Can we please have some respite?

THE president should choose his words more carefully (it almost seems as if this has been said before). He had, wisely, kept himself in the background during this past month of heated argument over the LFO inside and outside parliament. He had kept quiet, and let the prime minister and the rest of the ‘sarkari’ League do the talking.

But on Monday, perhaps riled by the invective that has been hurled at him day in and day out on the floor of the National Assembly and the Senate, he broke his silence — and promptly put his foot where it shouldn’t be.

Talking to reporters after addressing a convocation of the National College of Arts in Lahore, the general said he would “address only a civilized assembly (parliament) because I do not want the world to develop a perception that we are an uncivilized people”. The president spoke in Urdu, but did use the English word “civilized”. He probably meant “civil” or “disorderly” , which would be closer to, and less offensive than, the Urdu “ghair muhazzib”.

Opposition members in the National Assembly and the Senate have been disorderly in their protests and have made it impossible for the two houses to function normally. The protests have also been extremely personalized. They have been directed against the person of the president and diverted attention from the issues involved. To that extent, they reflect the opposition’s immaturity, and there is some irony in the fact that this should be happening in a parliament which, under the election rules laid down by the Musharraf government, is supposed to be stocked with graduates, who should be expected to behave more responsibly.

But equally if not more raucous scenes have been witnessed in parliaments all over the world, even in countries with established democratic traditions and institutions. The leaders of such countries have never implied that their legislatures were uncivilized. The military and the establishment in Pakistan have already arrogated to themselves the right to decide what is patriotic and what is unpatriotic, they have defined the national interest according to their own lights, and they have laid down the ideological parameters within which policy has to be formulated. Are they now also going to tell us what is civilized and what is uncivilized? There is among the elite only a thinly disguised contempt for political processes and the din and noise of democracy; sometimes it shows.

Also, if parliamentary protests have become too personalized, it is because military rule often tends to be extremely personalized. The decisions that are encapsulated in the Legal Framework Order are after all the work of one person and his associates. It is inevitable that the agitation against the LFO should also be directed against that person.

However, let us give the president some latitude, and accept that he meant uncivil or disorderly when he said civilized and that, faced with daily attacks, he just blew his cool. No such allowance can be made for his other remarks on the same occasion. He made the categorical statement that the Legal Framework Order was part of the Constitution and would remain so. On the same day, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was telling reporters that the opposition would be formally invited for talks on the LFO in a day or two. The two statements do not square up. What is the point then in discussing the LFO when the president insists that it is an irrevocable part of the Constitution, the opposition may well ask.

The opposition is not asking for the LFO to be scrapped. It has already agreed to many of its provisions. It primarily objects to the LFO’s clauses relating to the president remaining in uniform while he passes himself off as a democratically elected president and to the establishment of a National Security Council. These are issues on which, sooner or later, a compromise will have to be reached if the political system is to function in a more or less normal way. The president knows this, the prime minister knows this, and the PML(Q) chief knows this. There is no sane alternative to a compromise on the issue. Then why the grandstanding and the theatrics? Let’s strike a deal before tempers get more fouled and the maulanas get more mileage out of an issue that they probably do not believe in within their hearts but which is certainly coming in very handy for them.

And, in the meanwhile, can we please have a little respite from the daily din in which we may say things we should’nt.

Opposition regains some lost ground

ON TUESDAY, Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain could not prolong the agony of the opposition for more than 45 minutes as the National Assembly’s sound system appeared to be failing in the face of the very loud sounds that the opposition were making with very thick files they had brought with them to slap the desks with.

Being a private members’ day, the government was not obliged to have any agenda of its own. And neither was there the obligatory question hour. Those from the treasury benches who stood up on points of order or tried to move adjournment motions, could hardly be heard even by those who had the ear-phones on. The speaker kept shouting into his mike at the same pitch as he did on Monday but he remained largely inaudible.

In the corridors of parliament, those who until yesterday were only whispering their forebodings about the newly-elected houses were heard claiming rather loudly that the countdown had begun because according to them President Gen Pervez Musharraf has finally levelled his first charge against his graduate parliament by describing it ‘uncivilized’. He used this term for a parliament which he himself had brought into being while explaining in Lahore on Monday why he did not want to address the obligatory joint session. A couple of more such charges and you have created conditions conducive to send the assemblies packing home, said his detractors rather confidently.

When asked for their reaction to being called ‘uncivilized’, one PML-Q MNA said the government had already clarified that the president did not mean the entire house when he called it ‘uncivilized’. Quick came a retort from a PPP MNA who recalled the story about a write-up in a college magazine in which the editor had called half the college teachers as stupid. When he was asked by the Principal to contradict the story, he wrote: Half the teachers are not stupid!

According to parliament grapevine, the ruling alliance has decided on a new game-plan to tackle the LFO issue. According to this plan on the next private members’ day, Azam Tariq would move a bill on the LFO which would be immediately referred to the appropriate house committee and then forgotten. The only hitch in this game-plan is that Maulana Tariq is part of the ruling alliance for all intents and purposes and, therefore, belongs to the treasury benches. He cannot, therefore, move a bill on a private members’ day. But then, the Speaker can give a ruling and change his status from being a member of the ruling alliance to an independent MNA.

Soon after the house was adjourned on Tuesday, the corridors started buzzing with stories of a new round of talks between the opposition and the government for which the ruling alliance is said to have extended invitation to both the MMA and the PPP. Inquiries, however, revealed that, so far, only the MMA had received the invitation. When asked, PPP parliamentary party leader Amin Fahim said that the premier in his meeting with him on Monday had invited him for talks. It was a one-hour long meeting and the talks remained confined to talks on the LFO, he said. He did not elaborate. But one of his party members said Mr Fahim had declined to discuss the LFO with the government from the PPP platform and asked the prime minister to invite the negotiating team of the combined opposition which had already been named.

But what is there to talk about after what the president had said about his position on the LFO in Lahore on Monday? The question went begging for an answer. There were no takers. Since the ‘boss’ has said no, how can Jamali sahib. Say anything else unless, of course, the opposition has agreed to scale down its own position on the LFO. Therefore, perhaps the invitation for fresh talks. But no MNA from the combined opposition agreed with this conclusion.

TAILPIECE: In the cafeteria, former deputy speaker Wazir Ali Jogezai was sitting with a couple of officials from Asia Foundation and wondering why the Speaker had called Tuesday’s session at 5pm knowing very well that it would clash with the two-day USAID-Asia Foundation-funded orientation programme for Pakistani legislators scheduled to start at the same time. The Speaker himself was to preside over the first session at this event. It was, indeed, an intriguing matter.

Inquires revealed that the Speaker had no other option but to resort to such a roundabout way to avert an unsavoury situation which he perhaps thought would occur after the MMA MNAs had gone to him on Monday protesting the inclusion of the US ambassador among the speakers at the orientation programme. One newspaper had headlined the story of the event with “US envoy to address MPs on democracy”.

Industry asked to modernize

THE government claims that it will pursue the economic agenda set by President Musharraf which will bring about a revolution in all spheres and strengthen the textile industry and other allied sectors. However, the ground realities are quite different as major industrial units currently are in hot waters.

The Musharraf regime has been in power for the last three years and no political or foreign pressure has been brought to bear on its policies, which undoubtedly is an opportunity for the policy-makers to make efforts to recover taxes from business tycoons and to initiate new taxation and textile policies.

This was claimed by the leaders of trade and commercial bodies at functions held here recently in the presence of federal ministers of commerce, industries and production.

Federal Minister for Industries Liaqat Jatoi and Commerce Minister Humayun Akthar visited the city to gauge traders’ opinion before formulating proposals for the next budget. The ministers tried their best to win the confidence of the exporters, industrialists and shopkeepers.

Liaqat Jatoi, speaking at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Pakistan basically had an agrarian economy and the textile sector was its backbone. He said the economic policy of the previous government had landed Pakistan into a take-off stage. However, we must take extra care to successfully steer out of this stage by adding technical know-how to improve the quality of industrial production.

He said the government was committed to provide relief to the common man. The objective could be achieved only by improving our economy. He said a package was in the pipeline to provide relief to the common man which would be announced by the prime minister in near future. His ministry had constituted an advisory council and due representation had been given in it to chamber presidents and representatives of trade bodies. The council would be notified within two weeks, and it would propose suggestions for the next budget and help boost industrial and economic growth.

He said the committee constituted for the rationalization of tariff had completed 60 per cent of its work, and hoped it would help the industry to take a quantum jump forward.

Underlining the importance of the powerloom sector, he said 225,000 powerlooms were producing cloth in the country, which was being exported to earn foreign exchange. He stressed the need for improving the quality of cloth by adding sophistication and switching over to powerlooms of wider width. He said quotas would be phased out under the WTO agreement and in the quota-free regime we would not be able to face new challenges if we failed to improve our quality.

The minister said the Pakistan Machine Tool Factory had been given the expansion target of Aug 31 to cater to the needs of upgradation. Similarly, the HMC and HEC had been directed to face the new challenges by adding new technologies and replacing old machinery.

He said development of the small and medium entrepreneurs sector was imperative to provide a boost to the national economy in addition to providing jobs to the unemployed. He hailed the powerloom upgradation project of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority and SME Bank and asked them to simplify the cumbersome documentation procedure.

Earlier, chamber president Amjad Saeed explained the problems being faced by local industrialists and businessmen.

Mr Jatoi inaugurated a Smeda project, and said the financing scheme for upgradation of the powerloom sector would not only help in controlling the poverty, but also pave the way for earning additional foreign exchange of $1 billion for the country.

He said small-scale and agro-based industry faced multiple problems in the past. However, this government had taken measures to remove irritants and bottlenecks. He said prudent, viable and practicable policies were required for the technological upgradation of industries. However, he said the government was making to strengthen the industry.

All-Pakistan Cotton Powerlooms Association chairman Ikhlaq Ahmad said the government and APCPA had reached a modernization pact and a comprehensive financing scheme for the powerloom sector after the lapse of 50 years. He said the scheme was of great importance and had the potential to revive and upgrade this sector on a sound footing.

Smeda chief executive officer Iqbal Mustafa said the technological upgradation of powerlooms would not only have a wide impact on this sector, but also on the entire textile industry. Increased market share in post-quota regime and multiplier effect on made-up exports, low interest rate, seven years of debt tenure and provision of project itself as collateral were the main features of this scheme, he said, and added that some Rs200 million would be provided by the SME Bank under the LMM Scheme. Till now, more than 5,500 individual SMEs had visited Smeda Help Desks and received information/guidance on various issues. Smeda had trained more than 9,000 SMEs by conducting 200 training courses in 32 cities of the country.

Aptma chairman Anjum Saleem, MNA Farhan Latif and a large number of powerloom owners were also present at the function.

Federal minister Humayum Akhtar, on the same day, also visited Faisalabad and attended about a dozen functions.

Speaking to the members of the All-Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association, he said the government was making efforts to remove hurdles in the national exports. He said the Indian and Jewish lobbies were bent upon tarnishing the image of Pakistan and the performance of our external publicity wing was also not up to the mark. He urged the exporters to invite their buyers to visit Pakistan and personally see that it was a peaceful country. He said the government would facilitate their visits by according them the status of state guest.

Commenting on the problems faced by the exporters, he said the sales tax refund was one of the major problems. However, the situation of refund had been gradually improving. He said a package had been prepared to facilitate the exporters. “However, it will be issued when arrangements for its implementation will be completed,” he said.

He said a special WTO wing had been created in his ministry to look into the affairs of the changed business scenario. He asked the trade bodies to establish such wings at their level to tackle the WTO-related issues. He said law colleges should also create special WTO specialities to train law graduates in the technicalities of WTO. He said steps would also be taken to strengthen the National Tariff Commission.

About five per cent duty on the import of machinery, the minister said it was zero previously. However, we would try to restore the previous duty structure for the replacement of old machinery.

He underlined the need for research and development and human resource development, and said the private sector, universities and trade associations should enter into this field. He assured the government’s full support in this matter. He okayed the proposal of setting up a modern textile lab at the Faisalabad Institute of Textile and Fashion Design.

Earlier, APCEA chairman Khurram Iftikhar said the main problem confronted by the export-oriented trade was “restoring the confidence of foreign buyers”. Without a mass media campaign, it was not possible to promote the image of the country and its exports.

New controversy about Iqbal

WHEN scholars are busy examining their peers’ works it is quite likely that the dividing line between the relevant and irrelevant — and even proven or unproven — changes in the process. Some of the upheld hypotheses are rejected and the rejected ones find themselves upheld.

Allama Iqbal did it himself. His views on Wahdat-ul-Wujood (Oneness of Being) expressed in the Development of Metaphysics in Persia underwent a drastic change in 1923 after the publication of R. A. Nicholson’s book The Idea of Personality in Sufism. Nicholson had upheld Hallaj’s mysticism as world apart from Wahdat-ul-Wujood. Iqbal also followed suit and became pro-Hallaj.

Shah Waliullah also did not see any difference between the concepts of Shuhood and Wujood and thought them to be one and the same — only different states of mind. One could go on citing issue after issue until we might concur with the contention that quite a good number of contentious issues stemmed from semantic confusions. May be the linguistic analysis or Derrida’s deconstruction technique (I don’t think it could be termed a philosophy because it would be the height of simplicity to confuse Derrida’s technique with any semblance of a philosophical thought).

Now back to Allama Iqbal — and in particular to an issue long considered settled. Thanks to the ever-smouldering fire in the academic issues, which doesn’t believe in letting the fire die, some Indian scholars are once again trying to make an issue out of a non-issue. They are piecing together Jawaharlal Nehru’s views expressed in The Discovery of India, along with Edward J. Thompson’s views in Enlist India for Freedom, to suggest that Iqbal had not only dissociated himself from Chaudhry Rahmat Ali’s “Pakistan Scheme” but he had also steered himself clear of any advocacy of a separate Muslim homeland, though it is evident in his letters to the Quaid in 1936-37-38. It was rightly averred that Iqbal did not see eye to eye with Chaudhry Rahmat Ali’s scheme as it envisaged Osmanistan (Hyderabad State) and Bongistan (Bengal and Assam) along with Pakistan. The scheme was rightly called ‘unpracticable,’ because how could the British or the Congress be made to agree with the birth of a Muslim state in a predominantly Hindu majority area such as Nizam’s state of Hyderabad. Equally impossible was the idea of having Hindu minority of Bengal and Assam accepting Muslim majority in Bongistan for good. Later, the rejection of this scheme by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee proves my point. Abul Hashim and H. S. Suhrawardy were given the freedom to try out this possibility but Bengali Hindus were as allergic to the idea of living under Muslim Bengali domination as the Muslim League thought of living under a Hindu-dominated democracy in a United India.

Edward J. Thomson was professor of Indian History and Bengali Language and Literature at Oxford University. He was pro-Congress and twice visited India as the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian and was a close friend of Mahatama Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajgopal Acharya and Sardar Valabhbhai Patel. He was a hard-core opponent of the Muslim League. His book Enlist India for Freedom (1940, page 58) was the first book containing Allama Iqbal’s regret over his name’s involvement with the idea of a separate Muslim homeland i. e. Pakistan. He had written:-

There is some dispute as to who started the notion (of Pakistan). It is often said to have been Sir Mohammed Iqbal, the poet’s. In the Observer I once said that he supported the Pakistan Plan. Iqbal was a friend, and he set my misconception right. After speaking of his own despondency at the chaos he saw coming on my vast undisciplined and starving land (what magnificent English these Indians write) he went on to say that he thought the “Pakistan plan would be disastrous to the British government, disastrous to the Hindu community, disastrous to the Muslim community.” Not only Edward J. Thomson. Another writer, Khan A. Ahmad, also wrote in a booklet entitled The Founder of Pakistan — Through Trial to Triumph (Luzac & Co. London, 1942) seems to have taken Thomson a bit more seriously and attacks Iqbal for the stand he seems to have taken. Edward J. Thomson quotes Iqbal against any idea of a separate Muslim homeland so seriously that he wrote in his book referred to above.

“Iqbal, for his own (purposes), opposed it (Pakistan) secretly. Perhaps the above sentence goes on to prove that Edward J. Thomson and Khan A. Ahmed got Iqbal completely wrong. Khan A. Ahmed was a sympathizer of Chaudhry Rahmat Ali’s scheme. Therefore we should not take Khan A. Ahmed seriously as his opposition to Iqbal was not based on the Allama’s concept of Pakistan which his letters to the Quaid signify. It is based on Iqbal’s letter to him in 1934 — steering clear of Rehmat Ali’s Pakistan Scheme. Nothing wrong in it. But he bases Iqbal’s latter-day opinion on Iqbal’s conversation with him and a letter to him in 1937-38. This appears to be utterly wrong.

In one of the recent articles written by Iqbalean scholars of India it has been suggested that India should own up Allama Iqbal because he had come full circle in owning up his previous view about the disastrous consequences of the partition.

I believe that both Jawaharlal Nehru and Edward J. Thomson are wrong. I take up the latter’s book as the proof of my contention. Explaining as to why Allama Iqbal proposed a federation of the North-West India’s Muslim majority provinces, he is made to say in Thomson’s book “But I am the President of the Muslim League and therefore it is my duty to support it.” Now Allama Iqbal’s words against a separate Muslim homeland, read with the sentence. “But I am the President of the Muslim League...” makes the lines preceding it dubious. It means that what appears to have surmised in 1937-38 must have been said in 1931. In that case one couldn’t blame Allama Iqbal for changing his stand.

Rather Edward J. Thomson should be put in the dock and charged with extrapolation which is an intellectual crime.

I believe the Indian scholars will be scholarly enough to look into this blatant case of extrapolation of words transferred from one context to the other.

Cricket can play a major role in fostering goodwill

PAKISTAN’S decision not to take part in the Asia Cup is a signal that its position on cricket ties with India is hardening. India has rebuffed every gesture by Pakistan to resume cricket relations. The Indian Cricket Board has maintained the position that it is the Indian government that has stood in the way.

My own view is that the Indian Cricket Board has not tried hard enough nor has the Indian media made any effort to point out the somewhat foolish posture that India and Pakistan can compete in other sports but not cricket.

By choosing not to tour Pakistan, as it was bound to do, the Pakistan Cricket Board had been deprived of a considerable sum of money. Now, it would appear, that the Pakistan Cricket Board has had enough.

I have been an advocate of regional cricket from the day that the Asian Cricket Council was set up. Pakistan and India may have political differences but the subcontinent could have become a single, powerful voice in international cricket.

The ICC has chosen not to ‘meddle’ though it did act when England refused to play against Zimbabwe for political reasons in the World Cup and it acted against New Zealand when it refused to play in Nairobi for security reasons.

If the ICC was not willing to come out upfront, it could have used back-channels to persuade India not to be so stubborn. According to news reports the PCB chairman and the Indian Cricket Board president are due to meet in Dubai. Mr Dalmiya is a pragmatic man but it is not the PCB chairman who needs convincing but the Indian government and Mr Dalmiya should use his considerable persuasive powers with his own government.

I have been reading a quite and delightfully remarkable book A Corner Of A Foreign Field by Samachandara Guha. It is an Indian history of a British sport. It puts cricket in a social context and how the game became a vehicle to re-affirm Indian nationalism as well as a means to fight Untouchability.

It is not my purpose to review the book but to simply state that cricket was the one game that bred a culture of tolerance. I would suggest that those values of cricket still hold true. Cricket has a great role to play in reducing tensions and fostering goodwill. We should use it!

The World Cup continues to haunt the cricket scene. Some countries including Pakistan took their defeats to heart and wholesale changes have been made. Two in particular appear to be ill-judged, the sacking of Carl Hooper and of Shaun Pollock.

Hooper is someone who took on the job when the West Indies had reached rock-bottom. He picked up the bits and pieces and gradually changed an unruly mob into a team. For most of the time. He did not have the services of Brian Lara.

The West Indies had made a splendid start in the World Cup and it was not Hooper’s fault that the match against Bangladesh was washed out and the West Indies lost two vital points that would have allowed it to move to the Super Six round.

Hooper had always been projected as an enigmatic character, one given to Hamlet-like moods. He was sacked as captain and Lara appointed in his place. Hooper was picked for the Guyana Test and at the last minute, he withdrew. It indicated to me the depth of his hurt.

But the Guyana Test, despite centuries by Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, showed how much the West Indies missed Hooper, both as a player and as captain. And I write this as the Trinidad Test is underway and the West Indies appear to be behind the eight-ball.

No one doubts the genius of Lara as a batsman but he was a failure as captain, the first time round and now against the Australians he seems helpless. A strong hand was needed at the helm so that the bowlers could be disciplined to stay on the course of line and length, instead of bowling short and wide and all over the place. With Hooper, the West Indies had come close to becoming a competitive team once again.

It was bad enough to have sacked Shaun Pollock. To an extent, it was understandable that South Africa, as hosts had been bundled out of the World Cup and a scapegoat had to be found. It was the South African Board that had hyped up the World Cup and there was that extra disappointment.

But to have appointed Graeme Smith to be captain was one of those decisions that defies logic. Smith was not in the original squad and got in only after Jonty Rhodes had got injured. In the triangular in Dhaka, South Africa looked a shadow of its great self.

The decision not to give Shaun Pollock the new ball in the first two matches mystified all commentators. Throughout the tournament South Africa looked like a deeply troubled team and with seemingly no one in charge.

The heat may have had something to do with it but the South Africans appeared listless. I have no idea of the wheels within wheels of South African cricket but unless something is not done quickly, South Africa will cease to be a cricket power.

As a start, I would suggest that the captaincy should be restored to Shaun Pollock. He had taken over the reins of captaincy at a very difficult time and the scandal created by Hansie Cronje’s involvement with bookies had the potential to destroy South African cricket.

Pollock had done an outstanding job in keeping the team together and providing it with leadership. He is still one of the game’s best player. South Africa does not have a treasure-chest of players that it can afford to discard someone like Shaun Pollock.

The World Cup has come and gone. The time has come to move on.