| April 24, 2006 | Monday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1427 |
A few highly avoidable clerical errors
Updating Marxism
AARI’s 100 years of contributions
THE Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) remains the premier and prestigious seat in the country with its mandate to develop technology for food security, generation of exportable surplus, value addition and conservation of natural resources.
Established in 1906, the AARI, after its bifurcation of the research and education in 1962, kept pace to meet food, feed, fibre and fuel needs of the burgeoning human population which is piling pressure on country’s natural resource base which is not only shrinking but also degrading due to the poor planning and bad management. There is no denying the fact that University of Agriculture graduates have contributed significantly to the success of the AARI.
The Punjab Agricultural College and Research Institute, Lyallpur, owes a debt of gratitude to its founders, who are a few in number, including J.H. Barnes, Sir William Roberts, Mr D. Milline, Ram Dhan Singh, Sardar Labh Singh, P.E. Lander, Khan A. Rahman and Mian Afzal Hussain. Similarly, contributions and services rendered by S.A Qureshi, M.A Bajwa, A. Majeed, Altaf Hussain, M.H Bhatti and several others cannot be forgotten as well.
Since its establishment, the AARI has always strived to bring new ideas and laurels in the field of agriculture and is recognised as the prominent institution in agriculture sciences, where basic and economic problems relating to various aspects of agricultural research are being investigated.
Although major research personnel and facilities are located at AARI, it has research stations, sub-stations, testing centres, service laboratories and research-cum-demonstration farms in almost all parts of the Punjab. The AARI has a unique distinction of releasing over 300 crop varieties and their production technology resulting in manifold increase in the yield of wheat, rice, cotton, sugar cane and potato.
Moreover, it has kept its momentum with the release of C-591, C-518, C-273, C-271, Mexipak, Inqilab 91 and several other wheat varieties. Besides enhancing the per acre yield of wheat varieties, an attempt has been made to incorporate resistance to important diseases and to improve substantially the quality of the bread made from wheat flour. After 1977-78, rusts have been effectively checked and no epidemic has been encountered, saving billions of rupees every year as a result.
The advancement in cotton varieties is also a very important chapter in institute’s achievements. Indigenous cotton varieties had been replaced by the Punjab American cotton in the very early history of the institute. Punjab American cotton 4F was the first improved cotton variety released by the institute for general cultivation in 1914. Other important varieties released for the same purpose include 289F, LSS, K.25, 289F/43F, 124F, 199F, 216F, 238F, 320F, 268F, 362F, AC-I34, Lasani-11, 387F, AC-158, AC-184, AC-273, AC-307, AC-319, AC-321, AC-134, B-557, S-12, MNH-93 and Pak-51.
The enhancement in sugar cane varieties is another achievement to its credit. In the beginning, improved thick Coimbatore varieties were replaced with the indigenous thin cane varieties. The first improved cane variety, Co-205 released in 1922 was followed by Co-213 and Co-223. However, the most important variety, which became popular over large areas, was Co-285. Until recently, Co-312 and Co-421 occupied large areas. New varieties, Co-L-44, Co-L-29, Co-L-38 and Co-L-54, followed by several others have been introduced with high sugar yield. Similarly, landmark varieties were also released in other crops.
Despite the availability of research information, the problem of low productivity, resource degradation and non-sustainability in agriculture system remains a serious threat to human survival. Potential of the agriculture sector to eliminate these perils of poverty and strengthening of country’s economy has not been fully realised.
Only 50 per cent of the miracle AARI varieties yield potential has been recovered due to a number of factors, including inconsistency in weather, improper marketing, poor infrastructure, untimely supplies of inputs, absence of insurance cover to crops, poor control on quality of inputs, mismanagement of irrigation, post-harvest losses, high input cost, knowledge gap and inadequate financial resources. The AARI is a source of green revolution which has also spread to neighbouring countries. The silver fibre has proven its worth worldwide.
The AARI’s service structure, operational capacity of team leaders and scientists’ skill enhancement programme have adversely affected over the period of time. Today, the AARI is facing severe brain drain, which, if allowed to continue, will further aggravate the situation. It has the capacity to meet the challenges of the 21st century provided it receives the same level play field as UA, Faisalabad; NIAB, NIBGE and other R&D organisations of the country.
New crop varieties and their production technology alone will not lead to revolution in the agricultural growth. The maximum beneficial effects in agricultural research and technological advancement will materialise only if government policies are appropriate and scientists are given the package and status they deserve.
After completing 100 years, the AARI is confronted with serious challenges of sustainability in the wake of extraordinary menace of pollution roaming around its research fields, squeezing of farmlands owing to construction of scores of buildings and expansion in the old building. In this backdrop, planners should ponder over and ensure allocation of adequate land for the required research purpose.
A few highly avoidable clerical errors
ALLAMA IQBAL poked fun at the maulvi, so did Ghalib. There’s hardly any Urdu or Persian poet of repute who did not mock the edicts of the mullah. The government of India has neither the humour nor the political integrity to keep the maulvi at a safe distance from affairs of the state.
Every Indian prime minister barring perhaps Jawaharlal Nehru, and to some extent his daughter Indira Gandhi, has courted the maulvi. Rajiv Gandhi was so entranced by them that he overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling and got the parliament to empower Muslim husbands to divorce their wives at will and to virtually throw them out on the streets in keeping with some vague notions of propriety, which they continue to brandish as core faith till today.
Since the Hindu equivalent of maulvis is still being licked into shape by the RSS, the subversion of the Shahbano verdict gave a handle to all manner of Hindu zealots under the canopy of the RSS to demand their own pound of flesh from the government of the day. From about that time maulvis of the Hindu and Muslim variety have been thronging the prime minister’s house for goodness knows what confabulations. The current prime minister has added a fair mix of Sikh maulvis to his guest list.
Thus the Indian state, which was built on liberal ideals, actually thrives on obscurantism. It was of a piece with this world view that some maulvis led by the so-called Naib Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari was invited to the hallowed precincts of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s house last week. What happened inside the meeting room is of little consequence to anyone. But what took place outside the prime minister’s house was a sight to watch.
“You son of a pig,” snarled the Naib Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in chaste cultivated Urdu at a TV journalist in the full glare of cameras. A scuffle ensued in which one or two reporters were beaten up by his aides from Jama Masjid. Apparently they were still being protected by the prime minister’s security, so the journalists were severely disadvantaged in their retaliation.
It was a strange encounter though. When a group of prominent Muslims, including theatre doyen Habib Tanvir and film-maker Saeed Mirza, met Rajiv Gandhi to plead against Muslim men being given potentially reckless veto powers over their wives, he accepted their argument with grace, but with his characteristic gentle smile ushered them in the direction of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
“It is the Muslim scholars that you need to persuade, I am ready to accept your proposal,” he had said. The next day, as though on cue from the Indian state, rightwing Muslim groups published screaming headlines in their journals describing the people who had met Rajiv as a gaggle of crooners and bards, as though these features made them unworthy of representing a political cause. More recently the same Naib Shahi Imam cornered in a TV discussion, hurled expletives at actress and MP Shabana Azmi, calling her a ‘nautch girl’ and something worse.
There is no official or religious post called the Shahi Imaam. When Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purses of India’s residual princelings, deleting the state subsidy they were given after the British pullout, she was hailed as a people’s leader. It is hardly likely that a title allegedly bequeathed on a maulvi by a Mughal ruler can continue to have any legitimacy. But the Indian state for some weird reasons likes to keep aloof on this issue.
So why those expletives were hurled at journalists last week? It seems one of them had asked whether he had discussed with the prime minister a government proposal to seek job reservations for Indian Muslims. The flaw in the question was that maulvis rarely if ever get themselves involved with economic strategies to improve the lot of their community. They are at their best with issues like Ayodhya and Shahbano case apart from cornering funds to run controversial institutions.
The real issues for Indian Muslims are left to be handled by relentless fighters for human rights such as the retired high court judge Rajinder Sachhar, a Punjabi Hindu from Lahore. He was the one who asked (only asked mind you) in a survey how many Muslims were there in the Indian army. Since the answer was resoundingly embarrassing the question need not have provoked any hostility. But it was enough grist to the Hindutva mill to launch a tirade against the so-called appeasement of Indian Muslims. Very few journalists are aware that there are Muslim organisations still around in India that forbid their community from joining the army and government jobs as a religious requirement as though these jobs are otherwise readily available.
Embracing any kind of clergy so close to the bosom in a supposedly liberal democracy is just one kind of clerical mistake the Indian state lives with. The other kind of clerical error comes from not heeding the statistics that are regularly excavated by liberal activists which describe the plight of Indian Muslims as it does on other occasions of the misery heaped on downtrodden Dalits and tribes-people.
A glimpse of the initial report by the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee headed by Justice Sachhar came from the Indian Express last week. “Discriminated against and pushed to the sidelines, the Muslim community in India is at the bottom of the heap when it comes to benefits from government-run welfare schemes, access to education, employment, even the system of credit, including bank loans.” This is how the Express summed up the findings so far by Justice Sachhar. The final report of the committee is expected to be submitted in June this year.
Since August last year, the committee has collected data after visiting several states, holding talks with government departments in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, NGOs and Muslim organisations.
Some of the data accessed by the Indian Express shows:
• 94.9 per cent of Muslims in Below Poverty Line families in rural areas do not receive free foodgrains.
• While only 3.2 per cent of Muslims get subsidised loans, just 1.9 per cent of the community benefit from the programme meant to prevent starvation among the poorest of poor by providing foodgrains at a subsidised rate.
• On the educational front, the picture is equally dismal: 54.6 per cent Muslims in villages and 60 per cent in urban areas have never attended schools. National average: 40.8 per cent in rural areas and 19.9 per cent in urban areas.
• Although in urban areas, nearly 40 per cent of the Muslims now receive modern education, only 3.1 per cent of the community in urban areas is graduates. Just 1.2 per cent is post-graduates. When did any Shahi Imaam last go on a round of India to collect important data for their community?
Saturday’s attack on BJP leader Pramod Mahajan by his younger brother, Pravin Mahajan is a serious setback to the BJP. “It is not important right now to find out who did it or why it happened. It is time to pray for his speedy recovery,” said former minister Sushma Swaraj.
If the BJP emulates Ms Swaraj’s worthy principle to cope with any future tragedy it would help prevent the mayhem its hordes let loose in Gujarat in 2002.
As we all remember in Gujarat the BJP was more interested in blaming and targeting a particular community as the alleged perpetrators of the Godhra train outrage than in tending to the wounds it had caused to the aggrieved party, the Hindus.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
BEFORE the demise of the progressive movement, which ironically happened before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, Karachi used to have a vibrant left culture, marked by, among other things, brain-storming debates at places like the Karachi Press Club and Karachi University and lively discussions in coffee houses and drawing rooms.
Behind these open discussions were the closed sessions of study circles on Marxism organised by the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). The study classes comprised a teacher, a senior comrade, and a couple of students, mostly new entrants to the underground party. These classes were held in such a clandestine way that nobody knew about their location and timing.
Later in the 1990s these sessions became the subject of jokes among disillusioned revolutionaries. Deprived of creative thinking, the poorly indoctrinated souls seem to have come to believe in Fokoyama’s theory of the end of history.
But time did move on at both the international and local level, with the emergence of new forces. But it took the recent World Social Forum for the old left in Karachi to realise that the dust raised by the collapse of the old order has settled and a new era of re-organisation has begun. The week-long event attracted former revolutionaries from different parts of the country and provided them with an opportunity to discover their successors.
To know the young generation further, a group of old comrades chose to attend a Marxism Day School organized by a new left group, Socialist International Pakistan. It was an eye-opening experience for some.
Held at the Pakistan Medical Association building, the nine-to-five workshop offered four interactive sessions on different contemporary questions, supplemented by the screening of a thought-provoking Indian movie, Rang De Basanti, and a documentary on the Venezuelan ‘revolution’.
At the outset of each session, except the ones conducted by Jeff Brown of the British Socialist Party and local intellectual Mumtaz Mahar, a young man explained the topic in an easy-to-understand language devoid of philosophical and political jargon. It was followed by questions and comments after which the moderator summed up the debate. Most of the participants were young people and spoke in English, unimaginable in the old leftist culture.
The organisers provided tea after every few hours but participants had to buy their own from biryani a stall at the gate of the conference room. Another stall offered contemporary Marxist literature at affordable prices as the books/booklets were in photostat form. An old campaigner nostalgically recalled the CPP organ, Surkh Parcham, which was secretly distributed to party members. For him, not only the discussions but the entire atmosphere was something new.
“We have been stuck into the past and need a new party made of new blood,” said comrade Nadim.
Unusual posters
THE Karachi art scene has something new to offer. An exhibition of popular poster art, focussing on Sufi saints and their shrines, was inaugurated on April 19 and will continue till the 26th. The venue is the Goethe-Insitut, where art exhibitions are held and documentaries on visual arts screened regularly.
The exhibition has been curated by a German scholar of Sufism, Jurgen Wasim Frembgen. His credentials are impressive. He is chief curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich. He is also a lecturer in Islamic studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg. Some time ago he was a visiting professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad and later at the National College of Arts in Lahore. He has curated a number of exhibitions on Islamic art and penned as many as 15 books on different aspects of Sufism. Launched on the occasion was a monograph written by him on the subject.
Jointly published by Oxford University Press and the Museum of Ethnology in Munich, The Friends of God: Sufi Saints n Islam — Popular Poster Art from Pakistan reproduces some of the posters and makes informative reading. Speaking at the launch the author pointed out that the posters reflected the “visual aesthetics of folk art and pop art steeped in exuberance and playfulness.”
The author signed copies of his book. One regretted that the reproductions of the posters on display were not put up for sale.
Dr Patra Raymond, Director, Goethe-Institut, Ameena Saiyid of OUP and Dr Mehdi Raza Shah Sabzwari, Sajjada Nasheen at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s mausoleum, spoke on the occasion.
Toilets on wheels
When it was mentioned to a colleague, he had a fit of laughter. “A mobile toilet?” he said when he was able to catch his breath. And after another prolonged bout of hilarity he asked more questions and each question made him laugh more uncontrollably. “And it will be inaugurated?.....”
The ‘mobile toilet’, which has separate chambers for men and women, was photographed when it was being driven on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road towards Clifton.
Some people might have speculated that it would be cruising all the while. And such a thought naturally gave birth to questions such as what would happen if a person was using the facility and the van moved on.
The next day it became clear that the mobile toilet would actually be stationary the moment it reached a particular spot on Seaview beach and stay there for some time. It will cost nothing to beachgoers to relieve themselves — unlike when they have to fill themselves in from the expensive mobile food outlets on the beach.
— Karachian
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com