| May 12, 2003 | Monday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1424 |
Who is interested in the consumer?
Right-wing’s bovine back-up plan
About keeping city clean
Life worth ten rupees a day
WHAT is Pakistan’s spymaster Gen Ehsan, director-general, Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), doing meeting very high-profile US administration officials in Washington? Interestingly, his two predecessors, Gen Ziauddin Butt and Gen Mahmood Ahmad, could not survive such visits for more than a couple of months. After their return from the US, both had to go home in not very agreeable circumstances. One hopes no such fate awaits Gen Ehsan.
Except for President Bush, Gen Ehsan seems to have met almost all the top decision-makers in Washington. There has been nothing secret about these meetings. All his high-profile encounters have been reported by the media in the US and Pakistan. Understandably, there is nothing in these media reports to suggest what exactly transpired in these meetings.
Since Pakistan’s secret services and law enforcement agencies are collaborating very closely with Washington in hunting down Al Qaeda, one could perhaps assume that this subject was what the two sides went into in greater detail during these meetings. Even then a meeting between the top officials from their respective intelligence agencies on the subject of Al Qaeda would have been a normal happening causing no raised eye-brows. But eye-brows are being raised because Gen Ehsan is calling on even those top decision-makers in Washington who have nothing to do with secret service activities.
One recalls that about a couple of months back, ISI broke with tradition and went public when it held two press conferences in quick succession inside the out-of-bounds ISI headquarters in Aabpara, one for the foreign press and the other for local journalists. When asked why a covert agency had suddenly gone overt, Rashid Qureshi, the president’s press secretary who was also present on the occasion, said it was being done to dispel the growing impression (in the US?) that a part of ISI had gone on its own and that the military leadership had lost control over the agency’s field operations.
Could it be that Gen Ehsan is on a similar explanatory tour of the US? And perhaps he is personally reassuring everyone who is anyone in the US administration that his agency is performing its functions well within the overall institutional discipline. But why did the US need such reassurances at such high levels?
It is no secret any more that the two low-intensity wars, one across the Durand Line and the other across the LoC in which Pakistan remained involved over the last 10-12 years, were mainly spearheaded by the ISI. The one across the Durand Line has been brought to its end by the US. Now the Northern Alliance with which the ISI-backed Taliban were fighting all these years are ruling in Kabul with the help of the US. Naturally the Alliance would be excessively hostile towards Pakistan and suspicious of the ISI. Therefore, perhaps, the need to reassure US decision-makers at the highest levels on this score.
And since the year 2000 when former US president Clinton visited the region, the US is also being seen to be trying to help bring to an end to the low-intensity war going on across the LoC as well. The earlier attempts culminated in Agra but failed to achieve the desired results. The US seems to have mounted fresh attempts on this front after having taken care of Iraq. Does this answer the question: Whose turn is it after Iraq? And in the same context, one also needs to keep it in mind that Mr Vajpayee while making the peace-talk offer in Srinagar also referred to lessons to be learnt from the Iraq war.
The other day, when US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, quoting President Gen Pervez Musharraf, said in Islamabad at a press conference that if there were any camps (of militants in Pakistan) today, they would not be there tomorrow, his body language and his words oozed with immense confidence, perhaps because he had already been reassured by Gen Ehsan on this score when he met him in Washington before he undertook his journey to the region.
It was perhaps only after having been reassured by the US on behalf of Pakistan that not only violence across the LoC had been stopped (Armitage at the same press conference in Islamabad said that it was much less than what it was this time last year) but that even the training camps of the militants were being dismantled that Mr Vajpayee offered in Srinagar to resume peace talks with Pakistan.
And before coming to Islamabad, Mr Armitage stopped over in London to meet Mr Brijesh Mishra, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s special assistant. Perhaps the two discusssed what more was needed to be done by the two sides for India and Pakistan to resume the long awaited dialogue.
Diplomatic circles in Islamabad believe that Pakistan was perhaps prepared to do all for peace talks except dismantle what the Indians call Pakistan-assisted militant network inside Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK) because, they said, in Islamabad’s opinion once this happened, India would be able to tighten its oppressive grip over the valley. Then it would be back to the pre-1990 situation with no compulsion on India to even accept that Kashmir was a problem and that it needed to talk to Pakistan and Kashmiris to resolve it. So, before Pakistan could even contemplate doing this, these circles believe, it wants India to reduce its troop strength in the IHK on reciprocal basis.
And that is perhaps what the US is currently trying to get Pakistan and India to do simultaneously. And that is where perhaps the sincerity of purpose of the two countries would be tested. More so in the case of Mr Vajpayee who, while announcing his peace talk offer in Lok Sabha, had said he wanted to resolve the Kashmir issue on the basis of “Jamhooriyat, Kashmiriyat and Insaniyat’’. ONLOOKER
I HAVE before me a copy of State of Consumer Rights, 2001. The report was published by ActionAid, Pakistan, and the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP). In addition to invaluable data and informations on consumer rights, the report seeks to interpret consumer laws from the standpoint of the poor and the disadvantaged in the country.
With this end in view, the report deals with several vital issues such as consumer laws, education, health, food, potable water, housing, the environment, the power sector, telecommunications, petroleum and gas, transport, postal services, banking, privatization, and the electronic and print media in the country.
The CRCP had to face several difficulties before it could come out with the report. One only hopes that it will become an annual feature.
But why talk about the consumer and his rights? Even my most sympathetic readers think I am the most boring columnist in the country when I write on such issues. They expect me to play the bhand all the time. There is no consumer resistance in the country. More often than not, the seller gets the price he wants and no questions asked. That’s why prices have risen so steeply across the board. Nevertheless, I insist that the Consumer Rights Commission needs wholehearted support from all of us. I think that the consumer is the king and if we are talking about his rights, we must talk about his right to buy at a price he can afford and not the one demanded by the seller.
THE following lines appeared in this column last week (May 5):
“Friend Khalid Hasan, it is heart-warming to know, still remembers me. He has been in Washington for years now but he never fails to send me cricket-related clippings now and again. The accompanying photograph is from KH. I think that those of you who are interested in the game of cricket will love it.
“The Estates Committee referred to in the caption probably has something to do with the MCC or the management at Lord’s.” Unluckily however, “the accompanying photograph” failed to appear. I will not apportion blame. Suffice to say that it was my bad luck. Such faux pas do take place in my profession from time to time. The pavilion at Lord’s must be full of exciting memories. Why, it is history itself! Let no one fool around with history.
AND now some excerpts from a collection of writings in The Statesman (1875-1975): on January 13, 1906, the paper wrote:
Reference was made to the two former Viceroys of India who had filled the office of Governor-General of Canada. The fact was recalled that both had conferred boons on the educated Indian community: Lord Dufferin had instituted the Public Service Commission, while to Lord Landsdowne was due the reform and enlargement of the Legislative Councils.
On September 2, 1906, The Statesman commented:
The penny morning daily, which is so familiar an institution at home, has until recently had comparatively few representatives in India. The Statesman which has for over a quarter of a century upheld this democratic ideal was at one time a solitary pioneer, and it may be claimed to have been the first example in this country of a penny daily which has been a commercial success. The measure of prosperity has not been due to any alliance with the powers that be. On the contrary, it has been our duty on many occasions to give expression to opinions which were bound to be distasteful to the ruling classes, and we are quite aware that our policy of frank independence has often entailed considerable pecuniary loss.
But we think we may claim that our severest critics have credited us with honesty of purpose; while by steadily pursuing the aim of giving from day to day, regardless of expense, a thoroughly representative selection of news. We have, as we are happy and proud to acknowledge, obtained the loyal support of many thousands of readers and have provided a host of advertisers with a medium of publicity which is, as we have reasons to know, unrivalled in India.
For a considerable time preparations have been in progress which will enable us shortly to publish the largest and best printed paper in India and to satisfy, with a rapidity which few journals if any at home can equal, a demand which has hitherto taxed our printing resources.
Before many months are past we hope to have installed the most perfect printing presses which American ingenuity has yet evolved. Each of them will be capable of turning out a paper of twelve, sixteen or twenty-four pages, as occasion may require, at one operation and at the rate of 25,000 copies in an hour. The utility to the reader of well executed illustrations has not been overlooked, and an abundant supply of portraits, maps, and other aids to the appreciation of news will be a conspicuous feature of The Statesman in its new garb.
AT about the same time as Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was unveiling his part of peace moves with India last Tuesday, listing nuclear CBMs and facilitating travel for civilians as key issues, his Indian counterpart was chairing a seemingly unrelated cabinet meeting, that, among other domestic matters, approved a proposal to enact a federal law against cow slaughter.
As a result, there could be no immediate official reaction to Mr Jamali’s rather important, even urgent catalogue of proposals. Instead, the ubiquitous “unidentified sources” came into play. And, as was to be expected, they promptly denounced the Pakistani measures as completely inadequate.
The official Indian spokesman then had to do considerable rowing back on Wednesday to limit the damage caused by this one wild swing of the bat by the unnamed “sources”. At stake was India’s own image as the initiator of a new peace process with Pakistan.
Even so, the cabinet meeting that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had presided over that evening, was not really as divorced from Mr Jamali’s overtures as it might have seemed. Peace talks with Pakistan and protection of the cow will always have a great, even if at times inversely proportionate, relevance to any ruling party’s plans in an Indian election year.
This being so, any progress towards talks with Pakistan would logically augur well for the Indian cow, particularly given the fact that bovine welfare is emerging as a back-up plan for Hindu nationalists as a substitute for the standoff with Pakistan, that seems to be waning. How is the safety of the cow related to India’s approach towards Pakistan? The answer really is simple. The Bharatiya Janata Party has usually thrived on emotive issues. It faces a clutch of state polls in November and, later, next year, life-and-death general elections.
As it happens, three of the states going to the polls in November are precisely the ones that the BJP had lost to the Congress in the very first electoral encounter it faced after the May 1998 nuclear tests. It must have been an embarrassment to say the least for a hard-line nationalist government to be defeated so roundly, not the least because it was interpreted as a stinging rejection of the BJP’s cavalier jingoism displayed in a small desert town of Rajasthan.
There is a view too that the defeat in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Manipur may have had a sobering effect on Mr Vajpayee and that it actually shaped his next gambit in the form of the Lahore bus journey. If cockiness doesn’t work, try tact. There is a view also that Pakistan’s transgressions in Kargil might have evoked an entirely different response from India had Mr Vajpayee not lost a parliamentary trust vote by a single MP’s betrayal.
Let’s go back to Gujarat towards the end of 2002. Remember the slogans against “Mian” Musharraf, emphasizing President Pervez Musharraf’s face as a Muslim leader? Mr Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party rode home to an emphatic victory in the state elections, led by a religious pogrom and sustained by an anti-Pakistan campaign. Gujarati Muslims were identified as Pakistanis and “Mian” Musharraf as their saviour.
Even the opposition Congress party, which rushed in to woo the alienated Muslim vote, was branded an agent of President Musharraf. Having succeeded in getting itself re-elected in Gujarat, the BJP pondered plans to replicate the “Gujarat model” elsewhere in future elections. But its loss in Himachal Pradesh to the Congress put a question mark on the model’s efficacy.
In the meantime, the archaeological digging ordered by a court at the site of the razed Babri mosque in Ayodhya has thrown up only more embarrassing relics from history which in no way assist the BJP’s claim that the disputed Ayodhya site was the birthplace of Lord Rama.
The mobilization of thousands of Hindu youth by the BJP’s street-fighting arm, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, with its distribution of sanctified weapons or dagger-like trishuls has been fairly successfully arrested in non-BJP states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. This is not a good omen for the saffron party since the Congress or other opposition parties rule most of the Indian states that will be involved in the general elections next year, where the BJP cannot replicate its Gujarat model.
Mr Vajpayee mentioned the war on Iraq as one of the reasons that went behind his offer of peace with Pakistan. The transformed political situation in the region has evidently come at the wrong time for the Hindu right, forcing peace talks with Pakistan as an international compulsion.
Many in the BJP are ruing the fact that they have been robbed of a major poll plank, leaving them with very little in the basket of emotive issues to play with.
That is why there remains a threat to the road ahead with Pakistan. An Akshardham, or a Kaluchak or Pulwama would be ruse enough to derail the process, or so one hears the grumbling Right as hoping. On the other hand, if saving the cow picks up steam as a national issue, the chances of an engineered standoff with Pakistan are likely to recede.
PAKISTAN’s MNA M.P. Bhandara is hoping that he correctly heard Mr Vajpayee telling parliament what he told Mr Jamali. What he told Mr Jamali, unless Mr Vajpayee’s inflexion in the Hindi speech was misleading, was that India and Pakistan should jointly fight the menace of terrorism. This also happens to be the view of Mr Bhandara.
He told a group of senior Indian editors in Delhi that the people who targeted the Indian parliament on December 13 were the same people who killed the French submarine engineers in Karachi and they were the same people who later tried to assassinate President Musharraf. “These people obviously could not be harbouring any goodwill for Pakistan,” Mr Bhandara said, as members of Pakistan’s parliamentarians on a goodwill visit to India, looked on approvingly.
WHEN the Governor of the province has to call a conference to talk about choked drains and piles of garbage dotting the city’s landscape, we have something to think really hard about. This largest and, arguably also the richest, city of this Islamic republic is at present ruled over by leaders with marked Islamic commitments. Don’t they say ‘Cleanliness is half of Eiman’? In a city gone so unclean as this city is, can we conceal the fact that at least one half of our Eiman is in grave jeopardy?
There is, of course, no denying that for what one might say are ‘historic’ reasons, Karachi has been systematically neglected and its lifestyle deliberately distorted over a decade of cynical mismanagement. For this one need not hesitate to name two names. First, Karachi-born Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Second, Nawaz Sharif. These two prime ministers had two innings each. In both, they traumatized this city in a comprehensive way.
But blaming others must end here. This was for record, if you please. Let us look at our own record. At the governor’s conference, there was the predictable lament about funds not forthcoming. This may well be true. There is a general feeling that the provincial bureaucracy is jealous of the elected local governments and tends to treat them in a step-motherly sort of way. But this should be taken in the stride. We are all human beings and, with the best of intentions, would be liable to err in one way or another. Besides, bureaucrats would be bureaucrats and we have to learn to live with them.
When it is a question of cleanliness, let us be clear about one very fundamental point. We do not have to wait for the municipal sweeper to keep our house and our neighbourhood clean. What does a sensible housewife do when the domestic ‘masi’ absents herself? She picks up the broom and starts sweeping, even if angrily cursing this, that and the other aspect of life as it is. But the cleaning has to be done, ‘masi’ or no ‘masi.’ And, if we really mean what we say about the relationship between cleanliness and our Eiman, then the matter is perfectly clear. Cleanliness has to be done, sweeper or no sweeper.
It is only fair to say that ever since we have had the elected local governments around in Karachi, things have improved even if this trend has been neither constant nor consistent nor evenly visible across the city. But things have improved, here and there. No doubt the local government has a very basic responsibility when it comes to keeping the city clean. But what about the citizen? What about me, in my house, in my street, in my mohalla, in the bazaar where I have a shop, in the block where I have an office, in the apartment where I am living?
There is something known as self-help. Most of us seem to have forgotten all about it. In many localities, the residents have night vigil arrangements made entirely on a self-help basis, each resident contributing a bit to keep this nightly watch system going. The expense is shared, so is the benefit. What’s so awfully difficult about following the same simple line to look after the elementary sanitation and hygiene — in a word cleanliness, that we maintain is half of our Eiman. How can we leave it to the mercy of the municipal sweeper we know is not there?
It is about time civic leaders gave some thought to promoting the idea of self-help. This would appear to be particularly important in areas where government assistance is not available, or not sufficiently available, or is slow in arriving. Somehow, the plea that because municipal sweeper has not been around, our street must remain unclean, sounds palpably unconvincing. It reduces our personal commitment to cleanliness to a joke, and not a very hilarious one either.
In this respect the shopkeepers in our bazaars are the more to be blamed. They are doing business, obviously making a profit from a shop situated in a street. What prevents them from getting together, contributing to a common fund to hire hands to do the basic cleaning? Why garbage should be left to pile up, spread stench, breed pests and pose visible hazard to the health of those around, simply because the municipal sweeper is not there. There is a basic minimum in every kind of civic service that the citizens can, and ought to be able to, manage on their own.
The mere fact that we should receive a directive from the governor to think of cleaning up our environment is not a very flattering certificate for our civic sense. No doubt there is a limit to what the lay citizen can do entirely upon his/her own in respect of city sanitation. For instance, systematic disposal of huge quantities of solid waste would be beyond the means or ability of individuals, no matter how public spirited they might be. However, there is reason to believe that where the citizens are conscious, they would invariably be able to prevail upon government officials or institutions to do what they are expected to do. Now that we may hopefully look forward to some improvement in the general conditions in the city as a result of the new drive, much would depend upon citizen participation. If this contribution is not coming from the generality of the citizenship, after the cleanliness fortnight that begins today, we may soon be back to our bad old ways. The public has a part to play, if society is to be put in proper shape, and kept that way. No two ways about it.
How much is a man’s, or a woman’s, life worth really? Some would say no price could possibly be set on human life. But in our society, especially in our legal system, the impossible can become possible.
And this isn’t coming from the Notebook but from an eminent legal authority, a former chief justice of the Sindh High Court, who later served as judge of the Supreme Court.
Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid was invited by the Karachi Gymkhana to speak to its members on the topic ‘Access to justice for the common man’. In his lecture, he told the audience that getting justice in Pakistan often took a very long time — too long for some of us to even imagine.
To illustrate what he said he gave the example of a woman who spent nine years in Karachi’s Central Jail just because her case never came up for hearing. She was later acquitted but had to spend another two years in prison because the court clerk mis-spelt her name and the jail authorities refused to release her. Finally, when she was released, the government paid her Rs 7,300 for the two extra years that she had to spend, at the rate of Rs 10 per day.
So that’s how much a woman’s life is worth then. Sort of reminds one of Tolstoy’s classic tale of how much land does a man really need to live.
As for what else the good judge spoke about, he also made the rather novel suggestion that the prime minister should visit Karachi’s central prison and speak to prisoners and have meals with them. He said that Mr Jamali should see for himself how 5,000 prisoners were accommodated in a jail meant for 1,000. He basically said that the jail was a hell-hole with terrible sanitary conditions and where power outages lasted sometimes as long as 10 hours. As for the women’s and juvenile section, he said that 280 women and 56 children were housed in a jail meant for 100 inmates.
As someone who uses Karachi’s roads all the time, one just have this to ask the city government and those in charge of its charged parking scheme: where does the money that you collect go and why isn’t it spent on improving the city’s roads?
According to the city government’s charged parking committee chief, Muslim Pervez, next year’s contract for charged parking has been given, surprisingly, to a single contractor for Rs 61.2 million, considerably higher than last year’s Rs 47.8 million. The official also said that the new charged parking scheme would take effect from July 1 and that hospitals would not be exempted. Not surprisingly, all the 245 members of the city council, including journalists covering the city government, have been exempted from paying the charged parking fee. The exemption could only be applicable when on official duty, but is likely to be abused. As for the city council members, how can you expect the rest of Karachi to pay when you have exempted yourself.
On a more serious note, one will have to go the same issue again: what happens to the money collected by the city government for charged parking? Why should motorists pay 10 rupees to park their car when there is no guarantee of security (the parking ticket explicitly says that owners are parking at their own risk) and when the road is full of potholes and craters?
Take the case of the Clifton Centre and its environs, frequented by hundreds of motorists every day. The roads around it are terrible to say the least and on top of that motorists are expected to pay ten rupees. Also, unlike the rest of the civilized world, Karachi’s city government allows its parking contractor to charge even on Sundays or closed holidays. This does not happen anywhere in the world and the city government should do the same when the new parking scheme gets underway from July 1. It should come across as having a heart instead of trying to find any means possible to milk motorists.
There is nothing wrong in principle with charged parking. In fact, it has a strong economic basis to it since in a city like Karachi parking space is limited and hence a valuable commodity for which people would be willing to pay a certain amount.
But logic and sense should be the guiding principle as far as the scope of the charged parking scheme is concerned. You can’t have charged parking just about everywhere, and certainly not around hospitals or on holidays. And, it helps if the money collected is spent directly to improve the city roads so that motorists see that the money they pay is being utilized properly.
More than 3,000 workers took part in a rally on May Day arranged by the Progressive Youth Front (PYF) in Landhi. The participants chanted slogans in support of labour rights and against the IMF, World Bank, and America, Britain and the UN.
A colleague who went to the rally said that the area where the rally was held is currently a stronghold of the MMA but that it was encouraging to see such a large turnout though the religious alliance was not a sponsor of the event. The place was chosen to commemorate the historic struggle in 1972 of the working people of Landhi, especially those who died when police fired into a crowd of workers assembled outside Dawood cotton textile mills.
PYF President comrade Sher Nawaz Jadoon, LPP General Secretary comrade Farook Tariq, and comrades Umer Baloch, Salahuddin Gandapur, Shafiq Ghouri and many other labour and youth leaders spoke on the occasion and paid tributes to the “martyrs” of Chicago and of the Landhi firing incident.
They said that the federal government should withdraw the Industrial Relations Ordinance of 2002 because it contained some very harsh anti-worker measures.
The speakers criticized the contract system which they said was being backed by the World Bank and the IMF. They said that capitalists, industrialists and feudals should realize that unless the working class got its due rights, there could be no hope of peace and harmony in society. They also said that the government should also look out for the interests of labourers and workers instead of constantly trying to curry favour with investors and big business.
The speakers were particularly harsh against the religious parties because according to them the latter had done nothing but divide people on the basis of sect, religion and caste. They also said that the MMA government in the NWFP should not exploit religion for personal gain, and implement laws that guarantee workers their basic rights. It was also announced that the labour party would set up a free legal aid office in Landhi for workers.
For the last six months some students of Dow Medical College have been working to make their institute a smoke-free zone. Under the plan, according to DMC student Sarah Idrees, a non-political society called DOST (Dowites Opposing Smoking & Tobacco) was formed. Instead of designating smoking or no-smoking zones, DOST came up with a novel idea. It proposed a ‘death area’ for smokers in the college where any student, teacher or other staff member could go and smoke. The rest of the college was designated smoke-free. Seminars were organized and the society lobbied for a ban on the sale of cigarettes at all vending shops inside the DMC and Civil Hospital. The ban was imposed recently, Ms Idrees says, but those who wish to smoke can easily buy cigarettes from the many shops situated right outside the college.
It is also quite possible that the ban must be violated at times because the society does not have any legal sanction as such. And as we have seen, even laws sometimes do not persuade people from giving up this most lethal of addiction. However, one can only hope that students at Karachi’s other educational institutions will follow the example of their counterparts at DMC and set up their own ‘death areas’.
— By Karachian
Email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com