Rise of a ‘moderate’ Advani?

EVER since Lal Krishna Advani began attracting flak for his comments in Karachi on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, one aspect of the controversy has been particularly intriguing: namely that the most vituperative attacks on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president have come from organizations that neither preach nor practise secularism.

The charge has been led by the Rashtriya Shyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), with some support from the Shiv Sena as well as elements within the BJP. Their chief concern is that Advani “heaped praise” on Jinnah, which implies that the word “secular” has positive connotations in their lexicon. However, isn’t the Hindutva movement that such groups champion the very antithesis of secularism? Which logically should, in their view, make secularism a detestable attribute. And, in that case, why should they seek to raise a stink if Advani casts Jinnah into the same boat as, say, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru?

One explanation for this seemingly odd behaviour may lie in the fact that the concept of secularism enjoys a certain cachet in India, despite consistent efforts to dilute or damage it, which makes it difficult to shroud in purely negative connotations. After all, to be secular isn’t necessarily to be opposed to religion. In terms of what it might mean for national polity, the admirable idea was neatly summed up in Jinnah’s “you’re free to go to your temples, you’re free to go to your mosques” speech of August 11, 1947, which Advani quoted. “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed,” Jinnah went on to say, “that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

There have been obstacles and deviations aplenty, but India has never completely abandoned the secular path. And although many members of the Sangh parivar would like nothing better than to see it do so, they are constrained by the fact that the fanaticism they espouse isn’t strikingly popular among the majority community.

On this side of the border, it would hardly be an exaggeration to suggest that the dream of a secular state was buried alongside Jinnah, even though the intrusion of religion into affairs of state did not become a serious irritant until the advent of the Zia-ul-Haq regime. To Muslim fundamentalists, the concept is at least as abhorrent as it is to their Hindu counterparts, and they have never felt obliged to pay it any sort of lip-service. More often than not, the secular and liberal aspects of Jinnah’s personality have been brushed out of his projected image, and there have been phases during which he has effectively been subjected to an Islamist makeover — a process that has inevitably facilitated his demonization in India.

Over the past few weeks, one question has regularly reared its head in sections of the Indian media: Is Jinnah’s secular-liberal reputation compatible with the communal role he incontrovertibly played in the run-up to partition? And, in the same vein, was it anything other than hypocritical of him to claim that religion is no business of the state after helping to carve out a state on the basis of religion?

There may be no easy answers to such questions, but they are certainly worth asking, and any debate they inspire is worth having even if it veers off towards unproductive invective on the fundamentalist fringes. Just as most Pakistanis grow up with a one-dimensional image of Nehru and Gandhi as Hindus who single-mindedly sought to prevent the creation of Pakistan, the majority of Indians look upon Jinnah as a fanatic who was bent upon achieving separation at any cost.

The truth is invariably far more nuanced. A united India was indeed their goal, but neither the agnostic Nehru nor the deeply religious Gandhi was anti-Muslim; their finest impulses were profoundly humanitarian. In Jinnah’s case, his devotion to a separate state was negotiable at least until a year or so before partition, and far from envisaging a theocracy, he would have recoiled at the very idea. Most Muslim theologists were opposed to the split, and the more virulent among them tended to describe Jinnah not as Quaid but as Kafir-e-Azam.

That jibe is reminiscent of some of the epithets that have been flung in Advani’s direction this month: he has been described as a “traitor” and “Advani the Pakistani” has been advised to “go back home”; Ashok Singhal has said the VHP cannot allow the BJP to become the “Bharatiya Jinnah Party”.

To his credit, despite calls for “penance” from agitated elements in the Sangh Parivar, the Indian opposition leader has not taken back anything he said in Pakistan, although he tried to put a spin on it last week by claiming that his remarks were intended to underline for Pakistanis how far their nation had drifted from its founding father’s stated aims. That is not an inappropriate point — although, were a visiting Pakistani political leader to remind Indians how the vision of Mahatma Gandhi or Pandit Nehru had been betrayed, one can imagine that it wouldn’t go down too well.

In Advani’s case, most Pakistanis were probably too gobsmacked by his unexpectedly conciliatory stance to even consider taking umbrage. After all, he has hitherto been regarded as the spearhead of Hindu revivalism. And not without cause. It was, after all, the absurd theatricality of his Rath Yatra that proved to be a political masterstroke, and he was simultaneously at the forefront of the Ram Janambhoomi campaign that climaxed with the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The consequence was a wave of communal rioting that may not yet have run its course. And an amazing upsurge in the BJP’s parliamentary representation.

When the party eventually acquired power at the head of a right-wing alliance, Advani — as home minister and deputy prime minister — was commonly perceived as a hardliner compared to the less immoderate Atal Behari Vajpayee, and he was evidently quite happy to be cast in that role. Now Advani says that the day the mosque in Ayodhya was demolished was the saddest in his life. Predictably, this comment too has attracted reproaches — even though it does not necessarily translate into a condemnation of the demolition, let alone an apology for Advani’s own role in the proceedings.

His less equivocal, if not quite categorical, renunciation of the Akhand Bharat idea also succeeded in rattling a few skeletons. Unfortunate though it may have been, it is hard to see how anyone, nearly 60 years on, could seriously consider partition to be reversible. On the other hand, we know from experience that some pretty bizarre notions can be found lurking in the darkest recesses of fundamentalist minds.

The BJP leader may indeed have been trying to come across as a gracious guest because of the surprisingly warm welcome he received in Pakistan, while seeking at the same time to further the process of neighbourly conciliation. But, given that the Sangh parivar’s reaction wasn’t hard to predict, it is all but impossible to believe that Advani made his contentious remarks on the spur of the moment. They were probably planned well in advance, and almost certainly intended primarily for domestic consumption.

Most analysts see this as an attempt by Advani to reposition himself as a moderate — and thereby as a more palatable potential prime minister. This interpretation suggests a willingness on Advani’s part to distance the BJP from its uglier cousins, and adds up to a tacit admission that he does not envisage a long-term political future for religious militancy. If that is indeed the case, it’s a healthy turn of events for India.

It is said Advani may also have been motivated to reopen the partition debate and begin reassessing Jinnah’s role in the events of 1947 as a means of shifting some of the blame for the division of the subcontinent on to Nehru’s shoulders. That sounds like a purely political manoeuvre by the legatees of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jana Sangh, but it could yet have the consequence, intended or otherwise, of prompting the reappraisal of a pivotal phase in the subcontinent’s history.

Such a process ought to be encouraged on both sides of the border. India’s Congress-led government last year launched an effort to reverse the “saffronization” of history that occurred under the auspices of the BJP. Laudable as it may be, such a campaign is unlikely to tackle the biases and prejudices that have developed over the decades.

In Pakistan, the problem is considerably more acute, partly because of our fleeting acquaintance with democracy. In the dissemination of historical knowledge, blank pages and blatant falsification have been the norm rather than the exception. The present is as good a moment as any to begin to redress this debilitating deficiency on both sides of the border — perhaps even jointly, through seminars, conferences and academic exchanges. After all, it is hard for nations to tell where they are going if they have only a hazy notion of where they come from.

Meanwhile, only time will tell whether Advani’s conversion on the road to Karachi was truly an evolutionary step or a political gimmick. He embarks this week on another yatra, stretching from events commemorating the 30th anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency to celebrations of the BJP’s silver jubilee, even as the clamour against him continues, with the VHP threatening to campaign against him in his Gandhinagar constituency in Gujarat. If he wishes to convince sceptics that he has indeed crossed over from the dark side, he could start by categorically condemning the state administration of Narendra Modi for its complicity in the communal bloodbaths of three years ago.

E-mail: mahirali1@gmail.com

Iraq’s continuing travails

SPEAKING in his weekly radio broadcast US President George Bush said on Saturday that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option. He went on to add that, “The terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat. Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people,... We will settle for nothing less than victory”.

The punch-line, however, came in the assertion that “Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world’s terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror”.

This defence of Iraq policy by Bush has been billed as the first of many speeches by the president and his administration officials over the next few days to regenerate public support for the administration’s Iraq policy and for the retention of American forces in Iraq until the Iraqi security apparatus is able to ensure security on its own.

It has been prompted by the precipitous drop in the president’s popularity ratings in the polls — the most recent Gallup poll showed that six of every 10 Americans want the withdrawal of all or part of the American troops from Iraq and virtually the same number disapprove of Bush’s overall performance. The change in the public mood has encouraged Democratic Congressmen with some support from Republicans to propose legislation to force the president to bring back American troops from Iraq immediately and to set a date for a complete withdrawal. Some have opined that it was time for the president to declare victory and “bring the boys home”.

The change in the public mood owes primarily to the situation on the ground in Iraq. A substantial contribution has also been made by the existence of strong feelings, even among the hitherto diehard Bush supporters, that the administration has not been honest about Iraq from the start.

The revelations in the “Downing Street Memo” that war had already been decided upon as early as June 2002 and intelligence was being ‘fixed’ to provide the justification for this decision may have highlighted no more than had been reported in the American media much earlier, but this was a devastatingly authoritative source and left little room for administration defenders to plead for giving the administration the benefit of the doubt.

And what is the situation on the ground? On the security front, the month of May brought a fresh wave of car bombings and other attacks killing 80 US soldiers and more than 700 Iraqis and prompting Iraqi leaders to appeal to the administration for greater help. American correspondents embedded with American units paint a grim picture of town after town in the Sunni triangle being in the hands of insurgents with the Iraqi security forces — theoretically assigned responsibility for security — either melting away or joining the insurgents.

Ramadi, Tal Afar, Mosul and Mahmudiya are all at least partially controlled by insurgents who yield when the Americans attack in force but reappear once security is handed over to the Iraqi forces. American commanders in each of these cities believe that not only should American troops remain but that they should be further reinforced — a difficult task given their limited availability.

There have been successes. Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgency, has apparently been seriously injured and his number two has been captured. Both these successes were attributed to tips from Iraqis outraged by the attacks on innocent Iraqis. Military assaults on towns along the Iraq-Syria border are ongoing and appear to have had some measure of success but the problem again will be that the Americans will not have the manpower to maintain a permanent presence.

In cities like Ramadi it is acknowledged that the insurgents are Iraqi Sunnis and not foreigners. But there are also reports from within Syria, by a Guardian correspondent, on the continued dedication and zeal of Syrian and other Arab fighters waiting to infiltrate Iraq using routes established by local Iraqis and more recently by Zarqawi’s organization.

It makes a depressing reading to learn from one such fighter that: “”They think jihad will stop if they kill hundreds of us in Iraq. They don’t know what they are facing. Every day, more and more young men from around the Muslim world are awaking and coming to the jihad. Now the Americans are facing thousands, but one day soon they will have to face whole nations.”

As if this were not enough, there are now reports that European security agencies believe that there is a new drive in Europe by militant Islamic networks to recruit fighters for Iraq. The report speaks of the sympathy for the conflict spreading to mainstream Islamic communities and of the “Afghanistan effect” with a new generation of young men being inspired to fight the Americans in Iraq just like an earlier generation fought the Americans in Afghanistan.

In Madrid, the police announced last week that they had arrested 11 men on charges of belonging to a terrorist network that sent recruits to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the American forces’ most wanted man in Iraq. The Spanish interior ministry said in a statement that the 11 men were mostly Moroccans and Algerians who took their orders from Syria.

It is ominous — particularly in the context of the relationship of the minority Muslim communities in Europe with the majority Christians — that the typical volunteer is educated and upwardly and in the case of many from Central Europe have had a Christian upbringing. A British analyst has offered the view that there has been a change in the way the wider Islamic audience views the insurgency in Iraq and that there is no longer therefore the will to isolate or undermine what the extremists are doing.

These reports serve to confirm President Bush’s assertion that Iraq was now the central front but they also confirm that it was American action in Iraq that prompted, just as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan did previously the growth of Islamic militant fervour. The only difference is that this time no particular prodding by a superpower was needed to foster the growth. The example of the success against the Soviets in Afghanistan and the outrage against American actions was enough of a catalyst.

It goes without saying that many Muslims around the world have taken note of the fact that the much touted success of homeland security in rounding up terrorists in the United States, has proved to be limited. A detailed investigation by the Washington Post showed that most of those arrested for suspected terrorist links had to be released or were convicted

on minor charges wholly unrelated to terrorism.

It is likely that as long as Iraq continues to be the magnet that it is for extremist forces and as long as the West’s anti-terrorism policies are perceived to be targeting Muslims, the Muslim youth will continue to volunteer for organizations like Zarqawi’s and the governments in the Muslim countries and the Islamic community leaders in the western countries will be reluctant and powerless to stop them.

The training and equipping of Iraqi security forces has not made much headway despite administration claims to the contrary. Senator Biden, the highly respected minority member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said, after a recent visit to Iraq, that American military leaders in Iraq told him the United States is at least two years away from training an Iraqi army that can stand on its own. Some military experts say it will take even longer.

The American embedded correspondents I have referred to earlier came back with some memorable quotes from the officers that they were travelling with. A first lieutenant told the correspondent that he knew the official line about how progress on training was being made but “from the ground, I can say with certainty they won’t be ready before I leave. And I know I’ll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don’t think they’ll be ready then.”

Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Cheney have said 160,000 Iraqi troops are functioning. From military briefings in Iraq it is gathered that 169,000 Iraqis have been trained and equipped for police and military work. How effective this training has been can be gauged from the fact that of the 107 battalions into which the Iraqi forces are organized, American and Iraqi experts have rated only three as capable of operating independently.

These correspondents also spoke of the stark contrast between the equipment provided to the Americans and that provided to the Iraqis who theoretically operated side by side with them, and the equally stark contrast between the living conditions of the two forces. As if these factors were not enough, the correspondents noted that the main complaint of the Iraqis was that they were not respected or trusted, nor were their cultural differences recognized.

Americans going out on patrol travelled in fully covered armoured cars with the latest weaponry while the Iraqis had an open vehicle with flimsily armoured sides and personal weapons that collapsed after firing 10 rounds. The Americans returned from patrol to a relatively luxurious accommodation, while the Iraqis were detained at the base gates for security checks, taking up to an hour or more and then went into tents or sheds with concrete floors, corrugated tin roofs and no walls. There were not only no air conditioners but no electricity. A meagre faucet provided water for drinking and for bathing etc. Under these circumstances it seems that the $300-400 monthly salary is not enough to enthuse the Iraqis or to persuade them to take their training for security duties seriously.

In the meanwhile, the Iraqi militias continue to flourish. The peshmerga of the Kurds as also the Badr brigade, the fighting arm of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) have been almost legitimized by the present government rather than being disbanded as was originally intended. There are also other militias with some coming into existence almost on a weekly basis. They are mostly Shia but there is at least one Sunni militia.

This last called the Special Police Commandos is funded by the government, partly perhaps because they believe it can be more effective against a Sunni insurgency and also because it provides employment to Sunni youth who would otherwise swell the ranks of the insurgents.

What impact the militias are having on the security situation and the evolving political situation in Iraq will be the subject of my next article.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Who’s who?

MARCH 23, Pakistan Day, came three months ago, and August 14, Independence Day, is nearer — two months away. Invariably both the occasions are utilized every year by newspapers to publish a number of photographs showing the Quaid-i-Azam with his colleagues, Muslim League workers and others.

Such pictures are published on the Quaid’s birth and death anniversaries too. In keeping with the practice of those times — they all relate to the pre-1947 period — everybody either standing or sitting on chairs.

It is a pity that every year the number of people in Pakistan who can tell who’s who and recognize the personalities in these photographs is getting less and less. The captions too are getting shorter and shorter. You can’t blame the man in the newspaper responsible for them. He is now like the lakhs of Bangladeshi boys and girls who are not even acquainted with the face of the founding father. Death, the Great Reaper, harvests its crop every year, and one day the people in Pakistan will be able to point out only the Quaid himself.

I kept some of the March 23 supplements for writing this piece. One of the group photographs bore no caption at all, maybe because most of the faces in it are not known now, or maybe because the editor-in-charge thought “What does it matter?” (Yes, it may have come to that.) Twenty-nine persons are clearly visible in it. Apart from well-known members of the Muslim League Working Committee surrounding the Quaid, I was able to identify half a dozen more, including the schoolboy son of Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan standing by his father’s knee.

I was able to do that because I have always had an interest in these matters. But what about the thousands upon thousands who read that newspaper? If that photograph was supposed to mean something then shouldn’t the people in it have been identified?

Another photograph is simply captioned “Quaid with Aligarh Muslim University students in 1941.” Seated on chairs with him are four members of the faculty, among whom I recognized Prof A.B.A. Haleem who later migrated to Karachi. Standing at the back are some 30 students in their black achkan uniform. Aligarh was the power house that fed the Muslim elite of India, its literature, its academic corpus, its administrative services and its Muslim League politics. Many of these students must have later come over to Pakistan (like Prof Haleem) and enriched it with their talent. Didn’t even one of them deserve to be identified?

There is one photograph of an apparently later origin. From the 14 people standing with the Quaid, who is dressed in sherwani and churidar pajama, I was able to place eight. Again the caption simply said “Some stalwarts of the Pakistan Movement with the Quaid.” One of the “stalwarts” is a lady completely covered in a burqa, with only a handbag showing. Surely if some of the men were supposed to be recognized by readers like me the lady at least could have been named, being the odd woman out. Sadly, Begum Shaista Ikramullah, too, has now passed away, otherwise she would have known.

Only one of the photographs subjected to scrutiny by me for this piece was of the post-independence period, but of the 39 females shown sitting on chairs and on the ground with the Quaid, I could identify none. According to the caption, they were “A group of Women National Guards in Karachi in 1948.” One lady in a saree looked familiar but I couldn’t place her definitely. She could be from the Haroon family, for Yusuf Haroon used to be commander of the Muslim League National Guards before and after partition.

I have never lived in Karachi except for about a year after I came over from Junagadh. It should not have been difficult to name many of the women and girls if the trouble had been taken. I can imagine old hands of the Women’s National Guards trying to locate themselves in the photograph and feeling excited about it. I admit it was not a journalistic necessity to identify even one, but it would certainly have meant something to those for whom it must have been the greatest of privileges to be photographed with the founding father.

I was once associated with an activity of this kind when I was in Punjab Information. With great effort and initiative the department had gathered more than 200 pictures of the Pakistan movement and mounted an exhibition that later toured many cities. The collection was vastly praised by the public and the press, and there were always hordes of keen visitors to it, especially groups from schools and colleges.

At that time there were many persons in Lahore who had been either in the movement or were journalists. They were requested to identify as many as they could. Mian Muhammad Shafi, Meem Sheen, had been both, and was a great help, as were some

others.

The exercise was by no means complete, but the captions of the photographs were able to name a very large number of personalities photographed with the Quaid or seen participating in public meetings and processions.

At that time, prompted by the problem we had had to face for the exhibition, I wrote a letter to the editors of all national daily and weekly newspapers in Pakistan. This was in the form of a request beseeching them to do something about the matter before it was too late and nobody could be found to tell us who was who in the photographs that these papers invariably published on national days.

In fact I did this twice in my capacity of information secretary on two occasions (with a gap of five years) but I am sorry to say that there was no response. Some of you will say it’s not too late even now, but isn’t it?

Reviving Circular Railway

THERE are three elements that are essential for any development project to be executed smoothly and with the minimum of public dislocation and discontent. They are planning, transparency in the planning and execution process and public consultation at every stage on issues that have a direct bearing on the lives of the people.

When the government, because it has the power to do so, fails to keep these minimum requirements in view, it can lead to a sense of uncertainty and unrest in the public — and much speculation, especially in the media.

A perfect example of how development projects essential for public welfare may lead to a negative reaction from the people is the plan to revive the circular railway in Karachi.

For decades, Karachiites have suffered because of the absence of an efficient and feasible mass transit system in this megapolis which has expanded horizontally over the years.

People have to commute miles and miles from their homes to their place of work and study every day. With an inefficient bus service to carry the human mass from one point to another, transport has become a living nightmare for the average citizen of the city.

Mercifully, the government has once again decided to revive the defunct Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) which had initially been launched in the sixties only to be wound up a few decades later in 1999 because it failed to meet the needs of the people and was as such under-utilized and running at a loss. This time one can only hope that the authorities will plan the project better so that it does not run into a dead end once again leaving the Karachiites in despair.

But there are few positive signs at the moment. After many hiccups, the first phase of the KCR was launched earlier this year with trains running between Landhi and Wazir Mansion. This was done after a lot of publicity had been given to the project. The prime minister himself came to inaugurate the service. Now that the train has been running for several months, it is time for the railway authorities to assess the results and evaluate the feasibility of the project.

The divisional superintendent of Pakistan Railways in Karachi told me that these trains are designed to transport 10,000 people every day but they are grossly under-utilized and only 2,000 people actually travel by them. But Mr Junaid Qureshi, the DS, could not explain the reason behind this under-utilization. He said the railways had started the service, given it publicity, and had staggered the timings of the trains in such a way that they should serve the needs of the office goers, the traders and other casual travellers.

“The people are still not using it fully,” he said. But he could not explain why the railways have not carried out any survey to try and analyse the factors which have kept people away from the Landhi-Wazir Mansion service. This is a glaring example of the failure of the authorities to introduce a process of consultation with the people for whose benefit the project is meant.

There are similar lapses in other matters too. For instance, it has been announced that an Urban Transport Authority will be set up to operate the circular railway. It is to have representation from the railways, the city government and the provincial government, the three agencies to be involved in this project. The notification is still lying with the Sindh government and has not yet been released. Critics are saying that this body may not be powerful and independent enough to enforce its decision. Moreover, the UTA should include independent professionals in order to restore the public’s confidence which has been badly shaken.

The railways, which will make the KCR functional and then hand it to the UTA, prefers to hold its cards close to the chest. The KCR had been running for 35 years before it was shut down. Has a scientific study been undertaken to study the cause of its failure and rectify its weaknesses?

With 14 stations and 29 level crossings (23 still without an overhead bridge or underpass) the KCR was said to be slow, with infrequent services and poor bus links to residential societies or to industrial/commercial centres. Has something been done to look into these problems?

Mr Junaid Qureshi said that plans have been drawn up to take care of all these problems and to float bonds to raise the Rs 3.5 billion needed to launch the KCR. In the first phase, the tracks will be renovated and integrated with a mass transit corridor.

The second phase envisages the dualization of the tracks, extension and electrification of the railways. The DS claims that the plans have all been drawn up but at the moment are not available for public scrutiny.

This lack of transparency has caused serious concern and anxiety in the dwellers of the city’s slums located on the railways land along the tracks. According to them — they have organized themselves into an Alliance for Katchi Abadis — the railway officials say that they plan to clear the encroachments on 100 feet on either side of the main line and 50 feet of the KCR track to make the circular railway operational. But such a large area is not being cleared in the locality where industries, shopping plazas and other concrete structures have been erected.

This has given rise to the fear among the slum dwellers that since they are vulnerable they have been made the target of this policy. They also believe that this land is being vacated to commercialize it. Besides many of these abadis were regularized by the Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority when Tasneem Siddiqi headed it and had obtained an NOC from the Railways.

One can understand the anxiety of the people who are to be evicted — 20,000 houses accommodating 140,000 people could be affected. The Railways has begun conducting a joint survey, which is 80 per cent complete, according to the DS. In the absence of transparency many questions remain unanswered.

For instance, it is not known exactly how much land the Railways wishes to clear. For its right of way and different figures have been bandied about. The DS blames the media for inaccurate reporting. He himself said they need 30 feet on either side of the track — the distance internationally recognized as the right of way — which would be 10 or so feet more on the side where the second track has to be laid.

Mr Qureshi also admitted that the Railways would want to commercialize some of its land, especially near the stations to generate resources to run the KCR.

The Urban Resource Centre, which carried out its own survey in April 2005, says that the katchi abadis constitute only 28 per cent of the encroachments, the rest being “rich settlements” (apartments, plazas, shopping centres, godowns and multinational factories).

As for right of way, the URC survey shows that some permanent structures are just a few feet away from the tracks, for instance, Toyota Indus Motor (five feet), Honda Motors (five feet), godown (20 feet) and Coca Cola factory (20 feet). They are not being touched and the DS says they have not encroached on railways land and the right of way problem would be managed.

Before taking any move to evict people, the railways would do well to make their plans public. It is essential that the people be assured that a minimum of dislocation will take place and only after plans have been announced for the evictees’ resettlement and compensation. The Railways say this is the city government’s responsibility. The DS also assures — verbally only — that the clearing of encroachment is to be carried out uniformly in the rich and the poor areas.

There are some basic factors which must be understood about encroachments and evictions, which the DS did not dispute. First, encroachments take place with the connivance of the police, the agency owning the land and the landgrabbers. The people who live there pay a heavy price to the landgrabber to obtain a little plot which is otherwise not available to them. And of course, shelter is a fundamental right of man.

Secondly, when the people living in these settlements are evicted it is not simply a case of their being shifted to another locality to have a roof over their heads. They are socially and economically dislocated too. Many lose their jobs because they are moved to an area at quite a distance from their place of work. Children are uprooted from their schools.

Women find themselves deprived of the neighbourhood support system they create round themselves when they have lived in a locality long enough. It is psychologically devastating for them for it takes a generation to build the support network.

Hence the Railways, the city government and the Sindh government would do well to make public the details of their plans — the exact scheme of operating the KCR as a feasible project — the removal of encroachments and resettlement of the evictees. Thus they can ensure that no injustice is done. They will also be able to win the cooperation of the public.