| June 24, 2002 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1423 |
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New literacy scheme
Caring for them the right way
THE simmering dispute between the Punjab government and thousands of peasants tilling the land in farms operated by various government agencies seems to have finally boiled over into a running battle between the two sides — one seeking the ownership of the land they have been tilling for decades and the other insisting on maintaining the unjust status quo. Things have come to this pass as a result of the failure of successive governments to address the issue with any degree of seriousness and the operating agencies threatening the restive peasants with eviction, changing the existing tenure arrangement with a contract system and so on. The past six months have seen several shooting incidents in Okara and Khanewal districts with tenants working on farms operated by the military and by the Punjab Seed Corporation (PSC) being subjected to arrests, intimidation and outright physical violence. At least two tenants have died in these incidents, several have been injured and at least one is said to have died of shock when a force of over 1,000 policemen descended on the peasant village of Pirowal on June 9 and laid a siege lasting several hours. However, the government seems to have badly misjudged the resolve of the peasants to rally together and stand up for their rights.
The one million-strong Tenants Association of Punjab (TAP), in the forefront of the movement for securing ownership rights for the landless peasants, has accused the government of being callous to the just demands of the peasants seeking a permanent arrangement for tilling the land they have been working on for long. It says that while the military and the PSC do not themselves own the land, they nonetheless demand a major share of the harvests each season. Of late, they have been asking for much larger shares, a demand that has sparked the current tenant uprising. The response of both the federal and Punjab governments has been rather puzzling. The federal law minister visited one of the affected areas in Khanewal some time back and promised a ‘package’ for the tenants. Then, late last week, a spokesman for the Punjab governor expressed concern at the way the local administration and the police had handled the matter. This somewhat conciliatory approach was, however, nullified by the arrest on Friday of 27 tenants from Okara, including three office-bearers of the TAP. To make matters worse, some government functionaries have even threatened to burn the standing cotton crop of the tenants in Pirowal, apparently as a collective punishment for tenants taking part in the current protests.
To avoid making a bad situation worse, a conciliatory approach, based on a sympathetic understanding of the problems and grievances of the protesting peasants, is called for. To win back the confidence of the restive and distraught farmers, the police force sent to harass and terrorize them should be withdrawn immediately and any ill-conceived notion of teaching them a ‘lesson’ must be abandoned. Cases should be registered against government and farm management officials who ordered the police action that led to the deaths of peasants in some places. All FIRs registered against the demonstrating tenants should be withdrawn. Once these confidence-building measures have been taken, the government should sit down and negotiate with the tenants, perhaps through the TAP, on how to grant the ownership rights due to them.
That is the only way forward.
ANY new initiative to improve the literacy rate must be welcomed. A report in Dawn says that the government is planning to set up a new literacy department at the district level that will be separate from the regular education system. The details are sketchy still, but it will involve the appointment of some 105 literacy officers in all 105 districts of the country. The plan is to attack illiteracy from two angles: overcoming the backlog of adult illiteracy through crash programmes and promoting universalization of primary education by focusing on those children who had stopped schooling before reaching class five.
In theory, this new literacy plan, together with the government’s compulsory primary education programme to be carried out under the regular education system, could go a long way in pushing Pakistan high up on the literacy list. Adult education programmes especially could help improve literacy among women who form the greater number of illiterates. But to what extent can all this be achieved practically? Illiteracy in the country has proved a hard nut to crack. There has been no dearth of literacy crash programmes in the past but concrete results remain a dream. The National Literacy Commission, the Prime Minister’s Literacy Commission and the Nai Roshni schools are major literacy uplift schemes that came and went without achieving much success.
One hopes that this government will be able to put in the required effort and resources to succeed where previous ones have failed. And it can only succeed if it is able to see why previous attempts and schemes to improve literacy have failed. As the government implements the proposed new literacy uplift plan, it should bear in mind that there is no substitute for formal education and that enhancing access to schooling for children remains the important task. Moreover, since women form the bulk of the adult illiterates, the government will also need to pay attention to expanding educational opportunities for women and eliminating prejudices and stereotypes that limit their access to adult education and their participation in it.
THE plight of many psychiatric patients admitted to a government hospital in Lahore is disturbing and makes for serious concern about the role of society and family in the care and rehabilitation of people suffering from mental disorders. What is especially sad is the fact that despite successful treatment two-fifths of the hospital’s patients cannot lead normal lives because their families have deserted them. A person who suffers from a recurring mental disorder is often treated as a pariah by his own family members. Prompt medical treatment and support of near and dear ones, both necessary for steady recovery, are often denied while other questionable methods are tried. Cases of people suffering from mental illnesses being locked in a room or taken to a faith healer or a shrine and left there for days are quite common. In many instances, parents and even patients themselves are reluctant to discuss their problems because of the stigma attached to mental disorder.
The hospital in Lahore, given its limited resources and lack of funding by the government, actually seems to have done a reasonably good job. However, traditions and customs that have been around for centuries are not easy to overcome. Perhaps, the surest way of moving forward would be to educate the people against singling out mentally ill people for ridicule or ostracizing them for having a condition that can be treated. The last thing someone suffering from a psychiatric disorder needs is for his family to desert him or for society to mock his condition. Hence, in addition to implementing the provisions of the Presidential Order and Regulation for Mentally Disordered Persons 2001, the ministry of health should conduct a public awareness campaign aimed at treating the mentally ill with the kindness and compassion they deserve.