| August 18, 2002 | Sunday | Jamadi-us-Saani 8, 1423 |
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What the results show
Protecting forests
WITH the announcement of November 12 as the date for election to the Senate, the schedule for the general election in October stands finalized. The delay in Senate election had become inevitable following the reversal of the earlier decision to hold direct elections to the upper house. Now, with the reversion to the old system, the Senate cannot be elected until after elections to the national and provincial assemblies have been held. Technically, this violates the Supreme Court’s May 2000 decision requiring the military government to hold elections to the national and provincial assemblies and the Senate before Oct 11, 2002. However, such minor aberrations can be ignored so long as the basic schedule remains unchanged and the electoral process ahead is meant to be free, fair and impartial.
One hopes that the “genuine democracy” which President Musharraf has spoken of repeatedly does not turn out to be a cover for a manipulated exercise intended to produce “preferred” results. We sound this cautionary note in view of Pakistan’s bitter experience of similar experiments in the past. Ayub, who seized power in October 1958, pledged to give the people a new system “suited to their genius”. The result was his system of “basic democracy” in which elections to parliament were indirect. The electoral college, consisting of 80,000 “Basic Democrats,” was easy to manipulate. This ensured the coming into being of national and provincial assemblies as well as governments whose primary task was to do Ayub’s biddings. The system gave superficial political stability to the country. But the denial of democratic rights and civil liberties ultimately exploded in the form of popular unrest in the winter of 1968-69. Ayub resigned and, in violation of his own tailor-made constitution, handed over power to the then commander-in-chief, Gen. Yahya Khan.
History repeated itself when in 1977 Gen Ziaul Haq overthrew an elected government and promised elections within 90 days — only to renege on his pledge. He, then, had himself elected as president through the farce of a referendum. Zia talked of “Islamic democracy” but his emphasis was on “shoora” — a consultative process. He formed a Majlis-i-Shoora consisting entirely of nominated men and women, and later held a non-party general election to obtain results that would suit his despotic designs. In spite of all this, he could not put up even with his hand-picked prime minister whom he dismissed and dissolved the assembly. All along his decade-long rule, Zia used Islam as a cover for perpetuating his dictatorship, persecuted his political opponents, and institutionalized corruption by giving ‘development funds’ to MNAs and MPAs.
What the nation is in for this time remains to be seen. But certain forebodings are worrying. The changes in laws relating to political parties, the ban on a third term for a prime minister, the almost certain revival of article 58 (2-b) and a constitutional role for the armed forces through the proposed National Security Council — all these create serious doubts about the kind of dispensation that will emerge after October. What Pakistan needs is neither controlled democracy, nor “Islamic” democracy of the Zia brand and certainly not “genuine democracy” — going by the indications available so far of that prefab commodity. What Pakistan needs is democracy pure and simple.
Experiments with “systems” and constitutions have done incalculable harm to Pakistan. They have blocked the growth and consolidation of democratic institutions, created political instability, militated against national integration and thwarted economic growth. Whatever one’s opinion of the reforms so far made by this government, one hopes a new beginning can still be made if the October elections are truly fair, free and transparent.
THE BA, BSc examination results of the Punjab University declared on Friday, showing a pass percentage of 38, seem to confirm the trends of the past many years. The percentage of students passing the exams remains pathetically low — a reflection perhaps of the poor quality of teaching or the unimaginative nature of the syllabus. More and more girls are outshining boys and candidates from relatively backward areas are clinching top positions. Out of the six top positions, five have been bagged by girls. Almost all the position holders are from Faisalabad or Mandi Bahauddin. No college in Lahore, long considered a seat of learning, could secure a single position. It signifies a growing urge among candidates in the mofussil areas to excel in education. It also reflects a realization that educational attainment is the only way to cross the social barrier. The achievements of the girls are an encouraging sign in view of the depressed social position of women.
Unfortunately, the inclination for scientific and technical education is still not strong among the majority of our students. Only 7,150 boys and 4,853 girls appeared in the science group and 2,264 boys and 3,052 girls passed. Graduation may have given a sense of achievement to the qualifying candidates, but it hardly opens avenues of employment to them. The problem of educated unemployment thus becomes even more acute. But apart from this, the BA results raise some basic questions about the educational system and the people’s expectations from it. Are our students receiving education which has little direct bearing on their lives? Does graduation really equip the majority to embark upon higher education or undertake serious academic work? There would be reservations on this score in view of the slow progress of college education to adapt itself to changed circumstances, making instruction more vocation-oriented.
PAKISTAN’S already abysmally low forest cover has always been under the threat of further shrinkage, and yet most governments have set back and done practically nothing to reverse the process of deforestation. At the most, new trees are planted but without a protective mechanism in place to ensure that they will not be cut by the timber mafia or eaten up by livestock before they mature. In fact, planting saplings but without the needed care and protection for them to survive is only going to help the timber mafia by giving it more trees to cut. Apart from population pressures and a lack of any suitable alternative to burning wood for fuel, the government has found it hard to substantiate its grandiose claims about fighting deforestation because the provincial forest departments are often no match for the resourceful and influential loggers and timber mafia.
No wonder then that trees are cut in Pakistan at will. Unfortunately, the cause of protection and reforestation has not been helped by the indifferent attitude of the government to the whole issue. However, in the specific case of the forests of the northern Pakistan, some progress has been achieved by having some wooded areas there declared protected and where the forest department has been vigorous in monitoring the area under its control. A case in point where there has been reasonable success is Ayubia National Park in the Galiyat area. Incidents like the one reported sometime ago of around twelve hundred trees having been cut in the high alpine pastures near Gilgit can be prevented if forest guards are suitably equipped and empowered to check unlawful logging.