| 19 April 2004 | Monday | 28 Safar 1425 |
Debate about army chief's uniform
The revival of public service
Pointed guns
The pictures you see above were published in the Punjab edition of this newspaper on April 15. The caption reads: "Trees cut in front of the Lahore Zoo to make way for entry to the chief minister's office at 90-Shahrah-i-Quaid-i-Azam". The Mall, as you know, was named after the Quaid long years ago.
The Lahoris are not ungrateful. But they still call, The Mall by its old, British name. The unofficial, desi name for the road was Thandi Sarak which the natives had given it because of the tall and graceful trees which used to provide welcome shade to the people during the long and hot summers every year.
The city is becoming warmer by the day and, according to friend Shoaib Hashmi, we may have airconditioners in the middle of December and right through January and February. I think Shoaib is right and we may have year-long summers sooner than later.
I do not know how many trees have been cut down, or murdered if you like, since the present chief minister took over. But I assure you that Lahore has fewer trees than, say, ten years ago.
I demand an annual census of the city trees and I demand also that the citizens of this luckless place be told why was it necessary to kill a tree. How long does it take for a tree to grow into full adulthood? Trees are our lungs. Does the chief minister want us to go lungless in Lahore?
I have also heard that ten kanals of the Bagh-i-Jinnah will be given to the zoo to compensate it for the land it will have lost up front to make way for the entrance to the chief minister's office.
I have a brilliant proposal to make here. Let us put all of the Bagh-i-Jinnah up for sale to enable enterprising Lahoris to build commercial plazas and a food street in its place. Let us have Lahore as bald and barren and as graceless as we can make it.
* * * * * *
The following letter was written by a son to his father. I have the latter's permission to use it here. It begins:
A few clicks of the mouse on "Cricinfo's" website followed by an e-mail from the PCB and I had managed to reserve tickets for two games for the recent ODI series in Pakistan. What a wonderful organisation, I mused! However, what transpired upon my arrival at the Rawalpindi stadium at 9am on the day of the match was beyond comprehension.
To kick off, all the so called officials milling around the ground had no idea where the ticket collection point was located, and after being shunted around from pillar to post for the best part of an hour, I managed to accost the official in charge.
After examining all my ticket confirmation documents he stated that the two enclosures bordering the pavilion (which included my tickets) had to be cleared for "... security reasons..." and I would therefore, have to accept seats on the far side of the ground! No apologies were offered.
I took a deep breath and then unleashed a tirade, with threats of shaming all concerned, suing for damages, demanding an immediate refund in sterling, etc.
After attempting a few feeble explanations and a flurry of phone-calls to some "higher authorities" the penny dropped for the PCB officials and they did a complete U turn and issued me with the required five tickets (which were not in sequence). I could go on and on about other diabolical administrative blunders i.e.
a) Making the spectators walk over a mile in the wrong direction to enter the ground.
b) Frequent security checkpoints on the way where the spectators were stripped of personal items like water, cigarettes, even sunglasses!
c) Once inside the stadium complex despite the enormous numbers of uniformed and non uniformed officials, no one had a clue how to organize the spectators in a queue; they were paranoid about further body searches and dispossessing people of harmless items of personal nature, which were just thrown on the ground!
The "journey" from the main gate to the stand took almost three hours in temperature of well over 30 C - in any other part of the world the whole process would have taken no more than 15 minutes.
Once inside the "elusive" enclosure it soon transpired that many of the "inhabitants" were non-ticket holders and were somehow connected to some "big wig" or the other, seat numbers were completely disregarded, "fresh faces" continued to be ushered to seats by the police and other officials, some seats changed occupancy many times during the course of the day, people even delayed their "calls of nature" as there was a real threat that the "officials" would implant one of "theirs" on someone's seat.
Despite dispossessing spectators of "dangerous" articles like water and other foodstuffs no provisions were made for the same inside the ground (unless of course you happened to be well connected).
It was well into the afternoon and after a lot of protests from people that the authorities realized their folly and organized bottles of water -- it was too late for some who had already wilted in temperatures in mid 30 C and decided to go home.
The arrangements for the fourth ODI at Lahore were an improvement over Rawalpindi.However, the overzealous security precautions were a mockery. 1) Mobile phones, which were disallowed in Rawalpindi, were permitted in Lahore
2) Police officials who dispossessed spectators of their cigarettes and matches on grounds of "security and a no smoking" police did nothing to stop vendors in the stands from selling cigarettes at inflated prices and from other policeman openly flaunting the "no smoking" rule!
3) As in Rawalpindi seat numbers were disregarded by the public, which resulted in more than one brawl amongst the spectators.
A few stewards instead of the overbearing, badly trained police officials could have easily resolved this issue. PCB will be well advised to consult the South African Cricket Board who managed the 2003 world cup so smoothly.
My trip to Pakistan, which had been envisaged as historic and exciting, turned out to be extremely trying and far from enjoyable. In future I will have to be more careful how I spend my valuable time and hard earned cash.
Debate about army chief's uniform
Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad's statement 'on behalf of the president' concerning his army chief's uniform made a somewhat strange if not quite unconvincing reading. Why should the president leave it to one of his civilian spokesmen to speak on a matter as sensitive as his military uniform? Even if polemical, the question would appear to be valid in view of the ambiguity arising from the president's BBC interview about his tenure as army chief after December 31, 2004.
Might it not have been better for him to clarify the issue in yet another TV interview?
Never before has the Pakistan Army uniform been the subject of such confounding debate as now following a coterie of parliamentarians and federal ministers 'requesting' the president not to take off his army chief's uniform - strange and bizarre coming as it did from the 'elected' representatives of the people.
All military rulers before Gen Pervez Musharraf - Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, Generals A.M. Yahya Khan and Mohammad Ziaul Haque - abdicated with their "boots on". Gen. Zia died literally with his boots on in the mystifying air crash at Bahawalpur on Aug 17, 1988.
FM Ayub technically handed over the army command to Gen. Mohammad Musa within just a couple of months of assuming the presidency under martial law. However, he would don the uniform of a non-retiring field marshal to keep his grip on the armed forces as the supreme commander.
Only Gen. Yahya was removed from his exalted office in disgrace and later died at his brother's home in Lahore. Gen. Zia clung tenaciously to his army uniform and military command.
Gen. Musharraf, unlike his predecessors, placed the country under military rule without proclaiming martial law. His military rule has been different from previous ones in so far as freedom of debate, absence of pre-censorship of the press, restoration of democratic institutions and vibrant political activity are concerned.
The big question now pertains to his legitimacy even as an elected president under the Constitution. While the legitimacy of his presidency remains beyond question, the real issue pertains to his source of power and authority drawn overwhelmingly from his status as a serving army chief.
Once he sheds his general's uniform, he stands retired and out of the main body. He can only look up to the next man for moral support without demanding it, least if all, attempting to interfere, in any way, with the latter's official functions, duties and obligations.
Even as a field marshal 'on the effective list of the Pakistan Army' like Ayub, Gen Musharraf cannot hope to exercise half the degree of command and control over the rank and file that an incumbent chief alone can.
Incumbency holds the key to effective exercise of command. Once he is out of his general's uniform he would be a civilian head of the state even if he carries a field-marshal's baton in his hand.
The debate has almost acquired the dramatic tone of 'To be or not to be - that's the question..." reduced to a comic opera. An 18-member delegation of the Pakistan People's Party Patriots called on the president to request him to continue in his dual capacity as president and army chief.
They argued that if the president 'ceases to be in uniform, he may not be in a position to handle the situation in an effective manner. The country which has just come out of 'international isolation' might revert to square one.
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali looks at the uniform question as a non-issue. It's over eight months to go yet for the 17th constitutional amendment to come into effect.
So why make such a song and dance about it so much in advance? Besides, Mr Jamali would rather leave it 'totally' to the president to decide 'whether or not to relinquish' one of the positions. This is a strangely casual position for a prime minister to take on an issue of such vital importance.
Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat - the gentleman at the head of the debate - says that Gen Musharraf's 'shedding his uniform' might 'jeopardize' national stability - rather, lead towards 'instability' in Pakistan.
Should that be so, what good is all the existing democratic paraphernalia for? What good is the constitution itself? What's all this hullabaloo about? Why provoke such a futile and potentially harmful debate about something already settled under the Constitution?
President Musharraf, recognized for his clear-cut and decisive stand on issues of national importance, himself remains evasive about his future course. He told the BBC interviewer that he had yet to decide finally whether or not to take off his uniform.
The supreme question for him, his corps commanders and principal staff officers to decide is whether an institution as professional and integrated as the army must depend on individuals for its good health or go ahead under its own steam.
What happens between now and the end of the year when Gen. Musharraf quits as army chief or stops being a civilian president should be best left to the stars to foretell. The extreme volatility of the regional and global geo-politics would hardly permit a safe guess about what might happen tomorrow.
What needs to be taken note of now is the damage the raging debate about the uniform could (and would) do to the institutional soundness of the army and the morale of the rank and file.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
The revival of public service
Both India and Pakistan inherited their civil and military structures from the British. Probably not much has changed during the last 56 years in the military. However, on the civil side while India has retained the British system more or less intact, Pakistan has constantly been fiddling about with the system, at least for the last 47 years, in the name of reform.
The first blow to the system was Ayub Khan's "screening" - removal of officers suspected of inefficiency and corruption without the benefit of due process of law. This shook the foundations of the higher civil service and badly affected its ability to advise without fear or favour.
The second element of conflict within the system was the simmering rivalry particularly between the ICS and the Accounts Service. Under the British pecking order, the ICS was numero uno followed by "Accounts".
The third, which was more of a time bomb than an immediate cause, was the naming of the successor service. Originally it was called the Pakistan Administrative Service, which defined the nature of the job. As this meant following the Indian nomenclature, it was changed to Civil Service of Pakistan.
The fourth and possibly the most important one was the immaturity of our politicians. They were motivated almost wholly by a drive for executive authority. There was not much devotion to policy; it was all about patronage, nepotism and doing favours for their supporters.
In addition, politics was about gathering enough funds to make up the expenses of the last election, and to meet expenses for the next and if possible have something left over.
All societies have to decide about the people they want to run the machinery of the government (pejoratively) called the bureaucracy. After 1858 the British, for instance, wanted a number of their "best" people to rule India and they tried to attract them.
They probably still do for their home civil service as do the French and the Japanese and possibly other developed countries. Their methods of recruitment differ but the objective is to attract some of their best people into the "higher civil service".
The US, however, does not have a higher civil service. The three tiers below the secretary, the equivalent of a cabinet minister, are not occupied by permanent civil servants but by political appointees which change with every government or whenever the president feels like it. The permanent civil servant only rises to the level of what would be the equivalent of a deputy secretary in India and Pakistan.
What seems to be happening now is that instead of a "merit system", we are inadvertently drifting towards a "spoils" system like the US. The development of a nascent "spoils" system started under Z.A. Bhutto when he changed the legal framework governing civil functionaries and the jurisdiction of the courts was ousted.
As a sop to egalitarianism all entrants to the superior services were declared equal. The two top most tiers (now known as grades 21 and 22) could be retired without assigning any reason.
This was supplemented by a lateral entry examination conducted by the establishment division for appointments to the superior services. Those pre-selected for political reasons were declared successful.
This was a fig leaf of sorts: everything was supposed to be done on merit - whatever that meant. Matters became progressively worse as politicians were inducted into the selection system, which had otherwise been outside their purview.
Finally it got to the point where young entrants into the DMG (district management group) had to find a patron in the ruling political party before they could be given a job. Probably the same happened in other branches of government also.
For all practical purposes, Pakistan has a two party system, the "Military Party" and a somewhat subordinate "Civilian Party". The "Civilian Party" for some time past appears to have been rotated by the proverbial "agencies" between some sort of Muslim League and the People's Party.
Military incursion into civilian jobs is not very successful because of their different requirements at the time of recruitment and training. The work environment is also different. Physical fitness takes precedence over sharpness of mind. The working environment is largely closed from outside interference. They are rarely called upon to deal with problems of the world external to their routine.
They prepare themselves intensively for an eventuality called war, which they may or may not experience throughout their careers, e.g., the British army after World War II, except for the Falklands interruption. The Pakistan army has fought no serious war after 1965.
The so-called 1971 war was a self-invited, predictable disaster and there was little serious fighting. It does not mean that the military is irrelevant as long as we have a big potentially hostile neighbour to the east. How does one deal with a large professional peacetime army?
All political activity ceased with the events of October 1999 and the Musharraf take over. The military party was now in power and the "spoils" system also took over with a vengeance. A general here and a general there and a brigadier everywhere. Because of its purpose the military has to rely on a command-and-obey structure.
This is further compounded by the fact that all autocratic patriarchal societies develop the infirmity of sycophancy. By the time anyone gets to be lieutenant general, he has been "yes-sirred" to so much that he becomes a firm believer in his infallibility.
Generals, after all, are also human. As a result they have not been very successful. The NRB general was well meaning. His great idea of devolution was not all that original. It was simply the next stage in the evolution of the "district board."
I have never quite understood why my CSP colleagues are up in arms about this change and are proclaiming that apocalypse is imminent. I have been viewed askance by my former colleagues since I wrote a somewhat tongue in cheek article entitled "The Demise of the Deputy Commissioner" published in this newspaper in May 2001.
When we were young some of us were sent off on a USAID-sponsored programme for "executive development" at the University of Southern California. Although the designers of the course visited Pakistan, they did not seem to have understood much.
As a result, the academic part of the programme was a disaster. It was low-level stuff designed for clerks. Fortunately, the visiting team from the university had gone back with the idea that we had something to do with district administration, so they had arranged for a two-month attachment to city or county government.
The city manager looked after all the services provided by the city: sanitation, road maintenance, the police, the fire brigade, social support services, etc. He reported to the mayor and the council. Why did General Tanvir tie himself into knots about the police? It was clear that in our social climate it could not be handed over to the nazim.
However, even if magisterial powers were taken away from the DCO or whatever he is now called, the most sensible was for the police to report to him. Since police brutality is also one of our social problems, this would have served as an immediate check on police excesses.
The present rather cumbersome arrangement of layer upon layer of safety commissions are largely a waste of time, though some sort of commission could become an appellate forum.
When you introduce a new locus of political influence and authority it will affect existing relationships. The MPA was bound to be devalued. The MNA could also feel the pinch. But how is that bad for the country? All that it means is that ambitious politicians would like to be nazims rather than MPAs. It will certainly make them much more accountable to the local population.
American concepts of public administration are derived from political science and business administration with a bit of social psychology thrown in to enhance the flavour. There is no place for a higher civil service in their system of political appointees.
There is no understanding of the qualities needed in the higher civil servants or the problems faced by them. Loyalty takes precedence over objective analysis. It is therefore futile to hand over the restructuring or whatever of the higher civil service to an American educated person no matter how bright or well intentioned. It is not likely to work.
Pointed guns
Rangers and policemen holding their rifles and sub-machine guns in a way that looks menacing have become a feature of life in Karachi. They seem to be aiming at you although old soldiers say recruits are told from the very beginning of their training that rifles should never be carried in a way that the barrel points sideways. Even if the gun is empty, and the soldier is in a standing or sitting position, the gun should point upward or downward. The idea, of course, is to avoid hitting anyone in case the gun goes off accidentally.
What we see these days is quite the contrary - security personnel sitting in vehicles or standing along roads holding their guns not upward or downward but horizontally.
This is especially scary with personnel sitting in vehicles. Often, their guns rest on their laps, and the barrels point toward cars following their vehicles. What if there is a big jolt or the soldier loses his balance if the vehicle swerves or is in collision with another vehicle? If the gun is kept cocked, then the risk of an accident is ever present.
Early summer
It's that time of year again when summer suddenly seems here, without pausing for spring. It's just a little more than a month ago when everyone you met in the evening said what lovely weather.
It really was. Karachi had a proper winter after long years, without the harshness that characterizes the cold season in the Punjab plains. It was nice to be in the open, with the scent from a 'raat ki rani' shrub tucked away somewhere catching you with its breathtaking sweetness.
But for some days in April, the temperature was hovering way past 35 °C and in Hyderabad it crossed 40. More than the weather report, it's the sense of desolation that sweeps over city streets in the afternoon that is the depressing part of summers. The sun's glare is strong, and it brings out all the city's warts in all their ugliness.
Plastic bags and wrappers fly across roads the year round, but somehow they look even dirtier in summer. Perhaps it's all in the imagination, and it's as hot as you think it is. In any case, Karachi should be able to get into its moist mode in another fortnight, when the temperature comes down somewhat and the humidity increases, a combination that for some reason most Karachians prefer to the dry heat of April. Perhaps it's the sea breeze that makes the difference in June, July and August.
Cairo or Karachi?
"A motorcyclist, carrying his child in the front and wife sitting sideways behind, whizzes past along a busy one-way street in Cairo, chatting on his mobile. None is wearing helmets. Meanwhile, an ancient car speeds past in the wrong direction. Behind it, a donkey pulls a cart full of garbage."
This is a report in Dawn of April 4 by the German news agency. You only have to change "Cairo" to "Karachi" and the entire report holds true of Pakistan's biggest city.
It adds: "One rule to member (for foreigners) when driving in Cairo: don't follow rules. A typical three-lane street has five rows of cars." Violations of traffic rules in Karachi have reached horrendous proportions. Breaking red lights, criss-crossing lanes, and speeding and overtaking from the wrong side even on bridges and flyovers are a normal phenomenon.
While giving Karachiites an entirely new driving culture is a tall order, the city government can at least begin by banning the use of cell phones and ensuring that the order on wearing helmets by motorcyclists is implemented.
It is dangerous even for a car driver to talk on the cell phone while driving, but it is almost suicidal to balance a motorcycle with one hand while an entire family is riding on it. Karachiites and Cairenese are not only brothers in faith; but are also brothers in faithlessness to traffic rules.
Bus messages
Road trips have just been infused with a touch of colour in Karachi. Buses wear a new look and that too for a purpose. They are being used to market products from air conditioners to popular brands of soft drinks.
A colleague's car was stuck at a traffic signal the other day for much longer than it takes for the light to turn green. But instead of getting irritated and wearing that subconscious frown that most drivers in such a situation have, all he had to do was look to his left.
There was Shahid Afridi staring at him, smiling his shiny happy smile, holding a cola bottle and instantly the colleague's building irritation dissipated. He looked around and another driver from one of the two cars to his right was also checking out the ad.
The colleague says he was reminded of other cities of the world, London for example, where the tedium of waiting at bus stops or at underground stations is mitigated by some of creative and funny advertisements on buses, trains and tube stations walls.
More than anything though this change also challenges the monotony of having all public transport vehicles look the same with little or no creative use of the space available. And from the marketing point of view these bus hoardings are perhaps on a par with television advertisements.
Therefore, it would undoubtedly be a good move to utilize them not just for commercial purposes but for public service messages too, especially regarding road safety, public health and even urging people to stop littering the streets of Karachi. Welfare agencies and public bodies seem to have caught on to the potential. A population welfare message was seen recently on a bus. Hopefully this is just a start.
Film festival
In the past few years, film festivals have started catching on in Pakistan. With the KaraFilm festival entering its fourth year and the Mateela festival recently taking place in Lahore, along with other mini-festivals hosted by foreign missions and their cultural wings, Pakistanis now have a decent alternative to the vile offerings doled out by our mainstream cinema.
Film clubs that host regular screenings of foreign 'art' films, usually non-Hollywood fare, are also gaining ground in the city. The most recent film feast was hosted by the Alliance Francaise, titled Cycle du Film Francophone.
Not really a fully-fledged festival, as it only consisted of five films, the programme wound up last week with movies from a cross-section of the French-speaking world. The films screened were: Le Gout des Autres (France); Les Petites Couleurs (Switzerland); Le Maitre de Musique (Belgium); La Turbulence des Fluides (Canada) and Taxi, also from France.
Interesting to note that apart from France, all the rest of these countries have multi-lingual populations (the German and Italian speakers in Switzerland, Flemish speakers in Belgium and the majority of Canadians speak English).
It would have been a good idea if the hosts had included films from the internationally acclaimed African Francophone scene. Directors from Mali, for instance, are among those who have won laurels for their otherwise impoverished country and continent world wide. One also felt that one or two French cinematic classics, or films featuring legendary French actors such as Gerard Depardieu or Catherine Deneuve could also have been screened.
This is not the first time the Alliance Francaise has hosted a film festival. As it is, the first KaraFilm festival was held at the Alliance's office in 2001 before its organizers found a (semi-)permanent home in the PIIA auditorium.
It would also not be wrong to say that these foreign missions are doing a sterling service in adding to the city's cultural vivacity, and they are achieving a twofold purpose: they are creating goodwill for their nations and adding to Karachi's cultural activities.
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com.