| 23 June 2004 | Wednesday | 04 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Role of religious parties
Munawwar Suhrawardi's murder
Tribal area status
'Enlightened moderation'
'A sincere approach to Kashmir'
Performance of police
Troops for Iraq
'Undeclared war'
Beheading of an American
Tree-felling in Kaghan
Withholding tax abolition
Cut in mobile connection tax
FCR 1872
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This has reference to the letters by Dr Shahid Malik (May 8), Dr Hussain Bux Kolachi (June 8) and Dr Shershah Syed (June 20) concerning medical universities in Pakistan. I have worked at the Dow Medical College, the Liaquat Medical College and the Sindh Medical College, as well as at the Liaquat University of Health Sciences and the Dow University of Health Sciences both before and after their upgradation to university status.
In the last paragraph of his letter, Dr Shershah says that when men and women are dying because of non-availability of primary healthcare, only a highly qualified and foreign-trained teacher can justify the wastage of billions of rupees on launching medical universities.
But by changing the status of a medical college to a university, Sindh will be in a better position to use the funds spent on medical colleges for the welfare of the people of the civil hospital and other institutions under its control. As for inviting foreign-trained faculty members, the HEC and Talent Pool Scheme (ministry of science and technology) provide these facilities.
The claim that there are no medical or health universities in the world and that we have created this phenomenon is not correct. Some medical universities are: Upstate Medical University (US), Shanghai Second Medical University, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Medical University of Silesia (Poland), Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and University of Health Sciences (Antigua).
Advantages of upgrading a medical college such as the LMC, DMC and SMC to a university of health sciences are numerous. To mention a few, the LMC, DMC and SMC were under the administrative control of the Sindh health department.
Funds for these were spent from the Sindh budget which was under several constraints. Moreover, Sindh is responsible for providing health cover to the public and not for academic purposes. Medical colleges have been made universities to rationalize the logistic responsibilities of various organs of the government.
Higher education is the responsibility of the centre and this change has been made when fiscal and logistic lacunae were identified. With the availability of more funds at the federal level, both universities in Sindh are in a better position to improve their academic and tertiary care services.
Moreover, it is easier to prevent pilferage and ensure fiscal transparency at institutional level. The establishment of health sciences universities in the public sector is also very important for the provision of higher education, including various postgraduate courses, to doctors who cannot afford the money required to do such courses.
Doctors with foreign degrees either do not want non-affording doctors to get these degrees or they want our country to remain eternally dependent on foreign degrees. Such professional protectionism is a universal phenomenon and progressive nations cannot afford it.
For example, postgraduate diplomas with foreign labels to establish private practice are available only to the privileged class which can spend millions. When these institutions were under the control of the Sindh health department, research funds were not available, nor was it Sindh's responsibility.
Now when the HEC has been given the task of promoting research and improving higher education, why are some of our intellectuals against it? I have witnessed improvement in the functioning of LUMHS after its upgradation from the LMC. Not only a well-equipped laboratory was established, but a number of new postgraduate courses have already started and several others are in the pipeline.
More and more PhDs and MPhils will also be available to fulfil the shortage of teaching faculty. A number of universities are being contacted to develop collaborative research projects.
DR M. RAFIQ KHANANI
Assistant professor, Pathology department, Sindh Medical College, DUHS, Karachi
Role of religious parties
Religious parties have always played a negative role in the country. They have been a faithful ally of the military. Most people consider the military as the godfather of religious parties. It is because of this alliance that we have draconian laws like the Hudood ordinances.
These parties have ample support amongst the low-income groups in urban areas. This is because of their presence in government-run educational institutions in which a majority of students come from low income groups. These students feel rejected in society.
Religious parties treat them kindly and make them feel special. These students thus fall prey to them. They blindly start following the instructions of the parties and at a single call of their leaders are ready to come out on to the streets and get involved in destructive activities like stone-pelting.
Religious parties are popular in areas where poverty and illiteracy are high. They want the government to keep on spending money on missiles and nuclear bombs. Thus, nothing is left to spend on education and on other development projects. This results in more poverty and illiteracy, making the parties even more popular.
President Musharraf envisages Pakistan as a moderate Islamic country. He started talking about "enlightened moderation" after the September 11 attacks. Prior to that, he supported the Taliban and is reckoned as the planner of the Kargil conflict.
Even now his actions do not support his words. The mullah-military alliance will continue and unfortunately religious parties will remain as strong as ever because of the increase in illiteracy and poverty in our society.
It is time progressive forces in Pakistan made efforts to create awareness among the masses through education and the print and electronic media. They need to help people set their priorities right.
ANIL KHAN LUNI
Karachi
Munawwar Suhrawardi's murder
Just two days after the president's visit to Karachi in which he held a four-hour session at Governor's House with all chiefs of the law-enforcement agencies and advised them to devise a strategy to stop terrorism, another political leader of the Pakistan People's Party, Munawwar Suhrawardi, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the city.
How easy it has become nowadays for terrorists to kill anyone in daylight and run away from the scene. Now what will happen - the police will register an FIR against unknown assailants and will ask the family members of the deceased to nominate somebody in the murder case.
On the other hand the police will pick up many people from different points in the city and will grill them so that someone confesses to the murder, or at least gives the police a clue for further arrests of people, who may not have committed the crime.
Whatever is the result, Munawwar Suhrawardi will not come back in this world. Nobody knows what will happen to his wife and children. Who will now bear the expenses of their daily needs? But terrorists have done their job. They have killed another human being, a citizen of Pakistan who was the sole bread winner of his family.
Political leaders will once again condemn the brutal killing and with the passage of the time, the assassination of Munawwar Suhrawardi, like that of MPA Abdullah Murad Baloch who was killed in March this year, will become a story of the past.
Once again the performance of our law-enforcement agencies will come in the limelight for debate, as police again failed to arrest the culprits red-handed. No one knows when brutal acts of terrorism will come to an end in our country, and when peace will be restored.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
Tribal area status
Pakistan's political history is replete with instances where dissension has been termed an act of high treason. The Wana crisis is another case in point. Some of the causes leading to the present predicament are:
a) The ruling elite has kept itself aloof from matters involving the tribal areas. Most of the time genuine grievances of the people were not redressed, which gradually resulted in alienation from the centre.
b) The tribal areas have a history of their own. The special status accorded to them by the British created a particular frame of mind.
c) The tribal areas have been the worst sufferers of economic crises in Pakistan. They have been relegated to an inferior status. There has been no well-devised strategy for establishing any communication infrastructure or providing other public amenities.
d) Having a tribal social structure, the masses have remained docile, submissive and politically backward. Some tribal chiefs have exploited this to their advantage.
e) Successive governments' unreasonable compromises in the international arena have been greatly detrimental to national integration and cohesion. The government was well aware of the foreigners' arrival and settlement in the border areas and of the facilitation extended to them by the locals. The governments' acceptance of this emboldened them and provided an opportunity to them to claim legitimacy for their stay.
However, now there is no time for blaming one another. The government must take stock of the situation on pragmatic grounds. There is need for dialogue, people-to-people contact and understanding of their genuine concerns.
Let the state discuss everything with the tribal chiefs in a friendly and cordial environment. Let them feel that all Pakistanis are like one big family.
M. JAVAID AZAHR
Malakand
'Enlightened moderation'
It appears that General Musharraf has finally taken a small step in promoting 'enlightened moderation' in Pakistan by appointing moderates to the Council of Islamic Ideology, who hopefully share his worldview. However, only time will tell for certain.
Another real piece of 'enlightened moderation' in view of the severity of the punishments for the Blasphemy law and the Hudood offences would be granting a full presidential pardon to the thousands of women who are rotting in jails charged under the Hudood laws, and to the prisoners kept in solitary confinement in inhuman conditions under the Blasphemy law. I would do it if I were the president of Pakistan.
This generosity of spirit would win the hearts of countless Pakistanis who are now otherwise indifferent or hostile to General Musharraf's rule. The fundamentalists always bluster and get away with intimidating society through violence or the implicit threat of violence. It is time to call their bluff.
OMAR MIRZA
New York, USA
'A sincere approach to Kashmir'
This refers to the article "A sincere approach to Kashmir" (June 11) by Ayaz Amir. He seems to have taken exception to President Musharraf's call for "sincerity" in resolving the Kashmir dispute, and has gone into a little bit of history about the emergence of the dispute and events after it.
It would make for better understanding of the issue if it were known that the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions of August 13, 1948, and more importantly on Pakistan's insistence on clear-cut option for Kashmir to join India or Pakistan after a UN-administered plebiscite, set out in the world body's resolution of January 5, 1949, were both advisory and not mandatory.
The UNSC could not enforce them. India had gone to the UNSC, invoking Chapter Six (Articles 34/35) of UN Charter "Pacific Settlement of Dispute" under which the world body's role was purely advisory. It could not hand over anything to anyone. The sanction behind the resolutions is purely moralistic.
Besides, the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people envisaged in these resolutions was restricted to two options - accession to India or Pakistan. There was no third option of independence.
The non-existing third option seems to have gained much currency, however. And one in sympathy with the Kashmir cause talks about independence as the right enshrined in these UNSC resolutions. This is not the case.
The Kashmiri people deserve the right to independence like any occupied and oppressed people who are victims of grave human rights abuses too, but not as a fall-out from the UNSC's recommendatory resolutions.
So, what Mr Amir has said about the "flexibility" towards the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir shown by the present government in Pakistan does not amount to any big concession. The above-mentioned UNSC resolutions, besides being advisory, could not be enforced by anybody, including the UNSC, and that is a reality.
The UNSC resolutions on Kashmir have not been helpful. Unless implemented particularly by India, which has not happened during over five decades of the dispute, the need for "sincere" efforts to settle the dispute remains paramount.
MOHAMMAD H.RIAZ
London, UK
Performance of police
In Dawn on June 19, I read that the Multan police were pressuring a victim's family to negotiate with criminal elements through a panchayat. The government goes on and on about the evil of these panchayats/jirgas, but the ground realities are that most policemen are corrupt, have a tribal mentality, are lazy and do not want to work. Hence, they encourage people to go to panchayats/jirgas.
The police torture suspects and do not make any attempt to hide it. Isn't police torture illegal in Pakistan? Recently, a private TV channel aired a programme "Police", which showed police personnel slapping and hitting people in custody. I am not defending any criminals or the criminals shown on TV; I am just saying that everybody is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
FAWWAD SHAFI
Karachi
Troops for Iraq
The government's stand that it may consider sending troops to Iraq unduly rewards American aggression. Such collaboration will only encourage the relentless American crusade for the vast energy resources of the Muslim world.
Now is the time to call for an immediate end to the western interference in Iraq, allowing the people of Iraq to choose a leader through consent and choice, rather than have one imposed upon them by America under the pressure of its war machine.
The government must unconditionally revoke any commitment to send troops to support America's occupation of Iraq, whether under the cover of the UN or in response to a request from America's proxy ruling council.
DR ABDUL WAJID
Lahore
'Undeclared war'
Mr Ayaz Amir's column "The undeclared war" (June 18) suggests that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda stand for the eviction of America from the Middle East and for a halt in the oppression of Palestinians by Israel.
I would suggest that this is a nice myth, a sort of recruitment slogan for bleeding hearts and intellectuals. Let's suppose that somehow the Middle East is rid of America and Palestine is free.
Does anyone think that Al Qaeda will then lay down their arms and go back to their day jobs? Make no mistake - their aim is to restore 'purity' to Islam. They will turn their guns upon secular Muslims, intellectuals, liberals, upper middle classes and, of course, the minority groups. One need look no further than what the Taliban did in Afghanistan to see what sort of wasteland that promises.
AZHAR ABIDI
Melbourne, Australia
Beheading of an American
I condemn the murder of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia at the hands of militants. Islam prohibits murder of innocent civilians regardless of their nationality or religion. Muslims have the responsibility to protect the lives of their guests and workers.
I request all Muslims the world over to condemn this heinous crime.
ARIF OBAID
Karachi
Tree-felling in Kaghan
I visited Kaghan about 20 years ago. The area was densely forested and the scent of pine leaves was fresh. But on a recent visit to the area, tall trees were nowhere to be seen; instead I witnessed the sorry sight of stumps left behind by the timber mafia.
The forestry department should not satisfy itself by planting saplings every spring alone. It should deal firmly with chainsaw-wielding individuals and conserve the remaining forests.
RAFI ADAMJEE
Karachi
Withholding tax abolition
A few days ago there was an advertisement in Dawn in which the National Savings Directorate mentioned facilities being offered to pensioners and old citizens. It was also made public that there would be no withholding tax on profit to be earned by pensioners.
When the biggest savings centre in Karachi was contacted, they said they had no knowledge if the facility was for new investors or also for those who had invested in previous years.
The government has now realized that taxing the old and infirm was an error. They should, therefore, not only extend this facility to pensioners who invested in the pensioners benefit account in the previous year, but also refund the withholding tax deducted so far.
ABDUL HANIF
Karachi
Cut in mobile connection tax
The recent announcement of a reduction in the government tax on acquiring a new mobile connection will perhaps not help people to acquire a cheap mobile telecommunication facility.
This, as everyone knows, is a one-time expense. More important are call/airtime charges that must be brought within the reach of the common man. A reduction in call charges will indirectly push upwards the demand for new connections as well as the revenue of the service providers.
The present charges are exorbitant compared to other countries in the region and the time has come for a serious review both by the PTCL as well as by the service providers.
A.H.USMAN
Karachi
FCR 1872
This refers to the correction carried in the issue dated June 19 regarding the Frontier Crimes Regulations. Your editorial was right in mentioning 1872 as the date for the FCR's introduction.
According to the official documents, the FCR was enacted in 1872 by the Punjab government to keep the tribal areas in limbo. This law was reviewed in 1872 and again in 1901.
In 1901, it was extended to the districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Hazara, D.I. Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan. The Frontier Enquiry Commission was set up in 1924 to review the FCR and it opposed its repeal. "To repeal the trans-Frontier sections would be to paralyze our whole system of trans-Frontier control," the commission had contended.
M. SANAULLAH KHAN
(Former chairman, Department of journalism, Peshawar University)
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