| 01 March 2004 | Monday | 09 Muharram 1425 |
Education for all groups and genders
Power consumers continue to suffer
The country is no longer in a crisis mode: Why Pakistan should leave the IMF programme - II
Targeting Jail Road
It's the nature of the political beast
The mega projects that Karachi needs
A car buff irked by travel curbs
Contemporary marsiya
At their historic meeting in January in Islamabad, Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf agreed that "constructive dialogue would promote progress towards the common objective of peace, security and economic development for (their) two peoples and for future generations".
Now that the two leaders have their "basic road map" for such a dialogue, they may wish to consider that joining the rest of the world in prohibiting anti-personnel mines could help achieve their objective.
Five years ago on March 1, 1999, the Ottawa Convention came into force. It forbids the use of anti-personnel landmines as well as their production, transfer and trade.
The main focus of the convention, however, is the removal of the millions of old landmines and thus their long-standing brutal effects. All parties to the convention must clear their mine fields within 10 years and destroy any stockpiles within four years. In addition, they are bound to assist the victims of landmines.
Since 1999, big progress has been made. The use and supply of anti-personnel mines have been markedly reduced. Few new landmines are being produced. More than $1.7 billion has been generated to support mine clearance and for assistance to victims.
In addition, over 31 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed by the parties to the convention. Despite the horrors of recent conflicts, there is cause for optimism.
Moreover, 141 states have joined the convention. Many of these states find themselves in complex security environments and with important obligations as part of military alliances. Yet they have accepted that the disastrous humanitarian impact of these weapons greatly outweighs their marginal military utility.
While much of the international community has accepted that anti-personnel mines must be eliminated and that mined areas must be cleared, India and Pakistan have remained outside this global movement.
In 2001 and 2002, both India and Pakistan deployed countless landmines along their common border. It is difficult to say whether this increased the security of or exacerbated tensions between the two countries. It is clear, though, that this use of landmines resulted in civilian victims and over 140 army personnel being killed or injured by their own mines.
Much of the world is convinced that the anti-personnel mines threaten human security while contributing little if anything to traditional state security. However, eliminating anti-personnel mines can contribute to all facets of security.
In 1995, Peru and Ecuador fought a border war which saw no side the victor, but which resulted in untold human misery as a result of wide-spread landmine use. Today, "mine action" cooperation between the two countries has increased confidence, helped assure progress in the demarcation of a disputed frontier and has seen socio-economic gains by both sides.
More recently, leaders from Greece and Turkey jointly accepted the convention, thereby putting aside decades of mutual antipathy. When in 2001, they announced their intention to join the convention, the foreign ministers of the two countries stated that they "recognize that a total ban on (anti-personnel mines) is an important confidence-building measure that would contribute to security and stability in the region".
The political will of Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf to work towards a lasting peace suggests that the time has come for the two leaders to see the Ottawa convention's place in broader confidence-building and security measures.
In November of this year, the Nairobi summit on a Mine-Free World will take place at which time the Ottawa convention's member states will review progress and establish an action plan to ensure the elimination of anti-personnel mines. As president-designate of the Nairobi summit, I encourage India and Pakistan to accept the Ottawa convention in time for this major international event.
The strength of leadership demonstrated by Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf indicates a willingness to seize the moment and rise to meet the challenges head-on.
My hope is that these two leaders will now rise to the challenge of accepting the Ottawa convention's unambiguous ban on anti-personnel mines. In doing so, I believe India and Pakistan would take their rightful place at centre-stage of both the Nairobi summit and what has become a global success story.
Wolfgang Petritsch is Austrian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and president-designate of the Nairobi summit on a Mine-Free World.
Education for all groups and genders
The recent arson and bomb attacks on a string of girl schools in Diamer District of the federally-administered Northern Areas was blamed on extremists who are against female education.
Consequently last Wednesday, it was reported in one local English newspaper that the leader of an extremist group in the Northern Areas which was responsible for the attacks on the schools had been arrested.
The episode has highlighted the role and extent of foreign participation in reforming the education sector in the Northern Areas. The foreign donors and their local staff had succeeded in doing in a few years what the government could not do in over 50 years: brave the local traditional social taboos about girl education and establish scores of schools for girls in the Northern Areas.
Apart from the social taboos about girl education, western assistance for education in this Islamic society has often also been viewed with suspicion. Last week when a senator raised the issue of the country's education system being hijacked by a foreign power through a prominent NGO, an MQM Senator's reply was that anyone wanting to invest in Pakistan did not necessarily have malicious intent.
Malicious or no malicious intent, it is known that a recent report on the foreign-funded girls' education project in the Northern Areas had already advised foreign agencies to keep a low profile there.
Earlier, the offices of the Northern Areas Development Project, a joint venture of a foreign-funded agency and the UNDP, had been attacked several times, one of the more serious attacks occurred in July 2003 after which UNDP personnel temporarily suspended their work there.
While foreign assistance in the development of the Northern Areas, and increasingly so in Fata as well, is welcomed by the government, success of any development effort in these areas will depend on several factors. One factor is the manner and way that these reforms are introduced.
Given the traditional social and cultural setup in these remote regions, developmental programmes introduced and run by the government, especially by a government with local participation, are likely to be viewed with less suspicion and mistrust than if these projects were perceived to be imposed from outside by foreign-funded agencies and NGOs.
In the case of the Northern Areas, the government or rather the army itself had been active in developing the communication sector there since 1947, e.g., airports were constructed at Skardu and Gilgit, and the Karakuram Highway (KKH) and hundreds of kilometres of metalled roads were built, making the otherwise isolated region more accessible.
But social development of the area, especially education and health, was left largely to NGOs and foreign donors, and this included a $22.8 million Northern Education Project funded by the World Bank in 1998.
Last month, a foreign-funded research project in the Northern Areas was signed between a Canadian government-funded agency and several local NGOs working there.
Last month also, the chief executive of the Northern Areas, who is also the federal minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, had discussed with a visiting European Commission delegation about the establishment of agricultural and technical institutes in the Northern Areas.
Shouldn't foreign donors and NGOs be equally concerned about the need for educational development in other deprived parts of the country as well? For example, a letter-to-the-editor in Dawn from Okara district last week drew attention to the non-existence of even a single girls' school in his village, Marri Kamboh, home to about 10,000 people.
Another factor that will determine the success or otherwise of developmental efforts in the Northern Areas, and Fata as well, is the treatment of the various groups of people living there.
The Northern Areas comprise mainly the Shias, Noorbakhshis, Sunnis and the Ismailis, and Fata's population comprise of different tribal groups. There must be zero tolerance for biasness or hatred against any one group, no matter how small or large that group is. Any perception by one group of being discriminated against will foster distrust and discord among the communities, and hence hinder the development process.
This had happened in the Northern Areas last year when the Northern Areas administration constituted a three-member committee to review the Islamiat curriculum in which one group was not represented in the committee.
This led to protests, and then violence in Skardu and Gilgit where public and private property were damaged. Schools and colleges in Skardu, Gilgit and Ghanche were also reported to have been closed.
In fact, in the development of primary education in the Northern Areas, the government appeared to be cooperating largely with one community only, especially in the establishment of girls' schools.
This not only fosters a sense of deprivation among the other communities but also helps to exacerbate disparities between the poor, lesser organized communities and those who are better off.
Besides, in focusing on spreading girl education in the Northern Areas, did the government also ensure that educational development for boys in general was not being neglected?
The wiser strategy would have been for the federal government to adopt developmental programmes that involve the equal participation of each and every community living in the Northern Areas, whichever the group and whatever the gender.
Such developmental reforms should also be accompanied, if not preceded, by reforms which bring the political-administrative status of the region in line with the rest of the country.
Power consumers continue to suffer
Lack of coordination among the officials of the Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (Fesco), poor arrangements for redress of complaints, unscheduled breakdowns and excessive tripping have made the lives of consumers miserable.
Fesco officials disconnect the power supply without observing the legal requirements. They harass consumers through police cases for some chance faults occurring during installation of meters outside their premises.
Under Nepra rules, Fesco is not authorized to check the meters and impose fine on consumers on the spot. Disputes about faulty meters are required to be referred to the electric inspectors who should be adequately equipped to check the correctness or otherwise of meters and their report should be considered as final.
Fesco authorities also work on a novel strategy of imposing detection bills without ascertaining the actual loss and the correct period, sometimes without properly ascertaining whether the loss had accrued due to some accidental or mechanical defect in meters.
In many cases the detection bills are waived off on the mere sweet will of an officer. Many small domestic consumers were penalized over paltry amounts. While a large number of big industrial consumers went unscathed.
Disgusted and dejected complainants have to face a lot of problems over petty issues, but to no avail.
A masterpiece of quixotic management is that in the past power connections used to be provided to customers without payment of cost of material and equipment, in lieu of which a reasonable amount as line rent and security used to be charged.
Now, a consumer is made to purchase a connection on payment of full and exaggerated cost of material and then forced to pay a security amount. After full payment by a consumer, the equipment is still considered to be company property.
Fesco collects huge amounts through such securities. If the amounts realized through securities are withdrawn, the much-trumpeted profitability might prove to be a hollow claim.
Power consumers have been demanding that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) should take a strict action against Fesco for failing to provide quality service to them.
According to Nepra rules, if the consumers seek intervention of the regulatory authority, it would ask the licensees to explain the reasons for unscheduled shutdowns and breakdowns, a Nepra official, requesting anonymity, said.
He said that unscheduled shutdowns might be due to faulty construction of the powerhouses and overloading of the system as well as faulty maintenance and mismanagement.
Fluctuation is also a big problem. Some days ago, excess power damaged electrical appliances of the residents of People's Colony, Madina Town, D-Type Colony, Civil Lines, Katchery Bazar, Tariqabad, Abdullahpur and Gulistan Colony.
According to a Fesco official, it was due to overloading of the distribution system. The electricity supply company is required to provide quality service to consumers and adhere to certain performance standards.
When there are regular complaints about low voltage affecting efficiency and working consumer equipment, the company could be asked to redress the complaints expeditiously and might also be fined.
According to data, the system suffered 1,896 trippings during January 2004. However, there is no evidence of compensating the consumers who sustained huge losses due to damage caused to their appliances.
A major problem is excessive billing. A number of consumers are seen standing in long queues outside the offices of the chief executive, executive engineers, sub-divisional officers, and customer service centres for redress of their complaints in this regard.
Insiders revealed that a heavy amount was allegedly being collected by Fesco officials from owners of industrial units to provide them a safe way for pilferage of power. The 'loot' is said to be distributed from top to bottom.
In 1999, raiding teams found a number of power thieves in almost all areas of Fesco and claimed to reduce the line losses. A retired Wapda officials claimed that under the Nepra Act, the distribution licensee is under an obligation to develop a consumer service manual and submit it to Nepra for approval within three months of the issuance of its distribution licence. After Nepra's approval, the licensee is required to publicise the manual to its consumers and the public for implementation.
Fesco obtained a license from Nepra but its consumers claimed that it did not provide them any such manual, which means that either the company had not prepared any such manual until now or it had not been approved by Nepra.
Although Wapda authorities have been claiming that Fesco was the only company in the country which was being run successfully and profitably, the fact remains that it sustained a loss of Rs399 million during the fiscal year 2002-2003.
Fesco chief executive Brig Tariq Rasool, in a recent press briefing, had claimed that a five-year master plan had been chalked out for providing modern services to consumers, which included setting up of customer service centres, provision of new power connections and reduction in line losses.
He said that a mobile customer service centre had been set up for solving consumers' problems at their doorstep, which was working successfully. Up to 2,191 complaints had so far been received and almost all of them had been redressed, besides improving the network.
As many as 17,919 cases of power theft were detected from July 2003 to January 2004 and bills amounting to Rs97.12 million were served on pilferers out of which Rs62.39 million had been recovered. Besides, cases against 38 power thieves were got registered with the police.
The country is no longer in a crisis mode: Why Pakistan should leave
the IMF programme - II
Unlike the past where cut on development expenditures led to lowering of growth rate this boost to development spending will stimulate the economy. Every rupee spent on external debt servicing leaves the country.
If that rupee is instead spent on schools, water, medicines, a poor person or pensioner will benefit. In the past, fiscal deficit target was achieved by cutting development expenditure. This risk is much lower for the future years as the burden of debt servicing has been reduced structurally.
(b) Tax collection has increased by almost two-thirds during the last four years on the back of structural reforms and widening of tax base. The on-going reforms in restructuring of the CBR should lead to higher tax collection with lowering of tax rates, minimizing contact between taxpayer and tax collection, improving the quality of tax administration and providing immediate relief against discretionary excesses of tax collectors.
Higher tax-GDP ratio will guarantee an increasing level of development budget within a lower fiscal deficit target and with declining debt ratios.
(c) Public sector organizations that were incurring huge losses such as nationalized commercial banks have been privatized, others have been restructured and turned into profitable ventures such as Pakistan Steel and PIA and several others are in the process of privatization such as KESC and WAPDA distribution companies. The elimination of public sector enterprise losses will result in budgetary savings and lowering fiscal deficit.
(3) Fiscal discipline will not be abandoned after the expiry of the IMF Agreement but will instead be enforced in the future by the parliament of the country. A legal framework in the form of fiscal responsibility law has been enacted with clear timeline for reducing the level of fiscal deficit and the extent of indebtedness (60 per cent of the GDP). Parliament will monitor the progress and thus national sovereignty of economic decision-making will be restored and rest in the hands of the elected representatives of the population.
There will be a shift of target setting and monitoring from the control of the IMF to the national authorities. As these targets will reflect the consensus among the local governments, provinces and federal government, it is more likely that they will be adhered to and the change in governments will not affect this commitment. For the first time a long-term credible instrument of economic discipline has been put in place in the country.
(4) Another important tool to keep the economy on the right path will be the reaction of financial markets. Once Pakistan, as a sovereign borrower or Pakistani corporate sector establishes links with the global markets, we will be under constant scrutiny by the Fund Managers, Credit Rating Agencies, Research Analysts, etc. Any tendency of laxity on our part will be instantaneously penalized by the markets in the form of increased spreads on Pakistani paper. These spreads will act as a powerful signal that we should either mend our ways or be ready for a likely financial crisis as lack of confidence by the markets in Pakistan's economy can eventually push us to that dungeon.
Unlike the present where we can enter into negotiations with the IMF and persuade their board to waive off some of the performance criteria the verdict by the market will be made instantaneously by thousands of players in a herd like fashion and the economic managers will be simply helpless by-standers to the inflicting of this punishment.The need to remain on course under such circumstances will be quite obvious to everyone.
(5) A number of financial crises in the emerging economies had arisen due to weak financial sector institutions particularly the commercial banks. Fortunately, since 1997 the banking sector in Pakistan has undergone major transformation and has emerged today quite strong in terms of capital adequacy, asset quality, management soundness, liquidity, profitability and systems.
Electronic banking, product diversification, cost reduction, strong risk management and corporate governance and a healthy competitive environment will further bring about cost efficiencies, improved customer service, increased coverage and outreach, target underserved sectors and areas and extend the benefits of financial intermediation to middle and low income groups of the population.
The supervisory and regulatory framework has been strengthened to international standards and the Central Bank and SECP will act as vigilant watchdogs over the affairs of these institutions to ensure that they work to maximize the returns to the economy at low acceptable risk. A healthy and sound financial sector will be less vulnerable to shocks and will have the resilience to withstand those shocks without recourse to exceptional assistance from the IMF.
6) Monetary and credit policies and exchange rate policies will remain flexible and continue to entrench low inflationary expectations with base money growth driven mainly by accumulation of international reserves.
Export competitiveness will remain the focus of the exchange rate policy so that Pakistan is able to enhance its share in global markets, diversify into new products and new markets and develop new areas of comparative advantage. Post-2005 textile goods market offers an excellent opportunity for our exporters to capture as much share as possible in absence of quotas.
The second generation of reforms which Pakistan proposes to undertake will be driven domestically and do not require any assistance from the IMF. As the emphasis of economic policy has now shifted from macroeconomic stabilization to accelerated pro-poor growth with employment generation and poverty reduction as the objectives, there are many ways whereby the exit from the IMF will allow us to do things differently and also achieve these objectives in a manner that does not cause severe hardships to the population at large.
Social well-being of the population will move from secondary position to occupy the primary position as the country has already achieved macroeconomic stability (and will continue to hold on to it).
The targets will now be set in terms of social targets and targets for pro-poor growth leading the course and not the other way around i.e. budgetary deficit objective driving the targets of poverty reduction, employment generation and social sector expenditures.
Primary budgetary surplus for debt reduction will remain a target but its size and evolutionary path will be determined by the progress achieved in meeting the social targets - particularly education, health, nutrition, drinking water, population, pensions and social safety nets.
As pointed out earlier we are not going to relax in terms of maintaining the control of the country's fiscal balance but we can work with higher public expenditure, lower interest rates and a lighter monetary policy which are all consistent with high but pro-poor economic growth and stronger social targets.
Instead of cutting the development expenditures in ad-hoc manner as was the case in the past the balancing act will be done by readjusting non-development expenditure and raising tax revenues.
The scope and time horizon for adjustment will be more realistic as we free ourselves from short-term performance criteria and quarterly targets monitored under an IMF programme.
Second, it has become quite clear from the experience of the Social Action Programme that budgetary outlays are not the only major constraint in delivery of social services and development of human capital.
The fault equally lies in the pervasive weakness of the institutions responsible for the delivery. Devolution of powers to local governments offers an excellent opportunity for ensuring that the poor participate in the decision-making and receive the services at their doorsteps with minimal waste and leakages.
Capacity building and private-public-community partnerships would be promoted to strengthen the local government institutions assigned the task for the delivery of social services. This is purely an internal matter in which the IMF cannot provide much help.
Third, the incidence of taxes and surcharges on the various classes of population will be examined and the structure altered to reduce the excessive burden on the poor i.e. ensure better distribution of tax burden.
Surcharges on electricity, gas and petroleum products are regressive in nature and can be dispensed with by improving the governance of utility companies, bringing in more taxpayers under the income tax and corporate tax net, reducing widespread evasion, levying higher tax rates on luxury and conspicuous consumption and plugging in leakages and corruption. These measures require institutional strengthening and restructuring for which the IMF financial programme is not relevant.
Fourth, monetary and credit policy will be geared to provide access to the poor and middle class segments of the population. Microfinance, women's banking, consumer financing, mortgage loans, SME financing, agriculture credit, personal loans have just begun to take hold but in the next five years they will be expanded as part of the banks' retail business.
The boost in aggregate demand will have backward linkages in the form of higher industrial production and buoyant service sector thus stimulating the level of economic activity in the country. A strong and independent Central Bank can pursue such policies without any external help but keeping a vigilant eye on the banking industry.
Fifth, infrastructure facilities such as irrigation water canals and lining of water courses, farm-to-market roads, storages and silos for grains, urban transport, railway service, port handling, need to be upgraded so as to remove shortages and congestion for the benefit of the majority of the population.
Under a supply-constrained and non-price rationing environment it is the poor who suffer the most and the elites derive most of the benefits through connections and influence peddling.
These measures that provide equal access to public goods to the poor as well as non-poor require a change in the mindset of our political leaders across the party lines and an outside agency such as the IMF can hardly be useful for this purpose.
Sixth, scientific education, research and technological development have been neglected far too long to the extent that Pakistan is losing its competitive edge in the dynamic products of the global market.
Adequate budgetary allocations with strong incentives linking research and development with industrial productivity and continuous upgrading of higher skills will be the part of this strategy.
The resistance to reforms in higher education is quite fierce from the faculty organizations while priority to technological development is quite low both by the private and public sector. Reorientation of our policies and institutions in this area call for tough actions that can be best managed by a strong leadership.
Seventh, poverty is not only lack of economic opportunities but is also a state of powerlessness and helplessness on the part of the poor who are denied access to police, justice and executive branches of the government.
Reforms of civil service, police and judiciary to make them more responsive to the needs of the poor have to be introduced. These reforms require a long term roadmap which is blessed by all stakeholders involved.
Technical assistance from external donors can be helpful but the implementation has to be domestically driven. There is very little that the IMF can contribute towards the implementation of this agenda.
It can be seen from the outline of the above agenda that the second generation reforms are deeply rooted in the institutional restructuring, require political will and consensus among stakeholders, strong ownership and are not in any way contingent on the financial assistance of the IMF.
This agenda will be driven mainly by the parliament, political parties, federal, provincial and local governments, private sector, NGOs, academia and communities. Thus the exit from the IMF programme is fully justifiable as the country is no longer in a crisis mode and does not require any financial infusion and the road ahead can be traversed without their assistance.
The biggest risk to this exit strategy is: When the economy bounces back, will the pressure for reform, fiscal discipline and good governance disappear in the absence of an IMF programme? Will we revert to bad old ways of doing things - e.g.
* Appointments and postings on sifarish, favouritism and nepotism
* Award of contracts on kickbacks and plunder
* Issuance of SROs to make a few selected individuals rich
* Sanction of loans on the basis of political connections
* Undertaking unproductive and wasteful mega projects of little economic value
* Slow-down of privatization process and financing of losses of public sector enterprise from within the budget
* Paralyzing the functioning of local governments
* Return of creeping protection of domestic industry to appease the lobbies of rent seekers
* Incessant bureaucratic and political interference resulting in inconsistent, unpredictable and discontinuous policies.
If this scenario works out then even if an IMF programme is in place, the IMF is bound to suspend the programme and withdraw its assistance. Under those circumstances what is the point in going through the agony of negotiating another programme and then suffer the humiliation and lose the credibility. If the intention is to go back to old ways of doing things then we should not consider extending the programme in any case.
But I am an optimist and a firm believer in social democracy. My hunch, based on last one and a half year of experience, is that the Jamali government is fully committed to these second generation reforms and will successfully tide over this period of five years by continuing economic reforms, practising good governance and strengthening our financial, judicial and educational institutions.
We should then be on our way to achieving a competitive economy and social democracy for Pakistan - the goals which have eluded us so far. Under those circumstances, the risk to the exit strategy will be minimal.
To reiterate the success of this exit strategy depends upon continuity and consistency of policies, good governance, institutional restructuring, national consensus building and strong work ethic by all Pakistanis.
Government can be an enabler and facilitator but the ultimate results will depend on the collective efforts and hard work of millions of farmers, firms, entrepreneurs, individual businesses and professionals.
I am quite sanguine that we, the Pakistanis, are ready to say good-bye to the IMF and still achieve better standards of life for the majority of our population.
The writer is Governor, State Bank of Pakistan.
Targeting Jail Road
At independence, my city was a small, somnolent little provincial town. It began to expand in all directions in the past-partition years. Today, Lahore or most of it is a huge slum end to end. Old and beautiful and romantic residential areas have been brutally commercialized.
To give you but one example: Jail Road. From Mozang Chungi to the Lawrence Road and beyond, to the Kinnaird college, it had a handful of magnificent bungalows, it exuded a culture of quite and dignified good living. Here there was no over crowding, no shop, no noise, no ugly clutterment. Orderly people lived orderly lives.
Kinnaird was and probably still is, a centre of excellence where educated families sent their daughters. The Lahore College for Women was good, too, but it was not the place where the very top girls went.
Today my heart bleeds when I visit the place to see a friend who has been living there all these years and whose house is now surrounded by commercial establishments old Lahoris could not see even in their nightmares.
Those who owe their allegiance to the Gospel of Mammon have been, it appears, targeting Jail Road for decades. They have, alack and a day, one hands down. Commerce has won. Culture has lost. This loss is too immense for me to quantify. One day I will tell you the whole sordid story of the Rape of Jail Road.
* * * * *
I think it was some years before independence that a young lad who had been married to a four-year old girl came to Lahore, looking for a living. His name was Pandit Nek Ram. His little wife's name I don't know.
As Nek Ram got to know about Islam, he converted to the faith of his own accord. He then told his wife that since he was a Muslim, his marriage to her was void because she was a Hindu. As the girl had grown up, she told Nek Ram that she was very fond of him and that she would rather be converted to his faith than leave him.
Nek Ram who had chosen Ghulam Hasnain as his Islamic name, told his wife that in order to convert, she had to know more about his new faith. Conversion had to be through understanding and not by compulsion.
The little woman agreed and Ghulam Hasnain began to teach her the fundamental principles of his faith. The young woman liked what she learned and decided to accept her husband's faith. Accordingly, the conversion was formally effected by a cleric.
Although Nek Ram had become a Muslim he retained "Pandit" as a part of his name. He became a Shia zakir and began to address Majalis-i-Aza every Moharram. His popularity grew among the Shias as the years rolled by but nobody called him by his Islamic name.
He was known and respected as Pandit Nek Ram to the last. He died as a relatively young man in the seventies. His wife, however, came to be known by her Islamic name, Kaniz Fatima.
The couple lived for several years in Abbas Manzil, a sprawling Haveli on Dil Muhammad Road. Abbas Manzil has since been pulled down. Nek Ram and his wife have been dead for decades now but they are still remembered by the Shias in Lahore.
* * * * *
A few excerpts now from the anthology, The Statesman (1875-1975). Somewhere in 1932, the paper wrote:
The Bengalee has disappeared. What was once the great Hindu paper of Bengal has passed into Moslem hands to appear under the new name of the Star of India. For forty years it was with occasional intermissions associated with Surendra Nath Banerjea.
Through it he assailed Government, spread his influence and rallied the people of Bengal, especially the young men, to the cause for which he fought. Having done its work it languished; its politics were considered too gentle by a public had been fed so persistently on determined opposition to everything authority had done, and like Sir Surendra Nath himself when he began to be satisfied with what had been accomplished in the political field, it was accused of having lost its virility and patriotism.
A board of Muslims that looks strong enough for the enterprise, will direct the fortunes of the Star of India as a Moslem evening paper.
Writing about itself the same year, the paper said: With this edition we bid good-bye to our Chowringhee offices, that have been The Statesman's home for nearly sixty years. Thence early in 1875 was issued the first number of The Indian Statesman, a title abbreviated a few months later.
We have no intention at this moment of dwelling on details of our history. But we may observe that the home of half a century is not left without some emotion, whatever the conveniences and comfort of the spacious new building in which we install ourselves and all or incumbrances today.
Chowringhee has seen us grow from small beginnings. It has seen many anxieties and wrestlings with fortune. There Mr Robert Knight and his sons, who between them are much the larger part of The Statesman's history, thought and planned and aspired and worked and refused to be beaten.
On that site building has been added to building, improvement to improvement, with an economy of space and a utilization of every possibility that would have done credit to a builder of submarines-or shall we say a Heath Robinson. But a time had come when the limits of what was possible was reached.
Expansion was necessary, and we could not expand at the end of Chowringhee that humorists have called "Where the Pavement Ends". We had to decide to break with the past, to take a risk and a plunge.
Just over a quarter of a century ago The Statesman installed rotary presses, which we believe were the first rotaries in India. The courage behind the change (which was a tremendous adventure in habit) was Mr Paul Knight's. Our two Calcutta presses have been good friends and loyal servants, and if today they are in some respects inadequate, that is only because needs and practice have gone some way beyond them.
They are still stout-hearted, active, efficient and reliable, and after twenty-six years of India's climate are in much finer condition than most pieces of human machinery that have worked so long in this land. This edition has been printed on them, a half on each, and it is their last service as chief guests.
Henceforth, they will be adjutants to newer presses in our Calcutta and Delhi offices, ready to help at demand. For our main work in Calcutta there is a remarkable new press, many times as efficient in production, capable of printing some 80,000 papers an hour, also of printing a 64-page paper at once.
It's the nature of the political beast
The week-kneed secularists are feeling the brunt of the assault. On the face of it, Prime Minister Vajpayee's campaign managers appear to have invented a political version of the human waves approach to sap the opposition's will to fight.
Day after day a prominent film actor or an opposition politician is given live coverage on TV, as they join the BJP, and that too unconditionally. The strategy may have been inspired by the teachings of the great Chinese military writer Sun Tzu who observed that disarming an adversary before the battle was is the most effective outcome a commander could achieve.
But Sun Tzu also claimed that war is deception, implying that "Shock and Awe", a term recently usurped by the American military in Iraq, was greatly leveraged through clever, if not brilliant, employment of psychological force. There is no better analogy to describe the psychological blitzkrieg that has been launched by Mr Vajpayee's election managers.
And nothing seems to have shocked the opponents of his Hindu revivalist party more than the relentlessly highlighted 'defection' of two Muslim politicians who have switched sides, both discovering some hitherto hidden virtues in Mr Vajpayee's leadership.
And so from quite early in the morning these days the phones begin to ring with the same anxious posers from worried secularists of Delhi, their nerves frayed by their own paranoia of the BJP's larger-than-life image of itself.
Why has Arif Bhai done this? What has gone wrong with Najma Apa? So the pleadings go. To explain the context, Arif Bhai is Arif Mohammed Khan, a former Congress minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet. He began his career as a protege of the late Pilu Modi of the pro-rich Swatantra Party.
He then joined the Congress, defected to the Bahujan Samaj Party of the Dalits, getting elected for one term on its ticket, but then remaining in political wilderness until last week.
Najma Apa is Najma Heptullah, who was made deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha by Rajiv Gandhi and is on the lookout for political support to keep her job since her term is coming to a close in the next couple of months. She needs to keep the BJP in good humour, but without necessarily joining it. Ms Heptullah flaunts her credentials as the grandniece of Maulana Azad.
Both Mr Khan and Ms Heptullah have visited Pakistan during Mr Vajpayee's tenure with his blessings. They were dispatched to showcase what they essentially are: symbols of the nationalist Muslims of the country, if such a term is valid. (I raise the question because it was late Hasrat Mohani who, with one leg in the Muslim League and the other in the Communist Party, had declared, perhaps presciently, that an Indian Muslim could be a communist or a communalist, but he could not be good material as a nationalist, his dictum apparently based on the absence of a sizeable Muslim middle class which is the necessary basis for most forms of nationalism.)
In the final analysis who are we to say which politician should belong to which party? It is the nature of the beast. If Mr Khan has joined the BJP, why should anyone feel unduly upset about it? It could be that he is simply predisposed towards the saffron philosophy.
If not, why would he be there? Simple. Similarly, if Ms Heptullah says something nasty about Sonia Gandhi, she clearly has her reasons for doing so. But people say nasty things about each other in politics. Who are we to try to convince someone to be loyal to the party of our choice?
And yet their pretext for flirting with the BJP at this juncture rings hollow. It may also be self-serving and even opportunistic. But over a period of time both the leaders in question have been allowed by India's mainstream politics to arm themselves with fairly cogent arguments to reason why they are justified in deserting the Congress. Ms Heptullah, in fact, insists that she has not given up the Congress philosophy even though she has problems with Sonia Gandhi.
In fact, she asks quite pertinently, why, if the Congress is campaigning for a secular alliance today, did it bring down the left-backed United Front government by withdrawing support to the short-lived coalition in 1997.
The ensuing elections brought Mr Vajpayee to power for an unending tenure. Ms Heptullah also wants to know why the left hobnobbed with the BJP in 1967 in Uttar Pradesh and again in 1977, when it supported the Janata Party, which included the rightwing Hindu RSS.
Moreover, the Congress' track record is not spotless either when it comes to anti-Muslim riots. Ms Heptullah cites the killings in Bhagalpur, Meerut and Maliana during Congress rule.
Mr Khan proffers an even more compelling set of arguments against the Congress. He opposed Rajiv Gandhi as a Congress minister when his government brought legislation to please the mullahs.
That was the famous Shah Bano case in which a Muslim woman's right to alimony granted by the Supreme Court was overturned by parliament because the clerics said it interfered with the Shariah.
At the same time, Rajiv sought to placate the naturally outraged Hindus, who accused him of pandering to Muslims, by opening the locks of the Babri Masjid, placed there since 1949. It was in vain because the BJP gained electorally, and the rest is history.
Having positioned himself as an anti-mullah Muslim leader, Mr Khan also refers frequently to Gujarat, where he says the Congress patronized 'soft Hindutva' in the wake of the anti-Muslim violence.
These arguments on both sides are going to be the staple of these elections. But elections in India are hardly ever influenced by electoral polemics of the kind that Ms Heptullah and Mr Khan symbolize.
Ms Heptullah has never won an election to the Lok Sabha, and Mr Khan too has been in the wilderness for over a dozen years. The contradiction is that Mr Vajpayee needs the support of the Muslim voters, whose very leaders Mr Khan and Ms Heptullah love to target.
Instead of worrying about the daily defectors to the BJP, being deliberately orchestrated to demoralize them, secular activists should consider appropriate responses to some of the genuine issues raised by the two defectors.
* * * * *
Cameras clicked, television crews also got their pictures, and from the BJP's point of view, the political point was well made. And after the 'photo op' the press was asked to leave the hall where the private event- an interaction between Sir Vidia Naipaul, his wife Lady Nadira Naipaul, and the cultural cell of the BJP- took place last week. But after the meeting was over, a very obliging Sir Vidia answered a number of questions addressed to him by reporters.
Did he justify the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya? "Yes, I did justify it... I have done it many times."
What did he think of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, an issue raised by the BJP? "I think it is worth considering. The Americans have their view," he said.
Was the BJP trying to appropriate him? "I don't mind it," Sir Vidia said and smiled benignly. But his wife intervened to point out that they were here at the BJP office as 'observers' and 'at the invitation of the BJP.' And then she added: "If the Congress had invited us, we would have gone there too. If the liberals had done their homework, they could have appropriated him. My husband writes about India, he is concerned about India."
The mega projects that Karachi needs
Two mega projects are under construction in Karachi. One is the Lyari Expressway and the other is the Northern Bypass. The Lyari Expressway at best is a controversial project.
It has been criticized by academics, professionals and NGOs. In spite of this criticism, it is being built without any public consultation or consideration of the concerns that have been raised.
The Northern Bypass is an extremely important project for the city. However, it has been curtailed to subsidize the Lyari Expressway. This curtailment is not in the interest of the city either, as has been discussed in numerous articles in the print media.
Unfortunately, no land use plan has been developed for either of the projects and the necessary social and environmental impact studies required for such planning have not been carried out. Such studies are normally a part of the project design, and an environmental impact assessment is required under law.
In addition to these two mega projects, the Rs29 billion Tameer-i-Karachi Programme is also being implemented. This programme seeks to improve the existing Karachi infrastructure and surprisingly considers roads, bridges and flyovers; sewage, water and solid waste management, and GIS as something separate from a city master-plan. Consequently, it has already identified 256 schemes in different sectors without a master-plan being in place.
However, none of the mega projects whose implementation would bring about major physical and social improvements in Karachi and pave the way for the city's economic revival are being considered for design and implementation. These projects have been discussed for the past two-and-a-half decades by government planners, academics, professionals, concerned citizens and NGOs.
One such mega project is the construction of double tracks from Karachi Port to Pipri where a container terminal can be built. This will remove all container movement from the city and enormously benefit trade, commerce and industry.
Another project is the construction of an oil pipeline from the refineries to an oil terminal outside the city. At present, oil is pumped from the oil terminal in Keamari to the refineries and then pumped back to the Keamari oil terminal from where tankers carry it through the city to various locations in Pakistan. The building of the pipeline will remove 25,000 oil tankers from the streets of Karachi.
Another mega project is the shifting of the Dhan Mandi and the metal and chemical markets from the inner city to the Northern Bypass and the development of infrastructure to make that possible.
However, this shifting should not be carried out in the unscientific and non-transparent manner in which the shifting of the Karachi Sabzimandi was planned and undertaken. It should be done with the involvement of the mandi operators and other interest lobbies, and space for future expansion and labour housing should be an integral part of it.
By this relocation more than 4,000 trips per day of heavy vehicles will be removed from the inner city and numerous properties will be vacated, making an urban renewal plan for the inner city possible.
It is heartening to note that the Karachi Iron and Steel Merchant's Association has initiated this move and are negotiating to shift their workshops, godowns and manufacturing units from the inner city to near the Steel Mills.
However, the city government planning agencies have to make this shifting a part of a larger inner city rehabilitation plan without which the advantages of such a shift will be negated by the development of inappropriate landuse in the inner city.
And, finally, there is the construction of the circular railway and its extensions into the suburbs which will remove a major part of the commuting public from increasingly congested road corridors to the comfortable environment of a railway system, reducing travel time and the hazards of air and noise pollution.
The conversion of public transport to CNG, though not a mega project, would complement the projects mentioned above. Research on the possibilities of initiating this conversion process is currently being carried out by Karachi NGOs through dialogue with other transport-related interest groups.
The environmental, social and physical benefits of these projects are obvious. They will also be of enormous benefit to trade, commerce and industry. They will help in the revival of culture, recreation and entertainment, both at the city and at the neighbourhood level.
Culture and recreation related activities are adversely affected by massive environmental degradation, environmental-related diseases and the loss of time in commuting. Without building these mega projects, the physical infrastructure improvement plans proposed by the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme will only marginally improve physical conditions (and that too for the time being) but will certainly not solve Karachi's larger development-related problems.
What one fails to understand is why these important projects which have been discussed for over two decades and which can bring about such positive changes for the city's economy and its physical and social environment are not implemented, especially when they can repay their cost with interest over a 10- to 20-year period.
Their non-implementation is certainly not because of a lack of funds. When the government wishes to implement a project, it finds the funds for it. For example, the Kuwait Development Fund has been persuaded to fund the Lyari Expressway and Rs29 billion are being mobilized to fund the Tameer-i-Karachi programme.
A car buff irked by travel curbs
It is not widely known that Sanjay Khan, who worked in at least 55 Indian movies as a leading man in his heyday, is an automobile aficionado. Every now and then he goes for a spin in whatever new car he acquired.
He says that there is nothing more exhilarating than a fast ride in a comfortable vehicle along a highway. If Khan had his way, he would come to Pakistan from India by car. "I would love to do that," he says.
"In fact, I would start my journey from Delhi and then drive to Lahore. I would then go to Murree by car and meet my old friends." Naturally, he takes a dim view of travel restrictions between India and Pakistan.
Sanjay Khan was in Karachi recently on his first visit to this country. As flamboyant as ever - he was wearing a trendy shirt with a pair of gold cuff-links and trousers with knife-edge creases - he holds no brief for those filmmakers who seek to drive a wedge between the two countries which have already been at loggerheads for the past 57 years.
"The only Pakistan-bashing film which has done well at the box-office in India is Ghadar. But all such subsequent films have been flops. See, there was a time when the Americans made anti-German and anti-Japanese films and got away with it. I personally feel that a movie on India-Pakistan relations should be balanced," he elaborates.
While Sanjay has made a pile in the hotel business - he owns one of the largest seven-star luxury holiday resorts in Bangalore - filmmaking is still close to his heart. With three directorial ventures under his belt, he is now planning to make a movie on the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.
"The movie is based on a book. If the filmmaker accepted the views of the author, he would end up making an anti-Pakistan movie. But I wouldn't like to do that. I will show in my movie that what happened in Bangladesh was not endorsed by the entire public of Pakistan," he promises.
Sanjay is at pains to stress that, contrary to the popular belief, Muslims are not discriminated against in India. "Sometimes Pakistanis that I meet in London or Dubai ask me whether I am all right in India. This question surprises me no end.
The Khans have been ruling the Indian film industry for years. One of the richest men in India is a Muslim. Similarly, there are many prosperous Muslim businessmen all over India.
Actually, the people of India are very large-hearted. I can say with conviction that 95 per cent of Indians are secular. Just as you have five per cent people who have their own agenda, we also have that belligerent minority," he points out.
But the actor is as quick to pour scorn on religious hard-liners as he is prepared to heap praises on secularists in India. Not one to mince words, he calls the Gujarat carnage one of the most heinous crimes committed against the Muslims. "And I hold Narendra Modi responsible for this. He mobilized the police force to search and kill the Muslims. It is believed that 2,400 Muslims lost their lives. But it is important to bear in mind that the Human Rights Commission of India swooped down on the Modi government.
They indicted him. Another non-governmental organization, comprising judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts - all Hindus - probed the episode thoroughly, examined more than 1,000 witnesses and compiled a 2,500-page report. They also indicted him and called him a murderer," he recalls.
Mr Khan is full of praise for Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. "I happen to know Mr Vajpayee personally. And in the year 1995 he was my guest for three days. He is a very polite man. I affectionately call him Baap-ji. One day, when we were having dinner, I asked him: "'Baap-ji, Bharat ko kaun sa rasta ikhtiar karna chahiye?'" (Which way should India go?) He said: 'There is only one way: secularism'."
Contemporary marsiya
Among the many striking features of Muharram is the art of marsiya writing - that pristine genre of Urdu literature. Marsiya has a long history in the subcontinent, with the Deccan of the 13-14th century being its birthplace. It has undergone a sea change over the last century, with Karachi today becoming the centre of contemporary marsiya writing.
Not too long ago, the late Professor Karar Husain used to hold a marsiya recital during Muharram at his house in Gulshan, where even visiting poets from India also came to recite their fresh compositions. Ancholi in Federal B Area, one is told, has kept up the tradition with regular marsiya recitals during the 40-day mourning period. It was here that Josh Malihabadi used to come every year and recite his firebrand contemporary marsiyas until his death in the early 1980s.
This takes one to the change in the content and the traditional form of marsiya writing. Gone are the days when the genre was restricted to its musaddas (six-line) metre; contemporary marsiya is now being written in couplets, more like the ghazal, and even in blank verse.
The content itself is not restricted to simply highlighting the martyrdom of Imam Hussain or mourning the Karbala tragedy, even though that has remained the underlying theme of the new marsiya.
The genre has also taken upon itself the task of identifying and resisting oppression and injustice as it exists today. Josh, unlike Faiz, can truly be called the father of this change in marsiya writing.
Faiz, even though he wrote revolutionary poems, followed a more traditional approach in marsiya writing that reminded one of the classical marsiyas of 18th-century Lucknow.
Following in the footsteps of Josh are tens of young and seasoned poets of Karachi today whose tone reminds one of such great contemporary marsiya poets as Syed Aley Raza, Umeed Fazli, Izzat Lakhnavi, Najam Afandi and Shahid Naqvi, to name only a few.
Given the fast pace of life these days and the long distances involved, it is unfortunately not possible for a lot of people to attend marsiya recitals that form an integral part of the Muharram majalis.
TV, in that respect, fills some of the gap. One hopes that this year too the Ashura transmission will afford people the chance of listening to some new marsiyas.
New technology, untrained hands
Common sense says that when you introduce technology, you should also train the people who are to use it if you want to derive optimum benefit from it. But we seem to be in such a hurry to get the technology that we forget that without trained hands, hi-tech equipment can only become a drag on our efficiency and working.
That is how a friend who went abroad recently felt when going through the immigration counter at the Karachi international airport. She was surprised when she wasn't given an embarkation card, which previously everyone was required to fill and submit to help the authorities keep a record of all departing passengers. She was in for a further surprise when she found long queues before the immigration officers.
It soon dawned on her that the immigration officer was keying in all the necessary information on his computer with his two index fingers. Needless to say, he was not very quick at it. The immigration process was so slow and the passengers so many that the flight could not leave in time.
A little training and practice in the touch system could have hastened up the immigration officers' speed and saved the long delays. But does anyone care?
Fencing the rail tracks
At least three people lost their lives after being run over by trains in Karachi on Jan 6. One of them, Amber Anwar, was a doctor who was doing her house job in the gynaecology department of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
She left her house in Malir's Mehran Housing Society for the hospital in the morning. A Rohri-bound train hit her near Kalaboard as she tried to cross the rail tracks there.
According to the figures compiled by the medico-legal department of the JPMC, 34 people were crushed to death by fast-moving trains in 2003. At least 21 people were killed in accidents of a similar nature in 2002.
The railway authorities point out that accidents occur when people attempt to cross the tracks without due caution. They contend that people do not wait for the trains to pass and often misjudge the distance.
To be sure, the argument has some weight, but it does not absolve them of responsibility for the safety of those people who, of necessity, live close to the tracks and are forced to cross them to and fro.
Recently the authorities carried out a feasibility study on a proposal for a 2.5-kilometre-long fence for the track from Malir to Landhi, a stretch which has been the scene of most accidents. There is another proposal for overhead bridges at many convenient spots.
The fence, which should be erected without delay, would cost Rs5 million. Knowing the sluggish pace at which our bureaucracy operates, the project will not get off the ground any time soon.
Clean environment
Japanese expert Tajimi Shingi, who was an adviser to the government of Pakistan on literacy among women and children in rural areas, was talented in more ways than one.
He was invited by social worker Daulat Rahimtoola to Karachi to teach paper making manually to a group of men, women and children from waste products. In the two days that he was here three years ago he not only trained people to make paper but also trained those willing to teach the craft to other people. He is now back in Japan.
All you need is ash, water, a blender, a clay cooking vessel, a wooden cooking spoon, a large tub, deckles, a flat wooden surface and some clean cotton cloth. And, of course, some waste such as waste paper or onion and garlic skin or corn cobs' covering or bark of trees.
Ms Rahimtoola, who has trained a number of girls with a middle-class background in grooming, hairstyling and beauty treatment - and some of them are now big names in the field - is now obsessed with the idea of popularizing this craft and making people earn a living out of it. She has taught paper making to prisoners in jails, destitute women, students and even socialites.
As if that's not enough she and her colleagues teach people to make stationery items, coasters, table mats, baskets, lamp shades, photo frames and shopping bags from the paper. That makes the product value added.
But the problem is marketing. Only one person who learnt the craft has employed a few people and is marketing his produce. "The sky is the limit," says Mrs Rahimtoola. She got interested in paper making and all other items made from hand-made paper when she saw an exhibition of the products in Mumbai way back in 1982.
At that time, India was producing 800 tonnes of hand-made paper, today the figure has gone up to five million tonnes. She is more impressed with Laos, where in almost every household they make paper from waste products.
If supermarkets and bookstores could be convinced to display and sell all these items, apart from providing moneymaking opportunities to people, it will help to keep our environment clean.
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com