| August 9, 2003 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 10, 1424 |
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‘Recovery beyond arrears’
PM’s promise to overseas Pakistanis
State Bank’s clarification
Repairing rain-hit roads
PTCL staff’s illegal calls
Row over transport
Export of wheat
Victimization of parliamentarians
The two-nation theory
Lahore Karachi
INDIA’S partition is 56 years old. Still the controversy over the two-nation theory has not ended. Certain groups in Pakistan continue to harp on it. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, head of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), which embraces six religious parties, has said after his successful tour of India that he believed in the two-nation theory. Which two nations is he talking about?
ON his first stopover en route to the US, after talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Gen Pervez Musharraf said: “Pakistan is totally acting against any form of extremism, any form of religious extremism.” Such extremism had three forms in Pakistan, that is Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, elements of Afghanistan’s toppled Taliban regime and “our own religious extremists and militants”. Meeting with British ministers, he remarked: “We affirmed our common commitment to combat and eradicate terrorism.”
As part of the US effort to bolster President Musharraf’s position, President Bush included inviting him to Camp David, making him the first South Asian leader to be accorded that honour. At Camp David rendezvous with President Bush, President Musharraf expected the cancellation of $1.8 billion remaining US debt.
He told the Financial Times that when he had taken over, Pakistan’s debts were at $38 billion, increasing at the rate of $1.8 billion to $2 billion per annum. Therefore, in three years if the previous practice continued, we would have gone to about $44 billion. “In these three years, we have reduced the debt from $38 billion to $35billion.”
President Bush wrote off a one-billion-dollar debt, and offered three billion dollars over five years to Islamabad. As a consequence of the support and cooperation Pakistan was extending to America in its war on terror, the Centcom data, last May, indicated that Pakistan’s economy suffered losses of over $10 billion. Thus, the US has fallen way short of their expectations in every respect. However, the US managed rescheduling of $12.5 billion by the Paris Club and an immediate cash injection of over one billion dollars.
The coveted F-18s could not be acquired after all. These warplanes have emerged as some sort of status symbol in Pakistan military ties with the US. There is some solace in the report that 1.5 billion dollars from the aid package will be spent on arms, including C-130s, P-3C Orions and Cobra helicopters.
President Bush encouraged Pakistan and India to ease tensions in South Asia and resolve all issues, including Kashmir. Indian Foreign Minister Yaswant Sinha rejected President Musharraf’s proposal for a US-sponsored roadmap to resolve the Kashmir dispute, saying there was no place for a third-party mediation
All is not sunshine. The Washington Post commented that the $3 billion US aid package for Pakistan is tied to annual review of Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terrorism, taking concrete steps that would seal his promises to help combat Al Qaeda, control of the spread of nuclear weapons and steps towards democracy. The package would be evenly divided over five years and is part of a “long-term commitment” by President Bush and President Musharraf based on specific goals the two countries agreed upon. The package has to be approved by Congress. The assistance plan would help the Bush administration “maintain pressure on President Musharraf” to comply with the aforementioned commitment.
PROF (DR) P. NASIR
Gujrat
THIS refers to the editorial published in Dawn on July 13, titled “Recovery beyond arrears”, which needs presentation of facts for the benefit of the readers and to set the record straight.
The present management of Wapda has adopted strict accountability measures to eradicate corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement. Various administrative measures have been taken to ensure better customer services. Through proper management and elimination of illegal connections, line losses have been brought down from 42 per cent to 25.7 per cent. A huge investment is required for renovation/augmentation of the existing system to further reduce the system losses, and for that purpose Wapda obviously needs funds.
The operation and maintenance costs for generation, transmission and distribution functions are about nine per cent of Wapda’s total revenue requirements. The establishment expenditure for the fiscal year 2002-03 was to the tune of Rs19.3 billion, including pay and allowances which are almost fixed; these have been controlled by reduction in staff and shifting the workload to the existing overburdened staff. The maintenance expenditure for the fiscal year 2002-03 was Rs5.4 billion approximately, and has been brought down to such a level that further curtailment in it will make the system unreliable.
Wapda has not asked for any increase in power tariff to cover its inefficiencies. It approached Nepra for adjustment in the prices of furnace oil and gas, which are major input costs of electricity production, and any variation arising from revision in their prices has to be passed on to the consumers. Despite increase in input cost of furnace oil and gas by 152 per cent and 108 per cent, respectively, since 1999, the increase in tariff has been 17.5 per cent only, i.e. from Rs3.48/kwh to Rs4.09/kwh, during this period. This shows that utility has not passed this heavy increase in the major input cost on to consumers. It was done with the objective to provide this basic necessity to the consumers at affordable rates.
The government has announced Rs53 billion subsidy in the federal budget for Wapda and the KESC. But the substantial portion of the subsidy is not being paid to Wapda and is instead provided to the consumers in line with the socio-economic policy of the government; it is only channelled through Wapda. Wapda is not in receipt of any direct subsidy or relief from the government to recover its financial position.
On the other hand, Wapda is providing direct subsidy or relief to the consumers in line with the directives issued by the federal government to improve the lot of the common man and give boost to various sectors of economy.
MUHAMMAD ABID
Deputy Director (Press),
Wapda,
ACCORDING to a report (July 12), Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali has announced that special concessions will be granted to the overseas Pakistanis. Does the premier realize that the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation is a highly inefficient and mismanaged agency?
Back in 1995-1996, I was allotted a residential plot in the OPF’s Islamabad (Soan Valley) project. The plots were scheduled to be delivered ready for construction in three years. Unfortunately, eight years have passed but the allottees have not even received allotment letters yet.
God knows how many other such local, provincial, and federal schemes (the Malir Development Authority’s Scheme I in Karachi is another such example) there are in which tens of thousands
of overseas and local Pakistanis have invested their valuable funds with no results in sight.
The prime minister has a long way to go in proving that he is doing a good job. Turning around these highly inefficient agencies is just one small challenge that he is faced with. But the sooner his agencies (specially the OPF) start delivering, the better off the government will be in convincing the investors to divert their funds to Pakistan.
M. YUSUF JAN
New York, NY, USA
THIS is with reference to an article by Mr A. M. Talha, published in your esteemed daily on Aug 4, under the caption “Loan recovery: fact or fiction”.
Mr Talha’s article has raised a question about the figures of cash recovery revealed by the governor, State Bank of Pakistan, during his address at the annual Prize Award Ceremony of the Institute of Bankers, Pakistan, on July 26, 2003, (Rs124.1 billion) and his article contributed to Dawn on October 21 and 22, 2002, (more than Rs40 billion).
Mr Talha writes: “The cash recovery figures given by the SBP Governor for the past nine months is a big jump that needs elaboration to make it appear plausible as it defies the past trends ....”.
It is clarified that the figure of cash recovery of more than Rs40 billion given by the governor in his article published in Dawn on October 21 and 22, 2002, was against the default of one million rupees and above, while the cash recovery figure of Rs124.1 billion mentioned by the governor in his address to the IBP on July 26, 2003, pertained to the total non-performing loans.
SYED WASIMUDDIN
Chief Spokesman,
State Bank of Pakistan,
Karachi
THE recent rains in Karachi have widely exposed the performance of essential services. The worst-hit are the roads which now give an impression of a ‘city in ruins’. This is not the first time that Karachiites have witnessed this unpleasant site. Although a heavy rainfall is not a frequent event in Karachi, whenever there is a downpour in the city, it results into puddles, potholes and ditches almost everywhere, including the so-called posh localities of Defence and Clifton.
The nightmarish experience which the public had to face on July 28 should not go unnoticed by those at the helm of affairs. Almost all those returning from work that day were stranded/ bogged down owing to the long traffic jams, absence of traffic policemen and calamitous condition of the roads, some reaching home as late as the next morning.
Who should be made accountable for the plight and sufferings the people had to undergo and are undergoing as a result of such precipitation? Many who live in low-lying areas were rendered homeless and still need shelter. Every now and then, roads are constructed with substandard material, with no drainage system. Contractors/road builders, including some reputed organizations, have minted money from road projects and are not held accountable.
The principle of ‘good governance’, therefore, needs to be applied here as well. All road contracts should be awarded after carrying out strictest scrutiny of the specifications, the material to be used and projected life of the road along with provision for proper drainage system.
The authorities concerned and the city Nazim are requested to ensure that reconstruction of roads be carried out as early as possible to give respite to the weather-beaten people. The roads now constructed must be strong enough and durable to withstand the rigours of rainfall and other such hazards, and those found engaged in corruption/malpractice, and not meeting the laid-down standards should be taken to task.
We should not get caught off guard once again.
LT-COL (RETD) SARFRAZ
AHMED KHAN
Karachi
PLEASE refer to the letter published in Dawn (Aug 3) on the subject cited above.
The telephone No. 4852815 is working in the name of Mr Amir Ali Esmail at Flat No. A-426, Al-Amna, Bl-14, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Karachi.
The complaint for booking of two calls for Rawalpindi on 09-06-2003 was considered at a Divisional Vigilance Committee meeting held on August 4.
The committee, though, did not find any justification, yet keeping the meagre amount in view and to satisfy the valued customer decided to give rebate of Rs108 in favour of the customer, and accordingly the decision has been communicated.
However, necessary adjustment will appear in the billing month of August 2003. The esteemed customer is already enjoying the facility of secret code, and is requested to use the facility for his billing satisfaction.
ATHER JAVED SUFI
Media Coordinator,
PTCL HQ,
THERE are reports that the ongoing tussle between the Karachi city government
and the Sindh government is posing a serious threat to the urban transport scheme, initiated by the city government.
The most seriously affected from this senseless confrontation, besides the general public, seem to be transport operators some of whom have already placed orders with automobile manufacturers for buses that were supposed to be inducted into the new scheme.
Would someone find a way out of this impasse and save this scheme which is supposed to provide decent transport to the already depleted civic infrastructure?
MOHAMMED IQBAL ABID
Karachi
I DO not agree with the report about shortage of wheat in the country. This year the crop was very good. How can we expect a farmer to sell his wheat at the government’s fixed price of Rs300 per 40kg, when he is getting Rs320 for the same quantity?
We understand millowners and exporters have already hoarded large stocks for their future needs, as such farmers are not offering their wheat to PASSCO or the Punjab food department at a lower price. We must maintain the sales in international markets and must start the export of wheat immediately.
The current heavy rains will help achieve better sugarcane, rice and wheat crops this year. So, we must lift the ban and export at least 500,000 MT wheat and 100,000 MT sugar through the TCP/PASSCO to save the private exporters from individually claiming rebates.
SARWAR ALI
Karachi
THE Human Rights Cell of the Pakistan People’s Party invites your attention towards blatant violation of democratic principles under the military-guided government in Pakistan. Difference of opinion is the essence of democracy. It teaches us to accept and respect dissension. But under the recently militarily-steered democracy, this very principle has been put aside and all those who dared to stand up and refused to yield are being hounded and victimized. Below we are submitting two cases, which will give the readers a fair idea as to how the newly-established democracy is functioning.
Farzana Raja is a member of the Punjab Assembly. She is one of the most vocal members of the assembly against the LFO (Legal Framework Order). During the recent assembly session she vociferously opposed the military-dictated legal order and demanded the LFO be ratified by the public representatives. This demand was certainly not to the liking of the military junta, who lost no time in re-opening of an already decided case against her husband Pir Mukarram.
Mukkaram served as managing director of the Printing Corporation of Pakistan. Four years ago, during the Nawaz regime, he was suspended on corruption charges. One of the obvious reasons for his suspension was that he is the younger brother of Pir Mazhar, who was a provincial minister during the second tenure of Miss Benazir Bhutto. But as the Nawaz Sharif government could not substantiate the accusation the case remained pending.
The succeeding government dismissed him from service not on those accusation, but on the plea that he was absent for four years from service. Her husband challenged this decision at the service tribunal, which ordered his reinstatement a couple of weeks ago. However, when he went to office, which unfortunately coincided with our MPA’s stand in the provincial assembly, he was arrested. Though charges against him are yet to be framed, sources say a case of embezzlement of Rs20 million is being made against him, to be put to the National Accountability Bureau.
Farzana Raja told the house on a point of order that she was being punished for refusing to toe the treasury line and that unidentified people had been calling her and were threatening her with dire consequences.
According to a local English daily, his sudden arrest is funny. He might have embezzled money or might not have, but why could NAB or some other agency not find that out over the last four years? If there is a solid proof of his corruption, people who claim having found this out should also be charged with negligence, for not unearthing the crime in four years.
The other case is that of Sassui Palijo — our young MPA from Thatta, who has been fearlessly fighting the government atrocities in her area and on the floor of the Sindh Assembly. Never hesitating from raising her voice over the gross human rights abuses in her area, our fiery Sassui has suddenly become a target of victimization and persecution. Besides receiving threat calls and obstructions being created for her every now and then, in performing her duties, her father’s agricultural lands are being encroached upon and forcibly occupied by a land mafia under the government protection and scores of illegal cases have been filed against her father, Mr Ghulam Qadir Palijo. Recently, standing sugarcane crop was set ablaze by miscreants, causing heavy financial loss to her family.
FAUZIA WAHAB
MNA and Central Coordinator,
Human Rights Cell, PPP,
Karachi
It is true that the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, propagated at one time that Muslims and Hindus in the subcontinent were two separate nations. He was then advocating a state where the Muslims would be in a majority unmindful of the fact that in any scheme of things more Muslims would be left in India. That was why Maulana Abul Kalam Azad differed with Jinnah and opposed the division. However, once the Congress and the British accepted the division of India, Jinnah himself redefined nationhood. He did not base it on religion.
In his speech as the Governor-General-designate, Jinnah said: “...you will find that in the course of time. Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.” What he envisaged was that the people living in Pakistan, both Muslims and Hindus, would become one nation in the same way as the Hindus and Muslims living in India would be. Religion would be a private affair, not part of the state.
There was no transfer of population in the partition formula. Hindus and Muslims were supposed to live in India and Pakistan as they did at the time of partition. It is, however, another matter that communal elements on both sides drove out the minorities, in Pakistan nearly all of them.
Some ten lakh people were killed and two crore uprooted from their country in the name of religion, Hinduism in India and Islam in Pakistan. Women and children were the worst sufferers. It was one nation when it came to barbarism.
Some quarters in Pakistan continue to sustain the old notion of two-nation theory. In this they find the justification to sustain fundamentalism. They want to keep the bogey of religion alive. This gives them a point to play with the emotions of the masses. This can delude people who want their leaders to improve their economic conditions.
It is the same convoluted thinking on religion which has made the Pakistan establishment to begin the country’s history from the day the Muslims arrived in India in the eighth century. There is no explanation of what the Moenjodaro, the Harappan and the Taxila civilizations represent. This reflected a bias against the Hindus. Students are confused. This was contrary to what Jinnah said: “We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another.”
With that kind of history and the propaganda of fundamentalists the obsession in certain circles that India represents Hindus and Pakistan Muslims has not gone. Take the conclave of MPs from the two countries at Islamabad. The entire exercise depended on the BJP’s participation. Had it said no, there would have been no conclave. The reason was obvious. Only the presence of the BJP underlined the two-nation theory.
The Pakistan establishment is thoroughly exposed when it demands the division of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of religion. It does not bother that such a proposal might reopen the wounds of partition and the massacre in its wake.
The three Muslim MPs in the parliamentary delegation I led to Pakistan in the middle of June gave a warning both at Lahore and Karachi that Pakistan was more “interested” in the eight-lakh Muslims living in Kashmir than in 14-15 crore Muslims in the rest of India. I found that the argument had shaken the people in Pakistan. The point was not lost even on religious outfits.
Though fundamentalism is still a strong force in Pakistan, yet in the same Pakistan, I heard during the tour the term “secular Muslim.” Even if a preponderant majority did not affix secular to their name, they believed in a liberal, open society based on Jinnah’s ideology: “You may belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
Unfortunately, the concept of the two-nation theory, the division between Hindus and Muslims, is creeping into India’s polity. There is a deliberate plan to saffronize the society. Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani feels no hesitation in saying that the BJP has been making Hindutva a poll issue and would do the same in the next election.
The party’s obsession with communal politics is evident from the manner in which it has reacted to the decision by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to approach the Supreme Court for the retrial of the Best Bakery case in which 14 Muslims were burnt alive. In this case, the trial court in Gujarat has exonerated the accused, the Hindus, for lack of evidence.
The BJP has dubbed the NHRC’s action “anti-Hindu.” The fact is that the commission has taken note of witnesses being too afraid to tell the truth. They have gone on record on this point. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who is involved in what happened in the state last year, has gone a step further. He wants the President of India to find out how many people were killed in the country during communal riots since independence and how many punished. Such a study would be welcome. But how does it lessen the crime committed in Gujarat? And how does it square with the remark that the NHRC is “anti-Hindu?” It reflects only the BJP’s communal bias.
The worst part is the scant respect which the BJP tends to pay to the institutions. The party’s statements on the Babri masjid are not only contradictory but ominous. It says that the temple would be built on the site where the Babri masjid stood before demolition. At the same time, it says that the dispute would be solved either through negotiations between the Hindus and Muslims or by the court verdict.
How can one trust the BJP? Today the BJP has accused the NHRC of being anti-Hindu because of its decision to approach the Supreme Court on Gujarat. Tomorrow the BJP will dub the court anti-Hindu if it decides that the masjid was not built by demolishing a Hindu temple. Already there are newspaper reports that the excavations carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India at the site under court orders have not yielded any evidence that the masjid was built after destroying a temple.
India’s ethos is pluralism. Hindus and Muslims constitute one nation. The BJP is dividing the society. It is definitely playing into the hands of those in Pakistan who have an agenda other than that of Jinnah’s. They want to pit Hindus and Muslims against each other all the time. This is their ethos. The BJP is no different from them.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.
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