KARACHI: Time and again the bureaucracy has proved itself indispensable to every government, military or otherwise. No regime can afford to ignore the capability of the bureaucracy in overcoming all sorts of odds and delivering.

The entire exercise of the National Reconstruction Bureau to curtail the role of the bureaucracy by promoting elected representatives to the front and making the bureaucratic setup subservient to them through a devolution plan appears crumbling under the pressure of the referendum.

The task of collecting people in support of the presidential referendum was entrusted to Nazims and Naib Nazims. However, they either failed to shoulder the responsibility or evaded it on one pretext or another. In the light of past experiences, the government had to approach the District Management Group bureaucrats to come to its rescue in organizing a pre-referendum rally.

Under the new setup, the powers of majistracy have been withdrawn from the commissioner along with elimination of the offices of commissioner, deputy commissioner and sub-divisional magistrate and the chief officer of the city government has been designated as the District Coordination Officer (DCO) without judicial powers and control over police.

This situation was embarrassing to the government which did not like to be run down in the eyes of the chief executive and ultimately the DMG officials came to the rescue by proposing to the chief secretary to call a meeting of the administrative officials and entrust the job of maintenance of law and order to the DCO who would look after rest of the arrangements to ensure that the referendum meeting is a success.

In Karachi and elsewhere, where local governments are controlled by Nazims elected with the active support of political parties, organizing public meetings for the President or other government dignitaries became a hard task for the authorities as the Nazims in most cases, after taking cue from their respective parties, appeared reluctant to involve themselves in holding the meetings.

Ultimately the authorities had to fall back on old, tested bureaucrats for managing the show despite the fact that after implementation of the devolution plan the DMG group became irrelevant.

In the past they used to exercise authority through District Magistrates (DMs) and sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs). Under the new setup when they were approached by the government to come to their rescue they pointed out the weaknesses of the new system, saying that under the devolution plan they had been deprived of the authority. The chief secretary presided over the meeting of the authorities concerned in which the DCO was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing the show and maintaining peaceful atmosphere at all such meetings being organized for holding the presidential referendum.

Just as the bureaucracy regained power, within 48 hours all main roads, Sharea Faisal, mercantile area and trading and banking squares were covered with hoarding and banners in support of the referendum and the city started giving a carnival look. These banners, hoarding and placards, as well as some minor political parties, who have yet to prove their support among the masses, councillors, Nazims and deputy Nazims had also been sponsored by different trade, trade union bodies, associations and social and cultural organizations on whom lately it has dawned that Gen Pervez Musharraf’s continuation as President of the country for next five years would turn out to be a blessing for the nation.

If the writings on the banners are taken as reflective of the public mood, Maulvi Iqbal Haider deserved to be feted for his farsightedness and decision-making capabilities who had launched the Pervez Musharraf Himayat Tehrik soon after General Sahib came to power. He deserves appreciation for having the foresight to see things unfolding much before others, including those political parties which have yet to gain popularity. In all probability, the presidential referendum rally on Sunday will break all records of public meeting held so far in Karachi.

TAILPIECE: The bureacracy has not only come to the rescue of the establishment, it has also spared the opposition the trouble of having to hold a meeting it was ill prepared to organize. The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy was scheduled to hold a public meeting at Nishtar Park on April 29 — a day before the referendum. The ARD was loath to do that because the Muttahida Quami Movement had held a mammoth rally in the park. The ARD could hardly match the MQM’s turnout. When the government, aided and abetted by the trustworthy bureaucracy, requested the ARD to postpone the meeting on the plea of law and order situation, the political party was more than willing to oblige.

No matter what situation emerges after the April 30 referendum, the decision of refusing permission to the ARD of holding the public meeting shows that the old guards of the establishment have regained their power.

PRESIDENT Gen. Pervez Musharraf addressed a public meeting in Multan last week as part of his campaign to get public ‘endorsement’ through a referendum to remain in power for the next five years for the sake of continuation of his policies and giving the country a ‘real’ democracy.

Governor Khalid Maqbool termed the Multan meeting the second largest after the general’s show of ‘public support’ in Lahore. Journalists in their reporting of the general’s meeting in Multan avoided to guess the attendance, perhaps, in view of the governor’s open fury against press in Faisalabad on April 14 last which resulted in what APNS termed a ‘black day’.

Contrary to Gen Musharraf’s claim, made in his press conference in the federal capital on April 16, that people were voluntarily bringing their transport and managing his rallies, his show in Multan was managed by the government machinery, including the area Nazimeen. The police and the civil administration started impounding public transport in southern Punjab some four days before the Multan rally (April 19) and paralyzed the inter-city movement of public transport.

In his speech, the general acted like a politician who wants to win electoral support through promises. He announced a grant of Rs500 million for the improvement of Multan’s sewerage and water supply system, construction of Head Muhammadwala bridge over the river Chenab, M-4 section of the motorway from Faisalabad to Multan and a dual carriageway between Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan.

He promised to lift every grain of wheat at the official price of Rs300 per 40kg and procure the unsold lint cotton through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan and grant one-third subsidy on electricity for farm tubewells.

But federal minister for railways and communication Javed Ashraf Qazi had said during his visit to Multan that mega projects like Head Muhammadwala bridge were not feasible. Instead, he hinted at repair of the railway bridge over the Chenab that links Multan and Muzaffargarh districts.

Last year, wheat growers had to sell their produce at prices as low as Rs200 and Rs250 per 40kg. The situation, so far, is not different from the previous year.

The TCP was mandated to procure one million bales for the year 2001-2002 for price stabilization. By April 15 last, it procured only 0.23 million bales while the ginneries still have unsold stocks of 1.22 million bales when Sindh has almost completed sowing for the next cotton crop which is to begin shortly in Punjab. Perhaps, time will decide whether it was demagogy or the general meant what he promised.

Multan district Nazim Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi was conspicuous by his absence from the activities of the president in Multan. Shah Mahmood hit the headlines when he said he was being victimized since he had refused to give the District Council funds for the referendum campaign of Gen Musharraf. He said he had been barred by the government from receiving dignitaries.

Later, speaking at a function, he criticized the Punjab governor, saying “in his presence Gen. Musharraf needs no enemy”. He said he would not allow misappropriation of even a single penny from the resources of Multan district.

From the very beginning, the Nazim started showing hatred for what he termed the colonial legacy (bureaucracy especially the office of deputy commissioner) and vowed to fight the forces of ‘status quo’. He was, perhaps, the first Nazim in Punjab who ventured to utilize the now defunct Commissioner’s House for public utility. Reportedly, the villa has been selected to establish an institute of cardiology there. The government also presented him as a model of the devolution plan. He was given opportunities to deliver lectures at the Civil Services Academy, NIPA and National Defence College in order to plead the case of devolution plan. He was also invited to meet foreign heads of states.

The spirit of devolution is to empower districts in decision making, including financial affairs. But when a Nazim exercised his powers, the authors of the new system themselves turned bully. Federal Law Minister Khalid Ranjha has threatened the Nazimeen who are announcing loyalties with political parties (read opposition parties) with action for violating their oath.

Shah Mehmood’s relations turned with the government sour ahead of the annual Urs of Hazrat Ghaus Bahauddin Zakariya. He is a successor of the saint. A joint programme of rites had been planned but the bureaucracy parted ways as Auqaf secretary led the official ceremony of Urs and the district Nazim the unofficial function which was participated in by thousands of disciples of the great saint.

At the Urs’ concluding ceremony, Shah Mehmood slated the performance of the Auqaf department as regards the looking after of the pilgrims and maintenance of the shrine despite earning millions of rupees per annum. He said from now on the reliance of Urs on official management would be done away with.

LIKE every year, this year too people in their thousands will converge on Bhit Shah, the eternal resting-place of the great poet Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit, and pay homage to the man who preached love, humanism and unity over two-and-a-half centuries ago amid conditions when anarchism reigned supreme and nobody dared speak of justice and peace.

Since his death, Shah Latif (1689-1752) has been portrayed as a great saint, mystic, poet and music lover. Simple- hearted people visit his shrine to seek his blessings for the fulfilment of their wishes but scholars have studied and interpreted him from various angles — the most outstanding tribute to him being that of a great humanist.

There are those who regard him as a saint with supernatural powers; others regard him as an ascetic; still others consider him a poet who gave a new dimension to Sindhi poetry. Efforts still continue to shed more and more light on his multi-dimensional personality.

One such aspect leads us to the poet as being a source of history. In fact, we are so overwhelmed by his sainthood that we often forget that he was a great humanist who narrated the history of his era through a poetry of high standard. He used a popular dictum in which he did not only express the human miseries and rulers’ tyrannical acts but mentioned them in such a symbolic way that it conveyed the message. This was a very difficult task, as it was impossible to speak about these happenings in a coercive atmosphere in which he was born and brought up.

Born in a small village of Hala Haveli near Hyderabad, Shah Latif found an atmosphere of oppression, anarchy and totalitarianism which had held down the entire humanity in Sindh. It was a terrible period. From Arghuns, Sindh was being ruled by Moghul subedars, while Kalhoras were lobbying to take over and, therefore, were in league with the Moghuls in every effort of plunder and terror.

The Moghul subedars, like their predecessors, had granted jagirs and large landholdings to various tribes so that they could suppress any popular uprising. They had raised private armies, which were instrumental in perpetuating their unlawful authority. Internal strifes had turned the country into a lawless land. Famines were frequent and people longed for peace. Any uprising was silenced with brute force.

Aliens ruled the country. Every time some one would take a band of armed men and capture Sindh. The constant occupation from 1499 had pushed Sindh into an abyss of miseries. Followed by Tarkhans, the Moghuls ruled from distant Delhi through their governors who used unfair means to corrupt society and ruin the economy.

Besides the internal feuds, Shah was aware of the outside powers aiming at capturing Sindh on one or the other pretext. He knew how Issa Khan Tarkhan had invited the Portuguese, which gave them an opportunity to sack Sindh in 1556, kill thousands and plunder everything the people had. Mirza died a year later but the famines and epidemics that followed ravaged the country for decades.

He also knew the squabbling among the English, the Portuguese and the Dutch since 1613 for gaining trade rights in Sindh and, finally, capturing it. The first English factory in Thatta, allowed by the Moghuls in Delhi, was closed down just 27 years before the birth of Shah, ostensibly because of the rivalries between these alien forces. This all made the common man a hostage to feudal lords and their henchmen, who only needed favours from the rulers whosoever they be.

Time rolled on and on menacingly for the people of Sindh until Aurangzeb handed over executive power to the Kalhoras in 1701, but that too was not an era of peace. Till 1783, the Kalhoras remained busy in quelling internal strifes — a legacy of past regimes. During this period Shah Enayat was killed in 1718 for opposing the government’s measures. Being a mystic of deep learning, his popularity grew. Through his philosophic sayings he offered consolation to the deprived people, which in a way was emerging as a political platform not liked by the government functionaries. Nadir Shah, finding the situation opportune, plundered Sindh in 1739, while the English looked for an appropriate time to capture power.

Shah Latif was a sensitive witness to all these. In the initial days of his life, when his voice attracted many people, he was envied by the local lords and was dealt with such harshness that he had to leave his abode and roam about for more than three years. This gave him an opportunity to meet people, see their conditions and feel for them. Armed with the knowledge of their problems, he later communicated with the people through his poetry. Using his skill, he translated his vision into a message for the people in their own language. Like a true romantic poet he used an indigenous prosody and diction which served two purposes: expressing the human miseries and exploitation and, secondly, relieving the Sindhi literature and language of the alien influences that had crept into its body during the past two-and-a-half centuries.

He used poetical symbols to depict the various facets of life: love, happiness, sorrows, oppression and exploitation. His choice of subjects for his poetry shows that he was a literate person who possessed a deep knowledge of life and society. Everyone found a solace in poetry. Hence his abiding popularity.

Since his death he has been interpreted from various angles, and it is a fact that his poetry is one of the main source materials of the history of that period and the era immediately preceding him.

There is no doubt that he studied the history of Sindh very well and could feel its impacts on life in Sindh. His meetings with Khwaja Mohammad Zaman, Mohammad Hashim Thatvi, Makhdoom Moeen Thatvi and other knowledgeable persons and his observations during his three-year wanderings in and around Sindh gave him enough knowledge of history. It was only after he settled at Bhit that he composed poems in the most subtle, yet very impressive and effective, manner.

He chose very selected themes and communicated these in a manner that did not arouse the rulers’ anger. Through stories and their characters he painted almost every facet of life in such a forceful manner that it became a source of consolation and guidance for the people.

It was the rulers’ machinations that he was portrayed as a mystic, saint and ascetic so that people should not get the right message and learn to live with honour and wage struggle for their rights. In fact, he was a political genius, social scientist and artist who loved life and taught people to live with love, pursue peace, deplore injustice, fight authoritarianism and seek knowledge.

A careful reading of his poems will reveal a history as witnessed and experienced by the people at that time. It only requires a keen intellect to thread the various themes and tie together the ends and knots one finds in the verses of the great Shah to know his time. In other words, the many missing links that we have been searching for so long to formulate a history of the time in which Shah lived are there in his verses, in the metaphors and in the similes he has used to describe his surroundings and his time. To say merely that Shah is a great mystic poet is half truth for, in all fairness, he is no less a spokesman for time, a historian par excellence.