| May 19, 2003 | Monday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 16, 1424 |
Time is running out fast
Is wearing the veil Islamic?
When did the Raj end?
A sad story of hate and poetic injustice
Playing with primary education
Fast food heist
A MEMBER of the provincial assembly of the NWFP has introduced a resolution requiring that wearing a veil should be made compulsory for every girl above 12 years of age (Dawn, May 2). Without citing any Quranic text in support of the resolution, Pir Muhammad Khan of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal assumes that Islam ordains the veil for women.
It is strange and a pity indeed that no Urdu writer or poet from India was invited to attend the Saarc Writers Conference recently held at Male. Though uprooted and supplanted and ghettoized, Urdu is still a widely used language in its land of birth. It is the language of more than a hundred million Muslims of UP, CP, and Behar in addition to tens of millions others among cultured non-Muslims across the length and breadth of the country. Denying it its place at any colloquium on sub- continental literature would make that event a very partial and parochial affair. As could be gathered from the available scanty reports and can be expected, thats what the Male jaunt actually became.
According to Intizar Hussain, who was one of the five Pakistani participants, poet Ahmad Faraz could not find one soul among the billion plus South Asia to understand his verses in their original language. Maldivians could pack the audience with scuba divers and shoals of fish with gills attuned to aquatic rhymes but for the sad refrains of Urdu ghazal the island had no buyers. Faraz was right in his insistence on reading his poetry in the language of its composition. And to be fair it must have been quite disappointing to find that the Indian delegation too had no one who could understand Urdu poetry. Is it not a reflection on the cultural poverty that is growing and the shrinking of the Indian civilization and the shrivelling of its soul that is taking place. But this is to be expected under the circumstances. The Saarc forum’s “struggle” (to use Intizar Sahib’s description) to find some kind of cultural affinity in the region, when the closest commonalities between the largest strand of our Hindi-Urdu population inhabiting northern South Asia are being systematically erased, would therefore naturally look amusing to someone who is aware of the banal formality of such efforts.
Mercifully the Saarc literary gathering was a non-official picnic arranged by some hail-fellow-well-met NGO which has come into funds to perform this do-good ritual. It is nothing to be serious about. Still this huge absence should have been pointed out to the organizer because Urdu willy-nilly happens to be one of the national languages of India and some few people in Delhi still understand it better than Tamil, Telugo, Malyalam or Kanara.
What is no less distressing is the absence of any contact between writers of Pakistan and those who came from Bangladesh.
The reports that we have make no mention of any interaction between the two brotherly Muslim people. There is no mention of their contemporary work. What kind of stories they are writing and what inspires their verse. The estranged twins have no intellectual rapport. All that remains is the scar of a wound and Raja Tridev Roy.
The necessity for interaction between writers and intellectuals of the two countries was passionately advocated by the former High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Alimul Haq, at a lavish, well attended dinner arranged by lawyer M Bilal to bid him farewell, a couple of weeks back. He said diplomatic interaction could foster better understanding and help bring closeness in approaches to various issues, but that was as far as diplomacy could go. Real and meaningful exchange could only take place between the hearts and minds of people. That meant greater commerce of men and ideas. There ought to be liberal exchange of books and magazines and writers and artists should meet more often. In the absence of such interaction formal cultural agreements would continue to gather dust in official files.
M Bilal thought the present day communication immediacy might lead some to think people to people contact had become obsolete as in the information village everybody was close by. But that however was an illusion of the modern age. Seeing people on the TV was not the same thing as seeing people across the table. And electronic exchange was no substitute for reading a book in which the author opened windows into his thought. M Bilal said we needed to translate our best works of literature into Urdu and Bangla so that our two people could get acquainted with each other at a level where geographical and political separation ceased to have any meaning.
The affinity of spirit and feeling that the SAARC forum of writers was seeking is there already and can be seen in the broad culture of poverty that thrives in South Asia with its attendant evils. Within the parameters of this culture we have our islands of affluence with their own culture that the surrounding landscape of despair colours with strange hues of perversity. What is ennobling and beautiful in this rolling torrid zone is the sight of the toiling masses whose work keeps the show going for everybody. But as Tolstoy said, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, the 450 million Muslims of the sub- continent, have sorrows of their own in their divided destinies. They do not get together even on distant islands.
WITH the budget to be announced in the first week of June and his own visit to the US scheduled in the third week of the month, the president has to do something very quickly to break the LFO logjam. Otherwise, either the budget presentation will have to be postponed indefinitely (unthinkable) or the finance minister will most probably go to the TV station on June 7 to present his balance sheet for 2003-04.
The 11-member committee of the government and the opposition will be completing its deliberations on the LFO in a couple of days. According to informed insiders, the entire exercise is being used by the ruling alliance to buy time, and the opposition is seemingly tagging along because the extended talks serve its purpose of keeping parliament from functioning without having to suffer the physical agony of thumping desks.
The government perhaps wanted time out from the rumpus in parliament to think of some ways to break the opposition. On the face of it, it appears as if so far it has not come up with any new ideas on the matter. The campaign which the president had launched on May 1 to explain directly to the people of Pakistan his case on the LFO and his uniform, too, appears to have so far failed to achieve the desired results.
Deliberately leaked stories to the press about how loyal the army is to its current COAS, too, seem to have failed to break the will of the opposition. Some of the opposition leaders, asked about these reports, said they felt happy that the institution was loyal to its leader and that they would not like to see any discord within the army over the LFO. They, however, want, they said, the entire institution and its leader to realize the illegality of making the LFO a part of the Constitution without first getting it passed by a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Some of these leaders even hinted at the possibility of a breakthrough in the deadlock if the president agreed to bring the LFO to parliament for its approval. In that case perhaps, they said, the opposition could consider accepting a president in uniform for a limited period of time.
“We did approve by a two-thirds majority in 1985 an amendment in the 1973 Constitution which mentioned President Gen Ziaul Haq by name and said he would be president for the next five years, didn’t we?” they asked, and indicated that this could happen again if the LFO was brought to parliament for indemnification. Seemingly, President Gen Pervez Musharraf wants to remain in power, come what may, at least for the next five years, during the greater part of which he wants to keep his uniform as well. At the same time, he also wants to ensure that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif do not sneak back into the country.
In order to achieve these three objectives, his critics say, he has bent every rule and law of the land since the day he decided to hold the elections in October 2002. First, he had himself ‘elected’ president for the next five years through a highly dubious referendum. Next, the laws were changed to keep ‘unwanted’ persons out of the electoral race. Then NAB and the ISI were indiscriminately and extensively used to bring together a group of pliant politicians under the banner of the PML-Q. This party was then given all kinds of support by the establishment to win the maximum number of seats in the elections.
And then, when parliament came into being, NAB once again went to work to win over about 20 PPPP turncoats to the side of the ruling party. In Balochistan, two former JUI ministers were released from NAB custody as a price for the religious alliance’s support in government formation. In Sindh, in order to keep the majority party (PPPP) from forming the government, all kinds of underhand tactics were used.
So, by the time the five governments were formed and started functioning, President Musharraf had paid dearly in terms of his credibility. But two hurdles, the ouster of BB and NS from electoral politics and his own ‘election’ as president, in the way of his continuity had been overcome in the process. Now he needs to win political sustainability for his continuity, and also he needs to get parliament to accept him with his uniform.
The president seems to believe that the NSC would enhance rather than undermine the sovereignty of parliament as, according to his understanding, it would be able to ward off, through timely consultation among the main actors, any adventurism being contemplated by an ambitious president, or by a prime minister with a penchant for plunder or even by a Bonapartist COAS.
It seems that the president would also like to use the NSC as a talk-shop in which strategic issues concerning security, economy and politics, etc, would be discussed by the people who are privy to all the dimensions of these issues, so that when the relevant policies are debated in parliament the leaders of the house and the opposition are able to conduct well-informed discussions and reach decisions in the supreme national interest.
So far so good. But then the question is, would he take off his uniform, immediately following the formation of the NSC, or would he like to wait until he is convinced that the check and balance he had been seeking had been achieved? Most probably, he would like to opt for the second proposition which would take at least five years.
So, perhaps before he decides to trade off his uniform for the NSC, he is most likely to trade off the LFO for his uniform. Which in other words would mean that he would most probably agree to bring the LFO to parliament for debate and indemnification, perhaps before the end of May.—Onlooker
If God directs women to veil their faces, then Muslims have no option but to abide by this command. But if on the other hand our Benevolent Creator has not imposed any such injunction, no man can impose it. An attempt to add to the commands of God Everlasting is an abomination and completely unacceptable in Islam. No matter how well intentioned a man may be such desire cannot be substituted for God’s law and it is not permissible to diverge from the truth. God commands to judge among them by what Allah has revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging away from the truth that has come to you. To each among you, We have prescribed a law and a clear way (5:48). And again in the chapter entitled ‘The Clear Evidence’ (Al-Bayyinah) after referring to the purified pages of the Quran, God the Eternal tells us that the Quran contains right and straight laws (98:3) thereby removing any discretion to add or subtract therefrom.
Those advocating the veiling of women do so by prescribing the hijab. Hijab is the Arabic word for ‘veil’ and may also be used to describe a screen, cover(ing), partition, division, mantle, curtain, drape or divider. The word hijab appears seven times in the Quran, five times as hijab and twice as hijaban. Let us commence by examining each of these verses wherein the term hijab or hijaban appears in the Holy Quran.
The term hijab is used as a barrier or screen separating the dwellers of Paradise from the dwellers of Hell in verse 46 of Surah Al-Araf. How to behave in the Prophet’s (pbuh) house is contained in verse 53 of Surah Al-Ahzab, which states that when you ask for anything you want, ask them from behind a screen (hijab). Forgetting the time for prayer and the imagery of (the sun) hidden in the veil (hijab) (of night) is used in verse 32 of Surah Sad. The term hijab is used as an analogy in verse 5 of Surah Fussilat; those who have not opened to the truth say - “Our hearts are under veils from that to which you invite us; and in our ears is deafness, and between us and you is a screen (hijab)”. In the Surah which follows (Ash-Shura, verse 51) the Creator informs us that He does not speak to any human being unless by Revelation, or from behind a veil (hijab). God places an invisible veil (hijaban) between the Prophet (pbuh) and those who do not believe in the Hereafter (verse 45 of Surah Al-Isra). Maryam (Mary), the most revered amongst ladies, placed a screen (hijaban) from them when God sent His Ruh to her, we are told in verse 17 of the Chapter of the Quran named after this great lady.
In none of the aforesaid seven verses the word hijab is used to indicate a dress code for a Muslim lady. Allah the Merciful in His Infinite Wisdom did not use the word hijab for women’s apparel or dress code but Man did and having done so insinuated the veil. These men use the word (hijab) out of context, and in a context that God Himself does not, and then its meaning (veil) is applied to women’s dress, a meaning that the Creator does not.
The application of the word hijab to women’s attire is all the more surprising since the Quran uses specific terms to describe what is appropriate dress and such description does not use the word hijab. The word khomoorehenna is used in verse 31 of Surah An-Nur to describe how women should dress. In this verse God requires women to conceal their bosoms with a cover. The term khomoorehenna is derived from the word khumar (plural khimar) and could be a shirt, shawl, blouse or any other covering. Again the verse stipulates the covering of the bosom and not the face, head or the hair. The word used is juyubihinna, derived from the word jayb (plural juyub), meaning bosom. If the intention of the Creator was to impose the veil there was nothing stopping Him from mentioning the face and the veil in this verse. But the verse does not use the Arabic word for face (wajh, wujah, qubul), head (raas) or hair (shaar) nor uses the word veil (hijab).
The aforesaid verse may also suggest that the face should not be covered since women may not show off their adornment except that which is apparent. If there is any part of the human body which in the words of the Quran is apparent it is the face. The face is required to be exposed since through the nose one breathes and smells, from the mouth one breathes, drinks and eats, through the eyes one sees and from the ears one hears. Both sight and hearing is impaired if the eyes or the ears are even slightly covered. Eating or drinking is also not possible if the face is covered and eating and drinking are not practised in a closet. The use of the veil constitutes a difficulty and our Merciful Creator tells us that He has not placed in religion any difficulties (22:78).
The only other verse specifically dealing with women’s attire is verse 59 of Surah Al-Ahzab. This is addressed to the Prophet (pbuh) and he is directed to tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their jalabib over their bodies. The word jalabib is the plural of jilbab and means a shirt, covering or a cloak. The question arises whether the meaning of this word (jalbib / jalabib) can be extended to mean covering the face or being veiled. Clearly not, because God, the Wise, would have used words stating so, after all if the ocean were ink for the Words of my Lord, surely, the ocean would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished (18:109). Again the context in which the word (jalabib) is used excludes such possibility. Women are told to cover their bodies so that they should not be molested and that they should be known. If a woman’s face is veiled she cannot be known. The only apparent part of the body by which everyone is distinguished and recognized or known is the face. All other methods of identification whether by finger or genetic printing or retina examination are only possible with the aid of extraneous tools.
There is not a single verse in the entire Quran that requires women to veil their faces. The Holy Quran is significantly silent. In fact the above cited verses may be interpreted to even mean that a veil may not be used, because these verses stipulate that women must be apparent and known and if their faces are concealed by veils they are neither apparent or known. Even in present day strictly veiled Saudi Arabian society, the true faith is witnessed during the Hajj, when no face can be concealed. If the Hajj is an exception, as the veil-lobby contends, it is inexplicable and a contention that is not supported by the words of the Quran.
The beauty and majesty of the Quran is limitless. Through it God, Most Kind and Most Gracious, tells us that the intention of the believer is very important. O children of Adam! We have bestowed ‘libas’ (clothing or raiment) upon you to cover yourselves and as an adornment; and the raiment (‘libas’) of righteousness, that is better (7:26). And the only judge of the raiment of righteousness is our Creator. The matter is therefore taken away from man’s nitpicking ways and laid for consideration before the Master of the Highest Kingdom.
Those who want to blacken the faces of women and reduce them to mere objects must remember that God the Omnipotent directs believing men to lower their gaze (24:30). If women were veiled there would be no need for men to lower their gaze. The Commandment to lowering one’s gaze is often brazenly flouted. Would it then not be more appropriate to legislate for affixing blinkers on men’s eyes, like those on a mule or donkey, rather than having the effrontery to put rags on the faces of 12-year old-girls?
A FRIEND has given me a fascinating book, British Life in India. It describes itself as “An Anthology of Humorous and Other Writings Perpetrated By the British in India, 1750 — 1947, with some Latitude for Works Completed after Independence”. It has been edited by R.V. Vernede and published by the Oxford University Press, Delhi.
The book deals with several aspects of British life in India. The subject I have chosen today is the type of servants hired by the Sahibs and the mem sahibs. The editor’s introduction says:
“Taking an average sized staff in Northern India in the last twenty years of British rule, servants in category I were:
The sweeper (mehtar)
The water-carrier (Behisti)
The scullion (masalchi)
The gardener (malee)
The garden-coolie
and the grass-cuts
The washerman (dhobi)
Servants in category II were:
The head servant (bearer)
The cook (khansama, bawarchi)
The waiter (khidmatgar)
The grooms (syces)
The lady’s maid
and nanny (ayah)
However, let us go back, not twenty but about seventy years before the Raj ended. The editor says that in 1878, Mrs R. Moss King, the wife of a district judge in UP, kept, as noted in her diary, thirty-two servants, of whom twenty-four were basic full-time staff and eight part-time. The following are details together with the monthly wages:
Servants Rs. per month
(Full time basic)
Khansamah (butler) 10
Bawarchi (cook) 10
Bearer (Valet) 10
2 khidmatgars (waiters) 16
Masalchi (Scullion) 5
Ayah (Lady’s maid) 10
Dhaie (wet-nurse) 10
Mehtar (Sweeper) 5
Mehtarani (Sweepress) 4
Bearer’s mate 6
Behisti (water-carrier) 5
Dhobi (washerman) 13
Darzi (tailor) 10
Coachman 8
3 syces (grooms) @ 5 15
3 grasscuts @ 4 12
Malee (gardener) 6
2 garden coolies @ 4 8
163
(Part-time basic)
6 punkah-coolies for 5 months @ Rs. 4 24
1 Gowala 5
1 Murghi-wala (hen keeper) 5
34
For 5 months @ Rs 985
For 7 months @ Rs 1211
For 12 months @ Rs 2,196
Now let me take you a little after Independence, 1954, to be precise. In that year, one of my uncles was promoted superintendent of police and was appointed in Muzaffargarh. One summer’s day, uncle came home with his first salary and he put on the ceiling fan at full speed and threw the money he had towards it which scattered all over the place. With an arm around my aunt, uncle danced and danced and said:
“What will we do with so much money darling?” Mumani and Mamoon spent the next fifteen minutes collecting the money from under the table, from under the bed and from every other impossible crevice in the room.
The excitement having subsided, both uncle and aunt set about hiring dhobis, khansamahs and a whole army of servants, most of them unnecessary under the changed circumstances but most of whom went with the status the mamoon had acquired.
This went on until the advent of Mr. Bhutto’s Awami Raj after which the local sahibs learned to live a lot more frugally and a lot less ostentatiously so the early 1970s saw the end of the Raj as we had known it for at least three generations.
WISDEN has chosen the following Pakistanis as cricketers of the years. Since 1955
1955 Fazal Mahmood
1963 Mushtaq Mohammad
1968 Asif Iqbal
1968 Hanif Mohammad
1970 Majid Khan
1972 Zaheer Abbas
1982 Javed Miandad
1983 Imran Khan
1988 Salim Malik
1992 Waqar Younis
1993 Wasim Akram
1997 Mushtaq Ahmed
1997 Saeed Anwar
2000 Saqlain Mushtaq There is this game in which all of us try to find a team of all time greats. Wisden’s choice has been as good as any over the years but if it has missed anyone, it is Wasim Bari. You can omit just one man from the Wisden list and you have a Pakistan side which will be very difficult to beat in any sort of international competition.
AND finally, an excerpt from The Statesman (1875-1975). The paper claimed on January 9 1907:
We are glad to be able to announce another step towards the production of an enlarged Statesman, turned out with all the advantages of rapid and artistic printing of which the most modern methods admit. Though the machinery at present in use in the Statesman is capable, we believe, of printing a far larger number of copies in a given time than that can be produced by any other newspaper office in India, yet our present resources have been so far over-taxed that we have been compelled to install a new plant of an entirely different order, to enable us to satisfy the public demand. As has already been intimated, two of the world’s finest rotary presses, each printing 25,000 copies an hour, are now about to be erected in the new printing offices. These rotary presses, we may add, are absolutely unique in India.
Neither trouble nor expense is being spared to make the new Statesman worthy of the honourable traditions of this Journal and a newspaper which will satisfy the highest expectations of both readers and advertisers.
MADHUMATI Shukla, unknown for the most part till she was found murdered in her home in Lucknow a few days ago, used to be applauded by her admirers as a poet of the masses. Actually, she was an atrocious versifier who gained credence with a morbid constituency because she spewed venom against Muslims and Pakistan, and in particular against Benazir Bhutto.
At around the same time as Ms Shukla’s death, this correspondent attended a seminar stacked with retired bureaucrats and former intelligence operatives. The subject of the discussion at the highbrow India International Centre was the familiar theme of impending doom for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan because of their perceived vulnerability to a growing “jehadi culture”. One eminent person was convinced that Pakistan was a “snake’s pit of Islamic terrorism”, which had to be crushed to save India from its poisonous influence.
Of Indian Muslims, he felt they had extra-territorial loyalties. They were not honest to their motherland. Their heart was in Makkah. Their beliefs were governed by the Holy Quran, not by the constitution of India.
This man, a former ranking sleuth, was foaming at the mouth, and every time he said “Islamic terrorist” you could almost feel the spurts of venom falling over the audience in a heavy spray of unreasoning hatred.
This is but a small sociological slice of India on the eve of its peace moves with Pakistan. There are two or more indicators here of what could shape the course of policy in coming weeks.
First and most crucial is the impact of Ms Shukla’s murder on the political landscape of Uttar Pradesh, the state that will return the largest number of MPs when national elections are held next year. Peace moves with Pakistan are intrinsically linked to the same issues that the late poetess got entangled with, namely elections.
If Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee opts for the Nawaz Sharif mode for an electoral win, he will go for peace as an election issue which stood his Pakistani counterpart in good stead. If he or his party calculates that political liabilities far outweigh the gains, the road ahead will be dotted with uncertainties. But is it possible to talk peace with Pakistan, to have senior ministers and officials visit each other’s capitals, on the one hand, and on the other to encourage the likes of Ms Shukla in order keep a hold on the sectarian constituency?
According to a detailed report in the Indian Express on Saturday, Ms Shukla was spouting venom against the minorities and Pakistan even while in school. A cassette of her poem reveals that she could have given “Pravin Togadia and Narendra Modi a run for their money had the saffron fringe adopted her,” said the Express. “How they — and the media — overlooked her in the politically charged environment of Uttar Pradesh will remain a mystery.”
The paper quotes a few lines from Ms Shukla’s compositions. The ones here were ostensibly written to greet the swearing in of Benazir Bhutto as prime minister. “Ghus ke veeron seema me ye kaam kijiye, Pakistan me jaake qatle aam kijiye, aur Karachi tak goonje bam, bam, likh de Benazir par Vande Mataram.” (Please cross the border and kill them, we should hear the blasts till Karachi and inscribe Vande Mataram on Benazir).
The suspect in Ms Shukla’s murder is a minister in UP, Mr Amar Mani Tripathi, who is alleged to have been her paramour. Mr Tripathi has been forced to resign, and UP Chief Minister Mayawati says he would be kept out till proven innocent. A tricky aspect is that the murder took place in Mr Vajpayee’s parliamentary constituency. “A poetess was killed in the home constituency of a poet,” as a canny opposition leader, Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party, was quick to point out.
That is not all. Ms Shukla’s death has shown up the farcical equations that add up to a bizarre political sum for both UP and Mr Vajpayee. Mr Tripathi was a member of Mr Vajpayee’s BJP till he was thrown out. Although an upper caste Brahmin, Mr Tripathi was absorbed by Ms Mayawati’s Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party. What makes a BJP dissident to become a BSP minister when the two are ideologically poles apart? The answer is simple: power at all costs. Going by his late friend’s thoughts as glimpsed in her poetry, Mr Tripathi remains a politician with a narrow, sectarian worldview even though he switched to a Dalit party.
More than his weakness, it reveals the BJP’s complete success in permeating its opponent’s ranks with its own agenda. Ms Shukla was a small but vital cog in the communal wheel — and she was worryingly popular at that. This is the reality at the village, small town level.
The India International Centre seminar throws up another level of the same mindset but in a qualitatively different milieu. The Lucknow saga mirrors a compelling political reality, one that Mr Vajpayee has to take into account as he ponders the choices before him on the Pakistan question. Should he make peace with the enemy or not? The Delhi event, on the other hand, reflects a systemic sickness in which groups with deep-rooted vested interests peddle theories of hatred — of their own citizens and of their neighbours — for a fee.
I rang up cine legend Dilip Kumar to inquire if he had met film diva of yesteryears Suraiyya, during her recent resurfacing in Mumbai. He said no one who had hosted a party for the visitor had cared to invite him, so he didn’t know much about her tour. He then collapsed into a long monologue in a highly lyrical and soothingly Persianised Urdu to express his delight at the resumption of India-Pakistan talks.
“These hapless people have realised how utterly wasteful it has been to breed hatred of each other for so many pointlessly long decades. They have apparently realised now how foolhardy it was to buy expensive arms from greedy merchants of death, all to keep each other in check when a spontaneous embrace was always the easier option.” It was a long call, and expensive too, because of all the measured pauses that are part of a Dilip Kumar delivery. Any way the short story is that he was very happy to meet the Pakistani MPs who visited him in Mumbai. And he has offered to visit Pakistan “provided it helps bring the two people together.”
APPARENTLY in the Education Department of the Government of Sindh, the right hand does not quite know what the left hand is doing, or doing anything at all. On the one hand we hear that the government has launched its compulsory primary education campaign. This is a grand design. You can hardly ask for more when there be more constraints than options. As an ideal, or even a mere plan a compulsory primary education network would be unexceptionable. Much more so in our case where education is more of a luxury than a compulsion.
A recent study by a local NGO, that draws upon a number of prestigious international sources, reveals that instead of moving ahead, or even staying put, the process of expanding primary education in Karachi is moving in the reverse gear. This would be a sad state of affairs even in far-flung and remote nooks and corners of the country. That the enrolment in primary schools in Karachi should be falling is a shocking reflection on the provincial government.
This city has reason to claim that it is the biggest and busiest city of the country. It is relatively a more progressive, prosperous and, in some ways, also a creative place. Here, by and large, live educated people who are more in tune with modern times and are in step with the world moving forward. How is one to explain, much less abide by the shame, that less than a third of the school age children are in the school and more than two- thirds are out loitering in the streets?
The mere thought of the innocent kids exposed to the street, or left to the debilitating idleness, should send creeps down sensitive spines. Evidently, we are awfully short of sensitive spines. Our education bureaucracy must be totally devoid of any sensitivity. They live, indeed thrive, on the existence of ‘ghost’ schools and patronize ‘ghost’ teachers. Presiding over this arid wilderness of ‘ghosts’ schools and schoolteachers are our education bureaucrats. Baboos would be a more expressive designation.
This pushes us into the corner where we simply must be permitted an outburst of outraged indignation. First of all, one should like to know what is this cant about compulsory primary education? Is this a mere dream or fantasy or calculated deception? In an earlier comment on this subject in these columns it was stated that compulsory primary education is an idea that is more than a hundred years old in this subcontinent. If it was so easy, the British administrators would have worked this near- miracle long ago. They failed, because they were not very keen on it.
Now let us ask ourselves; Are we honest when we talk of compulsory primary education in Sindh province? Are we sure that the waderas, that rule over all but a couple of major cities in the province, would take (or have taken) kindly to this idea of compulsory primary education? The answer is NO. If a big landlord feels about primary education, he would not wait for the Baboos of the education department in Karachi. The Wadera has all the means to set up, maintain and patronize at least one primary school in his domain.
Has anyone of the wiseacres adorning the high chairs in Education Department ever stirred out of his/her rut to think of a survey of the number of school age children we have in Sindh or at least in some of the major centres? Some kind of a working figure may be readily available from the last census records. If they had any idea of what compulsory primary education is about, they would have done their initial homework. The basic figure is the number of children needing primary education. Then, work out this figure district wise, city-wise, city locality-wise and also gender-wise.
Primary education is where all, repeat all, education begins. It is here that the foundation of education is laid. This where the crusade for enlightenment begins. And the wise say, well begun is half done. One is forced to suspect that nobody in the education bureaucracy, from top to the bottom, has any conscious realization that providence has ordained an opportunity to serve a sublime cause. What they see in it is an opportunity to make hay. What an irony that the education administration is perforated with all manner flaws and lapses. Clouds of inefficiency hang over the conduct of examinations, over the admissions, over recruitment, postings and transfers of teaching staff. The most devastating is the perennial scandal over selection, production, pricing and sale of textbooks. Is it possible to imagine a wrongdoing more sinful than playing funny games and making dubious money over children’s schoolbooks?
Given common sense and good intentions no enterprise is beyond human endeavour. It is granted on all hands that organizing compulsory prime education in a country like ours is no joke. If there are people who like to take up challenges, the sky is the limit. If we mean to build this nation into something to be proud of, remember primary education where this voyage begins. It is here that the first step is to be taken, the first brick is to be set. If set properly, the edifice will in time rise on its own soulful momentum. It is a huge task and one that is difficult too. So, what?
Dil khush huwa hai rah ko dushwar dekh kar. Heart is rejoicing at the sight of a thorn-ful path.
A high crime rate is an unfortunate part of life in cities all over the world. Even the vaunted First World urban centres are not free from the scourge of mugging and other, grislier crimes. So when people complain about crime here in Karachi, their protests are valid, yet one must tacitly concede that a soaring crime graph is the price one has to pay to live in the big city.
However, not until a crime strikes close to home does one realize the vulnerability of the common citizen. A colleague related a horror story involving his cousin who was mugged with her family near a popular North Nazimabad franchise pizza joint.
‘It was about 8pm when Zubeida (name changed) decided to take her niece and nephews, along with a couple of female friends, out to grab a few slices of pizza. The group had a merry old-time munching on their pie and slurping sodas. When they were done with dinner, they headed for their vehicle, parked a little distance away from the outlet, in a dimly-lit area. All was well as the family started piling into the car. When they were all set to drive off, suddenly a youth appeared at the driver’s side window and stuck a gun through the opening, pointing the barrel at the driver’s head.’
‘In a calm voice, he ordered the passengers to keep the kids quiet and hand over all their valuables. The petrified women parted with their purses, bangles and earrings as they didn’t have much choice. As soon as he was done plundering, he coolly instructed the passengers not to follow him or call the police, as he had an accomplice waiting in the bushes, ready to strike if they tried anything funny. With this warning, he stealthily crossed the road leaving the poor ladies shell-shocked, still not able to come to grips with what had just taken place.’
Perhaps it was because they had no male companions with them that the thief considered them an easy prey. Regardless, the ladies were adamant that the restaurant management or the town administration arrange proper lighting in the parking lot and beef up security to prevent, or at least discourage, ugly incidents like the one just narrated from taking place.
Quite a bit has already been written about the city’s severe water shortage in these columns over the last several weeks but the government seems to be in a perpetual state of slumber. Of course, part of the reason must have to do with the vagaries of the weather and the fact that Karachi and its environs have always had low rainfall.
However, the main reason why matters become worse is (a) mismanagement and (b) the builders who construct buildings without getting any water connections and the politicians/ bureaucrats who let them do that. We have had reports of around 140 illegal water connections discovered in the city and criticism of the water and sewerage (W&S) department over it but nothing has been done — the department has seen it fit to not even issue a statement on the report about what it intends to do about illegal connections.
And now we have a report by this newspaper that several union council nazims in Karachi have taken illegal connections from the main water pipeline network.
Anyway, here’s a story on water mismanagement from Mumbai, done by the news channel NDTV: “Reports of water shortage have been coming in from all over the country and the crisis has been traced to bad water management. But even if those problems are man-made, here’s a story from Mumbai which finds that the root cause is the water mafia.
“Water shortage is caused by the connivance of politicians and builders who create a situation where people pay excessively for the most basic rights, including access to water. Tankers are the only source of water for the people in Mumbai’s Mira-Bhayander area; water which should be flowing through their taps for a nominal cost.
“Instead of pumping water into people’s homes, the municipality allows a tanker mafia, controlled by local politicians, to fill the same municipal water and sell it at 10 times the cost. Ami Mishra, a local resident, said: ‘I have 3-4 taps but only water in one of them and that also in just the bathroom, because my tank is situated there.’
“The reason for the water crisis here is a nexus between politicians and builders. Many high-rises in the area are illegal, constructed under the patronage of local politicians, many of whom are also builders. Since they do not have the occupation certificate necessary for a municipal water connection, they rely on tankers — also controlled by the same politicians.
“This is perhaps the worst type of politics. The control over life’s basic necessity by a few politicians, making the common man pay that extra buck to meet his needs.”
Travelling is one major headache for all. It is even more bothersome for those without their very own private transport, especially when you have to brave the summer heat. So it was no surprise when the people of Karachi enthusiastically accepted the then new transport scheme of Metro Bus.
Though more expensive than the usual mini-buses and coaches, the Metro Bus scheme was acclaimed mostly for its air-conditioned conveyance. No longer standing or sitting in sweaty buses, the Metro buses, with their comfortable cushioned seats and chilling air-conditioners offered the exhausted commuters of Karachi a genuine experience in luxurious travelling. However, of late, things haven’t been that relaxing anymore.
Well, for one, the ACs aren’t working in top order. In fact, all that is left of them is non-hot air coming out of the AC ducts. Now, normally that wouldn’t be a bad thing, except that commuters are being charged Rs21 for a chance to enjoy the trip in an air-conditioned environment, which they aren’t getting.
When the bus gets full to its capacity, the stuffy environment of the enclosed bus becomes very suffocating. The passenger is left with no option but to slide-open the windows. It almost feels as if we are paying more for the comfort of travelling in a mini-bus.
When the conductor is reminded that the AC isn’t working properly, the poor man’s simple answer is “Saab, hum to naukar hain” (“Sir, we are just employees.”)
And then there are the torn cushion seats of the Metro buses. Surely, some rather artistic youngsters went to great lengths in expressing their inner talent slicing the backs and the cushions of these seats. But then, what are the Metro Bus people doing about the seats? They aren’t replacing them for sure. This results in passengers being exposed to dangerous metal edges, just like in the mini-buses. Again, the conductor is speechless.
Over the years, Karachi’s burgeoning transport-wary population has always been exploited. And those, living in the far-flung economically poor localities of Landhi, Korangi and the likes have been taken advantage of the most. And it seems now, after the bus, mini-bus and the coach operators, it is the turn of the Metro Bus people to milk the less privileged in order to fill their coffers.
These days while passing through the (old) Submarine Chowk, one gets to see a very funny sight. Celebrities such as Abrar-ul-Haq and Jehangir Khan appear on hoardings sporting a “milky moustache”. Obviously, it is an advertisement aimed at selling milk. But do you really get a milky moustache after having a glass of milk?
Definitely there are better ways of promoting everyday products rather than making sensible celebrities look like cartoons.
Further on, on the same road leading to Boating Basin, one gets to see an unknown model with devilish green-blue eyes, trying to impress the passersby with the hair dye she wants us to apply on our hair. Seriously, what has gone wrong with our advertisers?
— By Karachian
Email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com