Reducing the public debt

THE centre-piece of democratic dispensation is the Parliament. That is all the more so in respect of money bills. It is the Parliament which decides how much of taxes should be raised each year, how they should be spent, and how much the government can borrow to meet the deficit, if any.

Even in the presidential system of the US it is Congress which decides how much should be collected as new taxes, on what heads should that be spent and how much should the government borrow. And the Congress is very zealous in protecting this right. And when it cannot vote on the president’s budget proposals, it approves ad hoc payments to meet the current expenditure.

But in Pakistan the Parliament has sought to exercise no such omnibus right. It simply approves the overall budget figures while deleting, at times, a few taxes found to be too unpopular or hurtful to the economy. It hardly expects details about the defence expenditure or scrutinizes the large expenditure on the president’s secretariat. In fact the budget does not go through a proper scrutiny by the standing committee for finance of the National Assembly or the Senate which is now empowered to discuss the budget.

Article 166 of the Constitution states explicitly that the Parliament should set the limits for the government to borrow and the government should conform to those limits, and if it exceeds them the Parliament can come down on the government heavily. But the Parliament over the years or decades has been too lax in this area, and did not object to the government printing currency notes merrily and paying half a per cent interest to the State Bank of Pakistan for providing such funds. As a result, the money supply increased a great deal, inflation became far worse and the people suffered.

In fact, the mood of reckless spending and wild money creation became far worse during the period we had the parliamentary system of governance as against military or arbitrary rule. The public debt went up from 66 per cent of the GDP in 1980 to 102 per cent of the GDP in 1999 when military rule intervened. At that level when the total debt servicing cost was Rs 330 billion the overwhelming debt became unsustainable or unmanageable.

The political governments presumed they should borrow now and spend, and leave to the successor governments to repay the debt or service the enhanced debt. Such governments also paid high rates of interest to borrow from the public or the banks and so the total debt kept on snow-balling.

The Parliament’s laxity or frivolity was also in the area of casually approving large supplementary budgets at the end of each year. That unauthorised expenditure, approved later, was also met by borrowing. At the end of the year after the new budget had been approved the Parliament used to be told the excess expenditure had already been incurred and the money spent and there was no use crying over spilt milk. Hence the Parliament tamely approved the supplementary expenditure with some protests from the opposition, which were brushed aside.

As a result, the debt service cost exceeded 66 per cent of the tax revenues, and after meeting the defence outlay there was hardly any money left for other purposes. Heavy borrowing included the external aid and the unfunded national debt. Not only the development outlay went under 3 per cent of the GDP in a developing country with a large unemployed population but also education, public health and the environment suffered constant neglect. Lip service was paid to these sectors but not enough funds provided from tax revenues or borrowed funds.

The World Bank and the IMF have hence been urging the government to enact a comprehensive debt management and reduction law. The government had agreed to that and ultimately the law was to come up in the shape of an ordinance in August, 2002. But preparation for the general elections and other political pre-occupations stood in the way.

Finally the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Reduction Ordinance has been approved by the federal cabinet and is to be promulgated soon. Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali preferred the law to be enacted by Parliament. But the decision is in favour of promulgation of the ordinance either because President Musharraf prefers the major initiative to come through him or as the Parliament is facing one crisis after another. Anyway within four months of the promulgation of the ordinance now it is to come before Parliament to be enacted as a proper bill so that Parliament can own it up fully.

It was, indeed, surprising that foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri and a few other ministers voiced fears at the cabinet meeting the ordinance could stand in the way of further funds for development. In fact, the law is being enacted with a view that the lower priority or useless current expenditure could be cut and far more made available for development, and for the social sector.

Dr. Mahbubul Haq had been crying hoarse since the 1980s for such checks on current spending which had risen to 20 per cent of the budget and had called for a moratorium on borrowing and accumulation of debt. Everyone agreed with him but no one was ready to bell that cat or check the excess current spending of the government.

The new law seeks to reduce public debt to 60 per cent of the GDP which is regarded safe, and which is the margin of debt prescribed for membership of the Euro area. It wants the public debt to be brought down from the current around Rs. 15.000 billion to 60 per cent by June, 2012 - or nine years from now.

It also wants the entire revenue debt of about Rs. 125 billion to be eliminated in four years — by June, 2007, while leaving aside the fiscal debt born out of borrowing for development. It seeks a reduction in the public debt by about 2.5 per cent per year for the next 10 years.

The draft ordinance as presented by the cabinet had proposed that if the ministers could not conform to the law their salary payments should be suspended. That was only a symbolic provision to make the law effective but the cabinet has dropped that provision as it is too apprehensive of its consequences.

The ordinance is pretty flexible and does allow for deviation from the debt targets prescribed during extraordinary years. But after two years the deviation should be corrected and the government should return to the prescribed debt reduction path. Or the government could obtain prior permission from Parliament for excess spending and borrowing, listing the valid reasons.

Sixty per cent of the GDP as public debt is not a very low figure for the government to restrict itself to. Many governments in the world are sticking to this target. And if development, poverty reduction and large scale investment in the social sector are to have top priorities, heavy borrowing for current spending has to be checked or at least regulated.

A Debt Coordination Office is to be established in the Finance Ministry with Dr. Ashfaq Hasan Khan as director general to prepare a 10-year debt reduction path. And he is to submit a report to Parliament every year which should be debated by Parliament and the ministers responsible for over-spending or excess borrowing pulled up and if found wantonly erring censured.

The ordinance not only seeks to reduce the public debt by 2.5 per cent every year but also ensure that social and poverty related spending is not reduced below 4 per cent of the GDP which is indeed a very low figure.

The government has already taken a number of steps to reduce the overall debt and the debt servicing cost of both foreign as well as domestic loans. Costly external debt is being paid off while the overall external debt has come down from 38 billion dollars to 36 billion dollars. It has been reported that out of the 3 billion dollars to be received from the US as new aid — 600 million dollars a year — one billion dollars will be given back to the US to reduce its bilateral debt of 1.8 billion dollars, Interest rates on foreign debt have also come down, in keeping with the global trends.

Domestic interest rates have also been slashed. Interest rates for treasury bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds are also very low. Hence the debt servicing cost has come down this year to Rs. 256 billion from Rs. 319 billion two years ago.

The law while not very rigid, is very comprehensive. It forbids the government from guarantees to debt of public sector organizations like WAPDA, KESC or PIA, including rupee loans, for more than two per cent of the GDP.

After such guarantees the government gave a subsidy of Rs. 53 billion to WAPDA and KESC last year in view of their large losses and continued poor service to the consumers.

The government has also been successful in loan swaps getting countries like Canada and Norway to forgo their loans on condition they will be used for education and public health. More such loan swaps are being sought now to reduce the debt burden and increase the spread of education and public health.

If all goes well, or as envisaged, the debt servicing cost should be &sliding and eventually come down by at least Rs 100 billion from the current Rs 256 billion. Add to that the saving of Rs 50 billion, if not more, from the money spent on the public sector projects which are losing heavily, like WAPDA and KESC. Add to that a part of the incomes from privatization, which may vary from year to year, for the next three to five years.

All that should improve the fiscal picture a great deal and provide enough funds for the government to set up major infrastructure projects as well as promote education, public health and clean up the environment. Of course, the government has to work hard on all these objectives, reduce waste and save more money and root out corruption resolutely.

All that has to begin with promulgation of the ordinance and its implementation by the ministers and the Parliament in real earnestness. Here is a great chance to revere the stark negative trends of the past, and let us do the best of that for the next ten years, or at least the first five years.

Iraq’s post-war predicament

OCCUPATION forces are responsible for the maintenance of peace and security in Iraq and the welfare of its people, including the provision of public services. Regrettably, they have not lived up to their responsibilities.

Security remains the prime concern in war-ravaged Iraq which has been destabilized as a result of continued lawlessness and unrest there. The destruction of a large number of public facilities in the country has also given rise to a host of humanitarian needs and limited the scope of humanitarian activities.

The United States and its allies were warned by the Amnesty International and other concerned agencies well in advance of the attack and occupation of Iraq, that the fall of Saddam’s regime would aggravate law and order problems, including human rights violations. But they paid no heed to such warnings and did not prepare themselves adequately to meet these eventualities.

The Hague Convention spells out the specific responsibilities of occupying forces under the international humanitarian law. These include restoration and maintaining public order and safety. The Amnesty, in its latest report, has reminded the coalition forces that as occupying powers, they should urgently take necessary measures to enforce law and order in Iraq. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention also, occupying powers have the duty to ensure food and medical supplies for population. Unfortunately, the continued shortage of food and essential drugs in the country has also exacerbated the situation in these sectors.

In an extremely unwise move the US-led coalition dissolved Iraq’s armed forces and other security agencies as a result of which more than 400,000 highly trained military personnel have become unemployed. This step was probably taken to convey the message to the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein’s regime was gone for good. They did not, however, visualize that the defunct army’s personnel, rendered jobless, may join the militant elements in the country who are opposed to the continued occupation of their country by foreigners and are already engaged in guerrilla warfare against them.

It is hardly surprising that, as a result of the coalition powers’ inept handling of the post-war situation in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, whose removal was initially hailed by the people of Iraq, is gradually re-emerging, not as a pariah which he indeed was, but as a symbol of national pride.

Coalition forces have already admitted that they are facing resistance, politically as well as militarily, at the hands of Saddam loyalists and the remnants of Baath Party activists. The United States, concerned that Saddam Hussein could rally public opinion against it, has announced a huge reward for information leading to his capture.

Disregarding the Iraqi peoples’ strong aversion to foreign domination, the US-led occupation forces plan to stay on in Iraq till the attainment of their goals, the most important of these being to gain control of Iraq’s huge oil resources. This was made abundantly clear by President Bush in his White House speech of July 1.

Regrettably, the UN resolution 1483, adopted on May 23, has not only legitimized the coalition’s control of Iraq but has also envisaged wide-ranging powers for it, without specifying any timeframe for its stay in the country. In fact, the resolution in question stipulates that the coalition forces will continue to be in Iraq until an internationally recognized government has been established there.

The occupation powers had pledged to establish, as soon as possible, a truly representative government in Iraq. However, even after about three months of occupation, this promise has not been fulfilled. The provisional authority of the coalition was expected to convene a national committee in July to elect an interim Iraqi leadership. Instead, the authority would now nominate a political council of 25 to 30 Iraqis. It is quite clear that they are manipulating things to install a pliant regime in Baghdad that would promote and protect their interests dutifully.

Quite clearly, the coalition powers have reneged on their promise to make Iraq a democratic country after the removal of Saddam Hussein and his government. The recent statements by Senator Lugar, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and the State Department’s Director of Planning, Richard Haass, that it could take years to create a functional democracy in Iraq are self-explanatory.

In a significant move, the US government has also decided to postpone the establishment of its embassy in Baghdad. The only explanation for this decision could be that in keeping with the colonial norm, Washington considers having diplomatic relations with Iraq is incompatible with its status there as the paramount occupying power.

Governance of their country is an inalienable right of the Iraqi people and, therefore, whatever the constraints, it is imperative to set Iraq on a course of democratic evolution and consolidation without wasting any more time. Democracy alone holds the key to the restitution of human rights to the people of Iraq who were denied these rights during the 24-year despotic and ruthless rule of Saddam Hussein. A truly representative government is absolutely necessary to establish the rule of law in Iraq and to ensure its territorial integrity and sovereignty. The UN resolution 1483 has also stressed the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own future and control their own national resources.

The coalition forces should not unnecessarily prolong their stay in Iraq as it has serious implications. The complexity of the post-war situation demands that they must leave the country, as early as possible, by transferring power to the people of Iraq, through free and fair elections. After all, the liberation of the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein’s rule was the justification put forward by the United States and its allies for their forcible occupation of that country. After that objective has been achieved rule there is no justification for their prolonged stay there.

The coalition powers have created a “stability force” to establish public order in Iraq and have asked some countries, including Pakistan, to participate in that process. Probably the purpose of the creation of this force is to avoid a direct confrontation between occupation troops and local population. In any case, given the aversion of the Iraqi people to the military occupation of their country and the occupying powers’ plans for a prolonged stay there, the troops participating in the pacification process may well be regarded as collaborators and mercenaries. In view of this, Pakistan’s participation in the so-called stabilization process would not be advisable. In fact, it would be politically a big mistake.

The most complicated task of reconstruction of war-ravaged Iraq cannot start unless the security environment in the country improves considerably. A number of countries including France, Russia, China and Germany have evinced interest in taking part in the reconstruction operations. Pakistan too should consider participating in that task rather than in the so-called stabilization exercises.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

The LFO deadlock

THE US visit may have eclipsed the brewing political crisis, but it has not resolved it. The LFO remains on top of the agenda of the opposition in the parliament.

It is reminiscent of Gen Yahya Khan’s Legal Framework Order. Both were designed to give life to the incumbent rulers. The former was a charade played by the dictator to provide a cover for his preparations to launch military operations against the people of East Pakistan. The present one is a cover for the perpetuation of one individual.

That the two LFOs are blatantly illegal there is no gainsaying. Pakistanis, the most voluble on politics and their interest directly proportional to the level of uncertainty, watch with amused indifference the lack of progress towards resolution. One way or another the people are not going to benefit, state of governance having been reduced to a farce.

The present standoff between the parliament and the Chief of Army Staff has been causing some anxiety. Any number of statements only make the confusion worse. Forceful and determined assertions at every opportunity by the COAS of the LFO being part of the Constitution even while the two sides are discussing the issue may sound hollow and only add to the forebodings.

The recent visit of the president to the US has provided him a fresh legitimacy and a new resolve to take on the opposition. Peshawar High Court has disqualified an MNA belonging to the opposition because his education was not equivalent a degree.

It is likely that the highest court may make way for fresh ‘elections’ by disqualifying all the 64 remaining MNAs, the same way as in 1971 when a large number of Awami League MNAs were disqualified.

If history is any guide, we are unlikely to reach a compromise. Although there are people who have doubts about the real intentions of the MMA, the opposition presents a formidable challenge to the government. If has taken a position on a question of vital national importance, which is that a military commander cannot be allowed to ride roughshod over the Constitution by introducing changes designed with the sole purpose of perpetuating the military’s involvement in politics.

Assuming that the opposition agrees that the COAS be allowed to hang on to his uniform for the next five years, there is no hope or scope in the Constitution as on Oct. 12 1999, or even in its LFOed form to provide for peaceful succession to his additional charge. Therefore, for the opposition and the parliament, it is now or never.

There are people who complain that the parliament has not met except on a few occasions, and that too for only five minutes or so at times and has adjourned without transacting any legislative business, having cost millions of taxpayers’ money in the process. The question is: what is more important — legislative business or the supremacy of the parliament? The opposition has its priorities right and is fighting for restoration of the sovereignty of the people of Pakistan. Ordinary legislation can wait. And if the opposition succeeds, the cost would not be too great.

Pakistan Bar Council has joined hands with the opposition and has vowed not to compromise on the LFO. Such unanimity cannot but portend trouble for the government.

They are convinced of the righteousness of their cause and appear prepared to brave the odds in the face of determined resistance from the government and the judiciary.

What are the prospects of the on-going dialogue? Bleak one would say. Firstly because we have never settled our differences by dialogue as they start with dishonest intention of not reaching a settlement but to hoodwink the opposition; and secondly once in power, we do not cede the ground in a civilized manner.

The dialogue on the LFO has been overtaken by events far more ominous. The government had admitted its weakness by agreeing to enter into negotiations in the first place. All major parties have now coalesced. The no-confidence motion against the speaker having failed, the opposition has filed one against his deputy. That too would probably fail. What the government lacks in popularity it tries to make up for it by looking to the Americans, whose support has been promised for the present. But it is by no means an unstinted one.

The government is less likely to offer concessions acceptable to the opposition. What it is more likely to do is to dissolve any of the six Houses — the four PAs, NA and the Senate. The obvious candidate appears to be the NWFP government of the MMA, which will naturally be followed by resignation by all MMA MNAs. But if history is any guide, that would be the end of this contrivance known as the government.

In any case the opposition has one other pressure point it could bring to bear on the government — its popular support. The MMA could easily mobilize its supporters if nowhere else then at least in the NWFP and create problems for the government. Other political parties can be expected to support it. This can put both the government and the military in a dilemma.

No one can forecast the future in Pakistan where no political transition has been without its share of surprises. There is an eerie feeling like the one in 1999 that something is going to happen and soon.

Betting on the general

THOUGH he once criticized what he saw as the excessive personalization of diplomacy by his predecessor, President Bush continues to lean heavily and exclusively on a handful of heads of state to advance crucial American interests.

He’s still courting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, despite Mr Putin’s curtailment of democracy and obstruction of the US mission in Iraq. In Afghanistan, the White House counts on one man, Hamid Karzai, who rules little more than the palace he lives in. Now Mr Bush has placed another huge stack of chips on Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the self-appointed president of Pakistan, which since 9/11 has become the world’s single largest haven of Islamic terrorists — including most likely the fugitive Osama bin Laden.

Last month Mr Bush invited Mr Musharraf to Camp David and offered him $3 billion in military and economic aid over the next five years, as well as what a White House briefer called “a long-term commitment to build a relationship.” That is a huge boost for a man who overthrew Pakistan’s last elected civilian government in a military coup, presided over his country’s delivery of nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, directed its last military offensive against India and broke his promises to restore democracy and crack down on extremist Islamic groups. It’s fair to ask what the Bush administration will get in exchange.

Mr Musharraf argues that he has already done plenty to help the war on terrorism, at considerable personal risk. After 9/11 his government withdrew its support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and allowed U.S. warplanes to operate from its territory. Pakistani officials say close to 500 Al Qaeda members have been arrested, including the most senior operatives in U.S. custody.

Mr Musharraf also claims to have shut down Pakistani extremist groups, some of them allied with Al Qaeda, that sponsor terrorism against India, and to have done “everything humanly possible” to stop the infiltration of Islamic militants from Pakistan to Indian-controlled Kashmir. Despite his military background, the president is known for delivering soaringly liberal speeches outlining a vision of a moderate, democratic Pakistan that would respect human rights and promote a tolerant version of Islam.

That rhetoric, plus Mr Musharraf’s willingness to cooperate with the Pentagon and CIA, may be enough to convince many in the Bush administration that the general is their best chance in an unstable and dangerous country with its own nuclear arsenal. Yet the reality is that Mr Musharraf has consistently failed to live up to his promises.

The extremist groups he says he disbanded have been reconstituted under other names; Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants still use Pakistan as a base to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan; Islamic militants continue to infiltrate into Kashmir. Most grievous, Mr Musharraf’s attempt to restructure Pakistan’s political system to permanently empower the military has pitted him against the country’s secular civil society and ended up boosting fundamentalist Muslim politicians.

Bush administration officials describe the new aid package with Pakistan as implicitly conditioned on Mr Musharraf’s further cooperation against terrorism, renunciation of trade in weapons of mass destruction and return to genuine democracy.—The Washington Post

Sectarianism: part of a wider malaise

THERE is a sickening familiarity about last Friday’s carnage in Quetta. How many times have we heard news reports of mass killings in mosques and imambargahs? How many times have we read that ‘unidentified gunmen’ entered places of worship and sprayed the congregation with bullets? And how many times have we heard the stock responses of ‘condemnation, stern action, punish the killers, and foreign hand’ from the authorities? Indeed, there is a very sickening familiarity about Friday’s sectarian massacre.

Its only new element in the Quetta carnage is suicide bombing. We always knew there were sectarian murderers out there who would let neither religion nor humanity stop them in their bloody acts. Now we can add self-preservation to the list: they will even give up their own lives to achieve their murderous ends.

Post-Quetta, we have also seen the familiar search for explanations to account for the sectarian menace that periodically strikes to cause terror and alarm. The most simplistic is that these people are crazy: no sane person could condone carnage like that in the Asna Ashari Hazara Imambargah, far less plan and execute it. Insanity can be a possible factor in individual acts of murder, but is less likely in cases of mass murder. To understand why that happens, one has to look at the political and historical factors that have shaped Pakistani society.

The first, as with so many of our current ills, is the dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq. His obsessive drive to secure his hold on power led him to turn a blind eye to the rise of all manner of undesirable elements: huge immigrant (Afghan) communities and the consequent ‘drug and Kalashnikov culture’, militant ethnicity and religious bigotry intolerance. Militant Islamists were promoted as foot soldiers for the Afghan jihad and as standard bearers of Zia’s Islamization drive — Islam and Afghanistan being the primary tools by which the general clung onto power.

Post-Zia period saw four civilian administrations, all too busy filling their pockets, too weak or simply too inept to take on the religio-sectarian extremism. A decade of governmental inaction was more than enough to consolidate their strength and establish themselves as a powerful force in the country.

Mainstream religious parties are also culpable. They are all too ready to demonstrate their street power over issues like the blasphemy laws, support for the Taliban and (the most recent) recognition of Israel — but how often do they lead processions against, or otherwise oppose, sectarianism?

Then in October 1999 came Gen Musharraf and the return of military rule. One must concede, however, that he has consistently and forcefully condemned the ‘extremist minority’ in our midst. He has even taken action in banning first Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Muhammed, and following five months later with Sipah-e-Sahaba and Tehreek-e-Jafria. All very laudable.

But where is the further follow-up? As the leading man in power and that too in the enviable position of not having to worry about his vote-bank, and as commander of the most powerful institution in the country, the general has both the political freedom and the tools with which to stamp out sectarianism. He has failed to do so.

Distracted by such things as the presidential referendum and the LFO controversy, he lost focus in the battle against sectarianism. Banned groups were not rounded up: they were left free to go underground and launch their murderous attacks from there. Deweaponization was an embarrassing non-event; madrassah reform is a still-awaited non-initiative. The number of sectarian murderers convicted for their crimes can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In short, Gen Musharraf wasted an excellent opportunity to stop the sectarian rot.

These are the immediate and most obvious causes of sectarian violence in Pakistan. But sectarianism is not an isolated, stand-alone phenomenon. On the contrary, it is just one part of the much wider phenomenon of militant Islam in Pakistan — at once obscurantist and intolerant. The signs of this are everywhere: thousands of madrassahs brainwashing young minds with grossly distorted notions of Islam; mosques spewing out inflammatory rhetoric; discriminatory blasphemy laws; a jihadi culture promoted first in the name of Afghanistan, then Kashmir. And they are proliferating: terrorist attacks on Christians and westerners; the Shariat Bill passed in the NWFP assembly; the threatened Hisba Bill; defacing of billboards depicting women.

An examination of the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan uncovers many of the factors that have raised sectarianism to its present virulence and spread: ineffectual politicians, obscurantist religious parties, military rulers seeking to secure their grip on power, civilian rulers trying to appease religious parties for expedient political and personal reasons, the corrosive influence of conflict in Afghanistan and then Kashmir. A multitude of circumstances and actors have contributed to religious militancy being the force it is today.

But there is one further factor that predates all the others and from which they all stem: the failure to clearly define the role of Islam in Pakistan. This is, of course, the big partition debate: was Pakistan created to be an Islamic state or was it meant to be a safe haven for Indian Muslims? The former would entail the Quran and Sunnah determining all aspects of public as well as private life: the economy, judiciary, education, and so on. The latter would entail public respect for Islam, but a country following globally acknowledged norms practices of governance and statehood.

This crucial debate has never been addressed head on, let alone resolved. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s early attempts to set Pakistan on the course of liberal, moderate Islam were curtailed by his death. Prevarication followed until the modernizing military rule of Ayub Khan. Then came Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who decreed the Ahmedis non-Muslims.

Ziaul Haq continued the shift to the ideological right with his selective (it wasn’t applicable to military rule) ‘Islamization’ campaign. Post-Zia Benazir and Sharif governments lacked the will and ability to reverse the measures introduced by their predecessor. Now Pervez Musharraf trying is slowly — often hesitantly — to swing the pendulum back to moderation.

But none of these leaders, Musharraf included, tried to define and reach public consensus on what the precise role of Islam in Pakistani public life should be. In the absence of such a clear definition, it is radical, extremist Islam that comes to the fore. The history of Pakistan illustrates this all too well.

Pakistan as a society and as a state has to define the parameters of Islam: where, to what extent and what kind of Islam is applicable here? Is the legal system to be based on Shariat or on modern law? Is education to focus on teaching scripture or teaching ‘secular’ subjects like modern science, technology computer science and English? Is the economy to include interest or not? Is the state to have the power to enforce religious rituals and practices like purdah and prayer? All these questions need definitive answers — answers arrived at by public consensus and laid down in law.

How would the majority of Pakistanis answer these questions? History shows that the Pakistani people have traditionally rejected rigid state-led enforcement of Islam. Last year’s electoral success of the MMA was the first for an Islamist political grouping — it reflected anger at the US and disillusionment with mainstream political parties and their leadership more than a desire for the Islamization of the systems and institutions. Note that the rejection of political Islam is not the same thing as rejection of Islam as such. History also shows that Pakistanis are traditionally a very religious people: they would continue to practise Islam even if the state did not force them to.

Setting (liberal) parameters for the role of Islam in public life is the best defence against extremism and sectarianism. The latest example — the unanimous passage of the Shariat Bill in the NWFP Assembly — is a case in point. It is very unlikely that every single MPA genuinely wanted the Bill. But because it was an ‘Islamic’ measure they did not dare voice opposition to it or reservations about. Had there been a constitutional, publicly agreed consensus on the precise role of Islam, (assuming it was a liberal consensus) opponents of the Shariat Bill would have been able to use that to justify their stand.

The sectarian menace in Pakistan — and the religious extremism from which it stems — do require immediate measures like deweaponization, detention and conviction of killers, madrassah reform, etc. But the long-term solution to these problems lies in facing the wider (and long-avoided) question of the role of religion in public, political, economic and civic life and management. Agreeing on an answer to this question — and then enforcing it — would lay the foundation for a country free of sectarian carnage and other forms of religious intolerance and extremism.