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And now the Sharifs get a comeback deal?
President General Pervez Musharraf seems to have at last succeeded in keeping Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif out of the October elections. He has at the same time saved these elections from turning into a 1985-like sham by leaving a big enough hole in his legal net for the respective parties of these two leaders to crawl through and join the contest. But then what would happen if these two parties in collaboration or separately sweep the polls and present Musharraf with a hostile parliament? General Yahya had refused to transfer power to one such parliament which had come into being following the elections of 1970. And by the time he came to terms with his own handiwork, half the country had broken away and the residual rump too had slipped out of his hands. It was perhaps to avert facing such a situation after October elections that Musharraf had first tried to form his own King’s Party and then cobble together a number of alliances of like-minded groups. But all these efforts seem to have come to nought. And, therefore, he seems to have come up with an emergency plan aimed at first scuttling the about-to-be formed PPP(P)-PML(N) joint venture and then use the Shahbaz-led PML to stop the PPP(P) from emerging as the single largest party in the new parliament.
Shahbaz Sharif has no conviction against him. That is why he is not barred from heading the PML(N). But under the deal negotiated by the Saudis in 1999 he cannot return home until after 2009. And there are strong indications that he would not defy the ban as under another deal, this time negotiated by Majid Nizami of Nawa-i-Waqat and the Nation Group of newspapers, he has been promised relaxation of the ban after the elections.
Sharifs are now free to guide the party, prepare it for the forthcoming contest and lead it effectively on the day of the polls. They have already been doing this very competently but clandestinely from their base in Saudi Arabia all this time since their forced exile in 1999. They had managed to keep to the barest minimum the damage caused to the Party by the breakaway faction of the Chaudhries of Gujrat. And now that they have also managed to keep the leadership of the Party within the Sharif clan despite the legal hurdles, the likelihood of the return to the partyfold of some of the stalwarts who had gone over to the PML(Q) cannot be ruled out. Going by the grapevine reports from the grassroots PML(N) was already facing no challenge from either the PML(Q) or any other political party except perhaps the PPP(P) in the central Punjab. And now with a helping hand from the government, they can seemingly take care of even the PPP(P) in other parts of the country as well.
Benazir Bhutto has also been guiding and managing her party from self-imposed exile rather competently since as far back as 1997. She has successfully warded off all attempts by the military junta to hijack her party or break it into splinters. And the way she has managed to get the party through the legal landmine unscathed and safely into the election arena speaks a good deal about her political savvy. Unlike Nawaz she has not given up her party office. She intends to fight what she calls Benazir-specific laws in the courts. But in the meanwhile she has herself created what seems like a splinter group which for all intents and purposes is the PPP itself and handed it over to Makhdoom Amin Fahim to fulfil the legal requirements. Politically, however, the party remains in the firm grip of Benazir like the PML(N) is in the hands of the Sharifs. Despite the emergence of the government-sponsored alliances and the so- called King’s parties the PPP(P) had seemed too far ahead of all other parties and groups in Sindh and Southern Punjab. In the central Punjab it was facing a formidable challenge from the PML(N). But now with the entry of Shahbaz in the contest with the blessings of Musharraf, the PPP(P) would perhaps find the going very very difficult in all the four provinces as well.
By inducting Shahbaz through the backdoor in the arena the junta has ensured that the two mainstream political parties would be confronting each other in the elections and after rather than collaborating against Musharraf. This development has on the other hand ensured that all those small groups, factions and alliances, both government-sponsored and not government-sponsored — which were banking on the complete ouster of these two mainstream parties from the October contest or at least their splintering would find it increasingly difficult to breath in an atmosphere dominated completely by the PPP(P) and PML(N). One cannot, therefore, rule out the possibility of some of these groups and elements disappearing completely as the election day would draw nearer. The National Alliance of Jatoi and GDA of Chattha have already vanished in thin air. Some of the remaining may even try to hitch up to the bandwagon of the PML(N) and PPP(P) at the last minute. This does not mean that one is writing off the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) as well. This group is likely not only to remain intact but also gain strength in the days ahead because of its appeal among the growing anti-American voters in the country. On its own, however, it is not likely to win many seats in the elections. For obvious reasons it would never team up with the PPP(P). And for equally obvious reasons the PML(N) would not like to team up with the MMA. So, as of today there is a big question mark on the MMA. It can, however, play the spoiler and romp home with a big majority if there are triangular fights in most of the constituencies with the MMA candidates shouting anti-American slogans from the third corner of the triangle.
The choice for the voters on October 10, therefore, would have remained limited to the PPP(P), the PML(N) and the MMA even if the PML(N) had entered the fray without a helping hand from Musharraf. But in such an eventuality the junta would have faced a totally hostile parliament. This has seemingly been averted now by striking a come-back deal with the Sharifs. But having accomplished this, the two, the PML(N) and the Junta were now seemingly facing the problem of salvaging their respective credibility which have taken a nose dive since the word was leaked out about the deal. Therefore, perhaps the din of vehement denials from both sides that any such deal has been struck. It would certainly suit the junta’s purpose if the party which it wants to bring into the parliament succeeds in denying both the PPP(P) and the MMA the incumbency related negative votes. On the other hand it would certainly not suit PML(N) if the perception that it is being sponsored by the junta gets strengthened. Therefore, the PML(N) is likely to conduct an extremely anti- Junta election campaign. But then what would happen if Shahbaz fails to control after the elections the heat that would be generated by the stage-managed confrontation between the PML(N) and the Junta? And there is another scenario which cannot be ruled out completely in case the government actually allows a free and fair election to be held. In this scenario the PPP(P) emerges the single largest party in the parliament edging out both the PML(N) and MMA in a triangular fight as the two latter entities cut into each others vote banks! The risks do appear too formidable for the Junta. So, how do you handle such a situation? Well, perish the thought!! —Onlooker
It was no mistake, Mr president
MY piece last week, ‘No Land for Thee, old Man!’ (August 5) was about the quest for a residential plot of land by my pen friend from Faisalabad, Mr S M Aslam. We have seen how some other applicants had moved the federal ombudsman who had ruled that the “complainants shall be allotted plots if found otherwise eligible with a period of one month and a compliance report submitted”.
Now to recap. Applications had been invited by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation from retired public servants. Mr S M Aslam was one of the many who had applied in response to an advertisement in the press. It may be remembered that the foundation had not set any cut-off date for eligibility. Mr Aslam applied along with a non-refundable enlistment fee of Rs500 and one advance instalment of Rs100,000. This sum is still with the foundation.
Later, as Mr Aslam wrote to one of his friends, the foundation took “a U-turn and laid down a new formula for retired federal employees, that is, that (the applicants) should be no more than 65 years of age on the cut-off date” which was set at April 1, 1996. “My date of birth being June 6, 1921, I was declared ineligible for consideration.” He wrote to the foundation on March 31, 2001 “to which I have not yet received any reply.”
Mr Aslam wrote to his friend: “If I have known that only those government servants were eligible who were not more than 65 years of age on April 1, 1996, I would have been a mad person to apply...”
He goes on:
“... attention is also invited to the announcement made by the foundation which appeared in Dawn on April 12, 1997. .... Even in this announcement, there was no mention of the age-limit of 65 years.”
Mr SM Aslam continues:
“In the meantime, some applicants represented to the federal ombudsman (I was not one of the representationists...). The findings of the ombudsman, Mr Justice Muhammad Bashir Jehangiri, then a serving judge of the Supreme Court, are contained in his order dated December 5, 2000. These findings went against the housing foundation.” The foundation then moved the president who overruled the ombudsman in an order dated November 20, 2001.
“The president does not seem to have applied his mind. (He) considers it a simple ‘mistake’ on the part of the foundation” which ‘failed’ to set the cut-off date for eligibility.
In an imperious order, the president ruled:
“What remains to be considered is whether the foundation’s mistake (Sic) of not mentioning its decision that a retired government employee shall mean only an employee who is not older than 65 years of age on April 1, 1996... amounts to an estoppel enforceable as a right in contract by the complainants. No such right seems to have
come into existence. Further, the wafaqi mohtasib is not a court...”
This, as you can see, is not an order, not even an imperious order. I wish I had the space to reproduce the text of the president’s order. It is a martial law order by a man who refuses to call himself a martial law administrator.
Of one thing I am certain. The president never wrote the order himself. It needs too much like a “draft for approval” prepared by his subordinates and signed by him on the dot. I am sure the president still doesn’t know what does estoppel mean. If he does, he should give himself the top job in the Supreme Court to run concurrently with his present referendum-sanctioned office.
By the way, estoppel means impediment to action, etc., arising from a person’s own act or declaration (dictionary meaning). And I am positive that estoppel was created by the housing foundation’s failure to set an age-limit for retired public servants in its original advertisement. It was not, as the presidential order says, a ‘mistake’. But if it was a mistake, it was unpardonable.
And, anyway, let’s treat our senior citizens with contempt. Such citizens have no right to live their last days out under their own roofs.
BANGLADESH have just concluded a disastrous tour of Sri Lanka, losing the Test series 0-2 and getting whitewashed 0-3 in the one-day version of the game. The ICC says that their Test match status is not in jeopardy but I feel that it very certainly is.
Sri Lanka were themselves slow starters, beginning their international career with unofficial ‘test’ matches at home and abroad, mostly Pakistan. They got their Test status years later. Impressive as their record is at Test level, it was in the one-day game that they excelled and went on to win the World Cup in Lahore in 1996. And mind you, they had beaten Australia in the final. It may be recalled that in the first World Cup in 1975, Sri Lanka had lost to the same side at the Oval by 52 runs and had gone down by 192 runs to Pakistan at Nottingham.
Yet in the second World Cup in 1979, Sri Lanka beat India by 47 runs and New Zealand by three wickets. So, over all these years, Sri Lanka have always threatened to beat the best side that there is.
Not so, unfortunately, with Bangladesh. Their one-day record is 50 defeats in 53 matches and of the 13 Test matches they have played so far, they have lost twelve. I think it would be good for Bangladesh themselves if they were to surrender their Test match status for, say, five years, and then return to the arena when they feel they are up to it. Pakistan could help them in this regard by inviting them every other year and by visiting Bangladesh in similar fashion. This will, I am sure, be of great help to both sides. In this manner, one feels Bangladesh will discover their own Shoaib Akhtar, Imran Khan and Zaheer Abbas. They have been blooded too soon. And while they rebuild, they could play three-day international games including unofficial ‘test’ matches. Bangladesh, can do it, provided they have the patience.
THE Punjab governor, Gen Khalid Maqbool, is what a Champion should be like the Champions in the movies, you know. Bluff and bluster until the hero calls your bluff in the end, you know. You remember Mazhar Shah? Oyay, mein addi maran te paani kuddh dyan! I can draw water if I stomp my feet hard enough. That sort of thing.
The Laat Sahib assured a 22-member delegation of “teachers” that “no public school or college would be denationalized in the Punjab.” The idea appears to be to shout so much that the other party cringes at your feet in terror of your awesome power. But if the other party shouts equally loudly, back out of it pretty damn quick.
This looks like what happened to the denationalization of educational institutions. The original notification, dated July 8, never said anything about the privatization of “public schools and colleges.” It only talked of “retransfer/denationalization of nationalized educational institutions to the previous managements.” This obviously meant that only institutions previously privately owned and managed were sought to be denationalized.
The Central Model High School, Lower Mall, Lahore, I am sure, was never meant to be denationalized because it has always been managed by the government. But the FC and Kinnaird colleges were privately owned and managed before they were nationalized. And there is a case —- a clear-cut case —- for the denationalization of FC and Kinnaird because they were never public institutions. I hope the governor knew what he was talking about because between you and me, I rather like him.
THE Statesman note on RL Stevenson’s death on December 19, 1894, and not 1984 as inadvertently quoted appeared last week (August 5). Need I say that I am contrite?
A tale of wounded hearts
THERE is absolutely no doubt that a city with nearly 14 million people cannot be a temple of perfect peace and tranquillity. To err is human. Errors would be made and some of these errors may take the form of violence - occasionally. Let us admit that the level of violence seen and experienced these days is agonizingly above what may be considered normal for a city of this size and character. Something has definitely gone wrong, very seriously wrong.
Most citizens would be able to recall the time when Karachi was at peace with itself. Political freedom to the subcontinent came through a bloodbath. But soon we in Karachi settled down to go about the business of life in a fairly sensible and matter-of-fact manner. In the early days Karachi was a city of peace, a hospitable home to whoever came and chose to make it a home. Few cities in the subcontinent would be so cosmopolitan as this one has always been. Still is, and would always be.
Violence is not inherent to this city. Indeed it is alien to its native grain. It is only fair to say that almost all forms of violence - visible or latent - is an import and looks rather like an imposition. Until Field Marshal Ayub and his proteges chose to celebrate an election victory with a vengeance, Karachi had not seen violence in the streets. That display of violence was calculated and organized violence for the sake of violence. If history of violence in Karachi is to be written, most historians would begin with that episode.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was consciously considerate and kind to Karachi. He did much to give the city an image and sense of pride. Soon that was to be undone by his ‘talented cousin’ who is seen as the author of one of the most traumatic experiences of Karachi and its good people. Unwittingly, the Urdu-language press played into the hands of Karachi’s unwise friends. To its sorrow and pain, Karachi is often reminded of that mishap. It has left a wound that is unlikely to heal for a long time.
Goodness alone knows with what grudge against Karachi Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter commenced her ill-starred political career. She never had peace for herself in the city of her birth. Nor would she leave this city in peace. Imagine her misfortune and pain. She was the all-powerful prime minister when her brother was gunned down, within yards of the Bhutto family home. She also has to bear the stigma of her minister of interior issuing shoot-at-sight order to the Karachi police. That is a stain time will remain unable to obliterate from memory. That was violence emanating from the cloisters of the state.
Things did not improve with the departure of Benazir and arrival of the relatively withdrawn Nawaz Sharif. His ‘reign’ saw the launch of Operation Clean-Up on Karachi’s head. When asked about it, he nonchalantly disclaimed knowledge, not to speak of responsibility for what was inflicted on this city. It is perhaps true that he was out of the country when this torment was engineered. But he was very much the prime minister. He could have tried to make amends by some consoling words, if nothing more tangible. He didn’t.
The people of this city might draw some solace from the fact that Nawaz Sharif was later to plead ignorance, and also innocence, about an even more gruesome oversight. This kind of recollection of the past is not gratuitous. This is to demonstrate that Karachi has been wronged by others a vast deal more than it may have wronged itself. This litany or lament is relevant when we consider the spiral of violence Karachi has had to bear during the last few months. Shattering indeed have been the blasts outside the Sheraton and the US diplomatic offices. The Pearl tragedy has been a very painful shock. What is common to these heartrending experiences is that they have a ringing outlandish jingle. These incidents of nerve-racking violence are not native to Karachi. All of them have a distinct foreign element. What makes them so much the more hurtful is the wrong signals such crime sends to an already alienated outside world. This alienation, too, has nothing to do with Karachi. It is a legacy from the longest dictatorship and the gashes it has caused to our psyche as a nation. But this is not to say that Karachi is without its very own brand of violence. The vehicle hijacking at gunpoint has a stamp that is undeniably Karachi’s. So is the shooting down of security guards, or shopkeepers. Our daily diet of violence would not be complete without a couple of people being run over by bus, truck and tanker.
Then there would be a murder or two for what are explained away as ‘family’ reasons or factors. This is violence pure and simple. Karachi must take the blame for all this and realize that all of this is clearly reflective of a malaise deep inside our psyche. This should give us cause for profound concern and not a little of embarrassment.
Student visa blues
The unfortunate attacks on a missionary school in Murree and then one on a missionary hospital in Taxila could not have come at a worse time. This is not to say at all that some other time would have been better but that August is the time when hundreds if not thousands of students from Karachi, in fact all over the country, apply for visas to proceed to North America or Europe for higher education.
The American consulate has closed for the time being, apparently in response to a decision by the Karachi city administration to open Abdullah Haroon Road. And, it must be said that for once the city authorities have taken a decision that reflects public opinion because the consulate in any case wasn’t issuing visas and it seemed unfair to keep the interests of a few diplomats above those of thousands of commuters and motorists. Soon after, the Italian consulate announced that it was temporarily closing and suspending all visa operations in Karachi, except by courier.
Well, the problem of students who have applied or are in the process of applying to colleges and universities in America is especially severe. There are two categories to this. One groups those who were refused visas. The other are whose applications were approved but who have been told to wait until the required background check — usually carried out by the FBI in America - comes through.
The first category has students from some of the city’s best schools, who have rather inexplicably been denied visas. For example, one applicant turned down had an elder sibling already studying at one of America’s top universities and whose parents were paying fully for his education (usually a key requirement). There are still other cases of students who have in the past gone to America regularly — for summer vacations and so on - but they too have been turned down. Needless to say, this has come as quite a shocker to those affected with the result that at the very least they stand to lose a year. Some have the choice of going to Australia or Britain but there the problem is the same: very long delays for all visa applicants and much stricter requirements post Sept 11.
The other category relates to people who had their applications approved and were in the process of getting their passports back, with the visa stamp of course, but have now been told that there will be an indefinite delay.
Take the case of this young man in his early 20s. He went to America in the mid-90s to a very prestigious university for his undergraduate education. He then came back to Pakistan and worked in a reputed company for two years. In the meantime, he applied to law school in America and was accepted, again by a prestigious institution. He applied for a visa more than three weeks prior to his planned departure. His application was approved and he was told that he could pick his passport up within ten days. In the interim, he resigned from his job and bought himself a plane ticket. But little did he know what was in store for him next.
Late last week he received his passport along with an email that there was an indefinite delay in his visa. He was told that the mandatory background check — required of all male applicants from a select list of Muslim and Middle Eastern countries — had now been extended indefinitely and that he had to wait. He was told not to contact the embassy on this matter because they couldn’t discuss such cases on the phone, and that they would inform him when the check is completed. His university’s orientation begins towards the end of August and ideally he should be there by then. All he can do now is wait.
O God, make me useful/O God, make me harmless/O God, keep me pure/O God, make me your channel.
This prayer by Jamshed Nusserwanji was read at the memorial meeting at Theosophical Hall last week to observe his 50th death anniversary. A friend and former colleague who went there said the chief speaker, Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, had special reasons to be there. Not only had her grandparents and parents who knew him well, always spoke about him very warmly, but also her parent’s marriage, arranged by him, had been solemnized in that very hall.
Personal reasons aside, the friend said that Anita Ghulam Ali told her that she considered the late Nusserwanji one of the outstanding thinkers of our time, someone who as early as 1933 foresaw the problems of this region and advocated measures that are as relevant today, as when they were written down in his book Problems of New Sindh.
For instance, he supported universal education: “All schemes of progress and welfare are bound to fail without mass education”. He opposed “quotas” because he said these benefited “the children of politicians or bureaucrats”. He also felt that villages would prosper once the “the small community is protected and well looked after” — a concept, she said, that the World Bank stresses today.
Jamshed Nusserwanjee is remembered though for far more than his writings. It was he who located the misplaced plan for the Sukkur Barrage in the secretariat archives and so paved the way for its fruition.
But most of all, Jamshed Nusserwanjee’s memory is cherished because of his saint-like qualities. Perhaps, the government should seriously consider conferring, albeit posthumously, the highest civil award on Jamshed Nusserwanjee for all that he did for Karachi.
A colleague says that he recently saw a good example of just inefficient and insensitive the police really can be.
His account: “Last Friday, I saw an accident on Shahrea Faisal, near the Rashid Minhas bridge. It was around 9.30 in the morning and I was on my way to the office. When I reached at the signal I noticed that a crowd had gathered around a seriously injured motorcyclist. He was crying for help but no one seemed to be paying too much attention to that except to gather around him. Just then, a police mobile of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) appeared on the scene and the men in it tried to make some basic enquiries. In the meantime, several people in the crowd told the police that they could ask these questions later and perhaps should first transport the injured motorcyclist to hospital since he needed prompt medical care. And I was shocked when one of the policemen said rather rudely: “Yeh hamara kaam nahin hai. Kiya hum issi kaam key leeaye reh gaye hain?”
He said this, quite ironically, while standing in front of the mobile on which the so-called motto ‘Police ka kaam hai maddad aap kee’ was written. Luckily for the motorcyclist, an army ambulance was passing and crowd managed to stop it and it took the injured man to hospital.
The telephones at Dawn’s offices wouldn’t stop ringing on the morning this paper published a picture of a dead whale stranded on Clifton beach. Everyone wanted to know if the giant mammal was still on the beach or had been towed away. Soon, there were traffic jams on Seaview, with large numbers of families from across the city heading out to see this unique spectacle.
The excitement soon began to subside and a terrible stench took its place, as the carcass of the unfortunate creature began to rot. Undeterred, the visitors kept pouring in clutching their noses while taking in the view. The Sindh wildlife department soon got into the act to decide what to do with the remains. It was decided that the skeleton of the 48-foot long endangered Humpback whale should be salvaged for future display at a museum. The lack of proper equipment meant that improvisation had to be resorted to. The authorities managed to rope in some local butchers to remove the meat from the whale’s body.
The unfortunate creature is believed to have lost its way while travelling from the coast of Oman, where the species normally breeds in the Arabian Sea.
The whale’s tragedy, however, may prove the city’s gain if its remains are properly preserved and displayed. Its arrival on our coast may also prompt young people to find out more about this magnificent creature and why it is now considered an endangered species. — By Karachian
