Campus politics

It would be too much to expect anyone currently in authority to have a kind word for campus democracy when President Pervez Musharraf's distaste for democracy as generally understood is becoming clearer by the day. The president's remarks in Lahore on Friday against student politics will nevertheless revive the old debate about whether or not students should take part in politics.

Gen Musharraf was speaking at a students' convention organized by the Punjab government, which would thus be seen as a stage-managed affair. He said there should be no politics in universities; political parties should let universities develop academically; and that educational standards were ruined when students indulged in political activities instead of pursuing academic goals.

The last point is easily disposed of. Student politics was banned in the days of Gen Ziaul Haq. Student unions have not, technically, functioned in the last two decades. Even the civilian governments that came to power for short periods in between bouts of military rule paid scant attention to this issue. Have educational standards in our universities improved during this period? There has in fact been a marked deterioration in both education and research at universities and degree colleges.

The government has recently taken steps to improve funding for higher education and to promote greater academic activity. But the results will take time to appear. The present state of our universities, some headed by retired generals, is woeful and there is hardly any intellectual activity on the part of either the teacher or the taught. So no link has been established between student politics and its possible deleterious effect on academic standards.

There is no doubt that in the heyday of student unions, many distortions had occurred. Students groups affiliated to and controlled by political parties had begun to interfere in affairs beyond their domain. They had sought to dictate teachers' appointments and student admissions; some had set themselves up also as guardians of campus morality.

These were not welcome trends because they demeaned student unions and the concept of political activation on campus. However, as with other aspects of a nation's democratic coming of age, such distortions would also have lessened if there were no abrupt bans and interruptions. Regular union elections would in time have permitted students to distinguish between the good and the bad, and political parties with campus branches would have had to yield to student power.

Student politics cannot be judged in isolation from the overall political situation. If the military had not repeatedly intervened, we might have by now achieved a stabler system with proper political institutions, and the effect would have been felt in every area of public life.

Nor can it be said that the prolonged restrictions on student unions have succeeded in altogether controlling campus politics. This has merely taken more invidious forms, and created new unelected pressure groups, often of the more intolerant kind. The repeated outbreaks of violence in universities and colleges and the almost permanent and overbearing presence of the Rangers on campus amply testify to this. In the process, cultural, literary and social life on campus has stultified.

The moral in all this, is that as long as we remain scared of letting political, democratic processes take their normal, confused course and keep on trying to block the growth of representative governance, we will remain trapped in a neither-here-nor-there situation. We will continue to shoot ourselves in the foot and deprive ourselves of the ferment and intellectual stimulus that a political society needs to grow.

Saarc disaster relief fund

The 13th Saarc summit scheduled to be held in Dhaka on January 9-11 has been postponed in the wake of the tsunami disaster in the region. Parts of Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, and to a lesser extent, Bangladesh have borne the brunt of the tsunamis that have caused death and destruction in 12 countries - from East Africa to Indonesia. In South Asia, the death toll in Sri Lanka is the highest, with nearly 40,000 feared dead and over a million made homeless, as stated by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

India has confirmed over 11,000 deaths, and thousands are reported to have fled inland from coastal areas and been rendered homeless. The high number of deaths reported from these two countries, however, tends to overshadow the misery of 300,000 Maldivians - the country's entire population - who have been directly affected by the killer waves. Lying barely three feet above the sea level, the 200-odd islands are still flooded, with communications cut off and food and water supplies fast dwindling. India's Andaman and Nicobar islands have fared even worse, with entire populations on many of the groups of islands believed to have been washed away.

The destruction caused by the tsunami disaster and now the fear of disease spreading in the affected areas call for integrated, longer-term relief and rehabilitation efforts. While India has turned down offers of help by the international community, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have asked for aid. Where the current disaster has established the need for an early warning and emergency relief systems to be put in place in South Asia, the need for establishing a permanent disaster relief fund for the region under the Saarc umbrella is also foremost.

This needs to be taken up at the next Saarc summit. Meanwhile, like people elsewhere in the world, many Pakistanis would also like to make donations to the relief efforts now underway in the neighbouring countries but don't know how to go about it. The government would do well to set up a fund for the purpose immediately.

Unsustainable petrol prices

For the second time in two weeks the oil companies advisory committee has raised petroleum prices. This time round the increase in various petroleum products is in the range of 25-89 paisa with petrol at the high end and diesel at the low. The prices will be up for revision again in another fortnight's time. The government argues that it has incurred a loss of Rs40 billion since May last year on account of keeping petroleum prices stable by offering a subsidy, which it says it cannot sustain any longer.

By the same token, it is hard to see how the common man can bear this kind of increase every few days when he is already being hit by inflation as high as nine per cent this fiscal year. Any increase in petroleum prices has a direct bearing on the prices of everyday commodities, commuter fares and even power generated with furnace oil. No wonder Pakistan Railways was forced to increase its fares after last month's raise in petrol prices. All this adds to the burden of the common citizen in a country where many do not even have access to gainful employment.

Free market and globalization may be this year's buzzwords, thanks to the coming into force of the World Trade Organization's global free trade agreement, but these cannot be given a free reign in a Third World country like Pakistan. The six-plus per cent economic growth seen during this fiscal year has not had a trickle-down effect.

On the contrary, manufacturers and traders who stand to gain in the face of rising inflation have got richer at the expense of the middle class, making them the poorer. This itself is unsustainable because of the longer-term social and political cost. The government would do well to absorb the increase in petroleum prices instead of burdening an already over-burdened people.