society in Pakistan is no more in a position to take a further beating. It is already subsisting on less than 5% of its annual income. Only the meaningful restoration of democracy can save Pakistan from becoming a failed state.

Leaving generalizations for the moment let us focus on the issue that generates tensions in the lives of the common people almost every day. Jihadis may have been banned but they have not disappeared. Newspapers have screaming headlines about target killing, sectarian violence and crimes of bigotry which force people to think of migrating to peaceful societies.

The military government, para-military forces, police, rangers and intelligence agencies seem helpless in checking this threat to the lives of the common people. Not that the agencies are slack. They are reservoirs of vast administrative expertise. But the situation they are dealing with is not an administrative problem. It is an issue of good governance. Poverty, un-employment, illiteracy and the absence of welfarism are all there and should be addressed. But security of life and property has precedence over everything else.

The basic element of good governance is the voluntary cooperation of the people with the government of their choice. The ‘silent majority’ is the majority that has lost the gusto of life and is muted with fear. In democracies, administrative methods are mere aids to political handling.

It is the substance of democracy and not the ‘label’ that people crave for. Labelling spurious drugs is a crime. Remember Orwell’s ‘double talk’? It is therefore natural that good governance and social stability is found in countries that have representative institutions. With the elections due in Pakistan, political parties will be responsive to the aspirations of the people.

Let us shed a tear for those who have lost their lives in vain and pray that the October elections usher in a genuinely vocal democratic revolution. People will then dream of their own country and will not be impatient to escape to foreign lands.

The question still remains what will be the substance of their dream? What is our inspiring national objective? Rule by consent is a sort of team work, a symphony, in which every element while fulfilling its functions, is bound together by a common objective. The American objective seems to be countering terrorism world-wide. The Indians are striving for a great nation status, the Afghans have taken on the task of national reconstruction. What is Pakistan’s national objective at the moment?

Some people want to reverse the U-turn. They are nostalgic about the old Taliban rule and want it back. They oppose the present government not because they have suddenly become democratic but because they wait to restore the traditional power and pelf of the ‘mimber’(platform). Others are touchy about nuclear resources. Pakistan acquired nuclear capacity for the simple reason that India acquired it. This costly and dangerous log is of no use either to India or to Pakistan.

Still others insist that ‘Kashmir cause’ is Pakistan’s ‘core’ issue. Pakistan certainly supports the Kashmiris in their struggle for their rights. But the Kashmir cause is the core issue for the Kashmiris while Pakistan gives them fraternal support. Pakistan’s core issue should be related to Pakistan and not to some fraternal cause.

Pakistan rightly shuns the war option. So what remains is a dialogue. But a dialogue requires sympathy and understanding. What then is our national objective? It is something to be discovered in our polity and not invented. It is for political parties to formulate a forward-looking national objective which has a universal appeal.

May I suggest that it should be the supremacy of civil society. This restoration of civil society is a precondition for the formulation of any other inspiring socio-economic objective. Glasnost should be practised. The people, as masters, should know what the government is doing or planning. If the country is to develop, foreign loans are inevitable but a representative public accounts committee should monitor that every borrowed penny is used productively.

Civil society can be in command only if democratic norms are followed. These norms in short are: the rule of law, sanctity of the Constitution and supremacy of legislature / parliament. They provide the level-playing ground for all political elements and provide for the constitutional induction of a fresh government when the earlier one has completed its tenure. People in this country have been electing governments but others have been dismissing them in mid-term. No government was allowed to complete its term.

Our last issue is legitimacy. There can be the problem of the legitimacy of the state or legitimacy of the government. Pakistan’s state legitimacy is not in dispute. But this cannot be said about its government. Afghanistan has recently acquired a legitimate government, its state was never in dispute. The internal factor is that the people of this country have not elected their government. As a corollary, foreign governments are also lukewarm about it. The British Commonwealth has refused Pakistan’s entry.

The October elections will not solve all problems, but it can throw up a government that is accepted abroad as it is accepted within. Political parties thus have a grave responsibility. They have to bring the country back to the democratic rails and inspire the masses with a clear-cut national objective.

IN modern states with strong trade unions there is a clear co-relation between prices and wages. When prices soar wages are given a rise so that the workers do not suffer. Large disparities in this area are not good for the economy. Lower wages mean a fall in consumption which leads to lower production.

But in Pakistan the trade union movement is weak and disorganised. And the minority of organised workers prefer eventually gheraoing their employers and get them to meet their demands to agitating for the large cause of the workers as a whole or protesting against inflation when that is excessive or when essential goods are heavily taxed. As a result the masses suffer while the organized and assertive workers are rather better off.

So the government does not hesitate to adopt measures which aim at increasing its revenues but hurt the people excessively. Nor does the World Bank and IMF hesitate to pressure the government for adopting such steps to increase the revenues. None of them fear the political fall-out of such steps in Pakistan.

Now world prices have fallen, and both industrial products and food items cost 30 per cent less than they did in 1995, and our textile exports fetch 20 per cent less than they did earlier. And the falling rupee has become steady around 60 rupees to a dollar instead of racing towards 70 to a dollar and that makes imports cheaper in rupee terms. But the people are not benefiting by this dual blessing. Instead the prices of essential goods and services are going up one after another.

And that is the outcome of the official action in bringing more and more goods and services under the 15 per cent general sales tax, if not more. In a country with no social security, where medicines are too expensive because of the heavy devaluation of the rupee the government has now brought medicines under the 15 per cent GST. We are told it would get Rs 4 billion through this levy and that would be spent on the people through improved medical services. Even if the collection will be only Rs 4 billion there will be a collection charge, and if the net is spent on the people that amount finally will be minus the common cost of corruption in the medical services, mismanagement and waste of funds and medicines. So the people who will pay Rs 4 billion will get very little in return in reality, as is common in all such official initiatives.

The chairman of the Central Board of Revenue Riaz Ahmed Malik says the people will not be paying 15 per cent more on the 821 drugs under price control and 26,000 which are not controlled, but pay only 11 per cent more as there is a hidden sales tax of 4 to 5 per cent on the inputs of drug manufacturing now. But the association of pharmacists say drug prices may eventually go up by 30 per cent or more.

The government is also reported to have allowed a rise of 3 per cent to make up for the higher cost of production. That means the 15 per cent rise in GST would be above this 3 per cent.

But we should pressure that following the stabilisation of the rupee around 60 to a dollar from Rs 64.50 in October last, medicines should be becoming cheaper. Instead are they to go up by 18 per cent. We have to see how the pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacists finally respond to this levy and how the government reacts to that. Anyway the government is not in a mood to withdraw.

While raising medicine prices in a poor country with excessive sickness, gross malnutrition and extensive adulteration of food and drinks is a sensitive issue, the government is to come up with the 15 per cent GST in four other sectors which vitally affect the people. They are edible oil and vegetable ghee, tractors and some major agricultural inputs, and IT products. The revenue from such sources is to be Rs 8 billion, according to the CBR chief.

The IMF insists on that the government has agreed to that as pre-condition for the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility under which we are to get 1.3 billion dollars over as three-year period, says the CBR chief. And that has now become essential to achieve the tax revenue target of Rs 414 billion after that has been revised downward three times from Rs 457.7 billion as presented by the budget in June last year. The situation is so bad the tax revenues fell by 21.1 per cent in February to Rs 27.6 billion from the target of Rs 35 billion. And the situation is not expected to get any brighter unless draconian measures are adopted which can backfire much too soon.

But to make further tax collection easy, urea, too, is to be brought under GST. If GST is imposed on tractors and then on fertilizers the cost of food production would go up. And if to add to that edible oil and vegetable ghee are also brought under the 15 per cent GST the cost of living will go up sharply.

Succumbing to the pressure of the IMF on all these areas means the people will reduce consumption of such heavily taxed goods and services, the demand for them will go down nation-wide, and thereafter production. And industrial output which is already stagnating will then take a heavy hit and revenue collection will fall further. Can we afford all that? The IMF talks of short-term pains for us and then long term gains. What we are seeing is short term gains and long term pains for us as the economy goes for a tail-spin. Look at what the Tea Association of Pakistan is saying. Since the import duty was raised in the current year from 25 per cent to 30 per cent the quantum of smuggled tea has increased from 25,000 tonnes to 30,000 tonnes last year to 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes. As a result while the duty is higher the revenues will be lower. And that is because while the smugglers have to pay little the tea companies have to pay 67 per cent as taxes and duties, they say. Hence the PTA wants the import duty to be reduced from 30 percent to 15 per cent. The government may find this demand ghastly. But higher duties and lower revenues have been a common feature of our fiscal system.

Pakistan’s salvation lies in seeking a far larger economy through higher economic growth and value-added output rather than in taxing a small economy more and more and making it smaller while the population growth goes on at three per cent per year.

But we are now in the clutches of the IMF and accept its conditionalities rod, hook and sinker since the previous rulers breached their commitments to the IMF. While the previous rulers who brought us to this sorry state are doing pretty well, though out of office, more and more hardships are heaped on the masses as if they were responsible for the current mess. After wealth tax has been done away with, they must pay more and more of sales tax which has now become the No. 1 revenue source.

The tendency around the world is to reduce the taxes and duties to refloat the economy and increase employment and production. Along with that the interest rates are being reduced so that more investment can take place and the unemployed absorbed by the industry, old and new.

But in Pakistan consumption is being reduced through the spread of sales tax to new areas. So GST is to yield Rs 185 billion this year against Rs 144 billion through income tax. And that is jump of Rs 30 billion from last year’s GST revenues. But this target too is slipping as prices of imports fall, the economy contracts, particularly the tax paying part and revenue collection falls like the 21 per cent drop in February. In such an environment the government collects less revenues and spends more and more on law and order or on fighting terrorism which is an exasperating exercise in our kind of environment.

If the present tendency persists we will soon have the 15 per cent GST on electricity as well at the domestic consumer end. Gen. Zulfiqar Ali Khan, chairman of WAPDA, is opposed to that as he holds that as it is, electricity in Pakistan is the highest priced in the region. But after gas and telephone have been brought under the 15 per cent GST, electricity cannot be beyond the reach of GST for long.

But before GST on power, KESC’s electricity rate will go up by 10 per cent or more so as to mobilise larger revenues and make it more attractive for the buyers through privatisation which is to start now. And prior to that KESC has to pay Rs 10.6 billion to WAPDA, Sui Southern Gas and PSO. The GST of 15 per cent rise in power rates will be excessive; but that is what the IMF and the World Bank want if KESC cannot check the 40 per cent theft and loss of power within the system.

And now the World Bank wants Pakistan to do away with subsidy on gas for domestic consumers and do away with gas subsidy of Rs 11 billion for the fertiliser factories from July 1.

FOUR Pakistani members of a ship’s crew have disappeared after they were allowed on shore by a customs and immigration officer in the port of Norfolk in Virginia.

This has happened at a time when Pakistanis and Muslims are under heightened security and scores of Pakistanis remain in detention, with many others deported, and when federal agents have begun a second round of questioning of Muslim immigrants after having interrogated over 2,000 in the first stage of a post-September 11 vigilance drive.

One Pakistani young man in New York state faces the prospect of his green card being revoked because he was found to have signed the rental papers for a family that did not have legal status. Many Pakistanis settled here for years are debating whether they should pack up and return.

There have always, of course, been Pakistanis who have entered the United States illegally and managed to stay on. A baseball team was raised in Pakistan some years back; it came to the US for a tournament, and the entire team vanished. Some of its members later acquired legal status and did yeoman’s service for crickets teams raised by South Asians. Once, members of no less than an army band had deserted their contingent, quietly left their drums and bagpipes, and opted to settle in America.

Those were days when visa violations were often overlooked. All that has changed after 9/11. But that even in such circumstances, there are Pakistanis, like the four crew men, prepared to take the risk of illegally disappearing into the vast landscape of America should be seen as a devastating commentary on conditions at home. Deprived of decent incomes and education opportunities for their families, many Pakistanis still look for a chance to somehow leave their country and settle in the United States or a European country.

They are ready to face the ignominies of an anti-immigrant witch-hunt and the agonies of coping with an alien culture so that they can ensure some kind of a life worth living for their families and themselves. The New York young man whose green card, legitimately earned, may be taken back, worked in a pizza establishment and managed to send $400 home to his parents in Pakistan every month. He doesn’t know what he will do now when he is deported home.

America has changed, and for countless immigrants become a terribly discriminatory society. The policies unleashed by Attorney-General John Ashcroft have appalled American civil rights advocates as much as they have people abroad. Immigrant organizations, while noting America’s security concerns, nevertheless criticize these policies on almost a daily basis. This situation is going to continue for the foreseeable future. But nothing can hide the sorry failure of our own societies to keep our young people at home and of virtually forcing them out into a hostile world.