URBANISATION remains an under researched and under analysed subject in Pakistan. It has not been seriously investigated by academics, policy analysts and policymakers in the country. The result is that urbanisation is neither the subject of serious discourse nor a major public policy concern.

That is unfortunate since the problems the rapid growth of urban population will pose will tax the country’s meagre institutional capacity, challenge public resources already under stress and sow the seeds of social and political discontent.

The neglect of what might be called the urban problem by policymakers will also take a heavy economic toll on the country. I will set the stage for a discussion of the phenomenon of urbanisation as it relates to Pakistan by first noting the main conclusions reached in a report recently released by the United Nations Populations Fund.

The United Nations report focuses on the trends in the developing world. It is significant that Pakistan does not share many trends noted by the United Nations agency.

The UN report titled “State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth”, concludes that by the end of 2008, more than one half of the world’s population of 6.75 billion will live in urban areas. This will be the first time in human history that towns and cities will have more residents than the countryside.

The change is expected to be particularly swift in the continents of Asia and Africa where between 2000 and 2030, the accumulated urban growth in this three-decade period will be greater than during the whole span of human history. This increase in population will be the result of both natural increase as well as rural-migration.

Such a large movement of people within a relatively short span of time will have consequences not only for the countries in which such changes are occurring but for the entire world.

The report notes that this is the second great wave of urbanisation in human history. The first occurred over two centuries, from 1750 to 1950, in Europe and North America, with urban population increasing from 15 million to 423 million.

In the second wave involving the developing world, the number of people living in urban areas will increase from 309 million in 1950 to an expected 3.9 billion in 2030, a 13-fold increase in 80 years. By that year, developing countries are expected to have 80 per cent of the world’s urban population.

The report reaches the surprising conclusion that the bulk of the urban population growth will be in small cities and towns, not in the 20 mega cities that have been the focus of policymakers’ attention for decades.

Demographers define mega cities to be those with populations of more than 20 million. These cities have grown rapidly over the last half century and now contain nine per cent of all urban inhabitants in the world. But, the UN notes, that their growth has slowed down for a variety of reasons.

In fact only two of the mega cities — Lagos in Nigeria and Dhaka in Bangladesh — will grow at rates exceeding three per cent a year. “Many of the world’s largest cities — Buenos Aires, Calcutta, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, and Seoul — actually have more people moving out than in, and few are close to the size that doomsayers predicted for them in the 1970s,” write the authors of the UN report. This conclusion, as I will discuss below, does not seem right for Pakistan.

Not only will the cities and towns in the developing world have more people than its villages, they will also have more poor people. Poverty is increasing more rapidly in urban areas. A billion people, about a sixth of the world’s population today, already live in slums.

Notwithstanding the growing size of the urban population, no large city in the developing world has planned for the poor. Majority of them live in slums located in the areas not reached by public service providers.

According to George Martine, the author of the United Nations study: “The poor settle in the worst living space, on steep hillsides or river banks that will be flooded, where nobody wants to live and where speculators haven’t taken control of the land. They have no water and sanitation, and the housing is terrible. And this situation threatens the environmental quality of the city.”

But the report does not focus entirely on the negative aspects of urbanisation. It notes that while “cities concentrate poverty, they also represent the best hope of escaping it.” They can become engines of economic growth, bringing to one place activities that perform more efficiently when they cluster people, institutions and enterprises together.

The trick for policymakers, therefore, is to balance the advantages that result from the collection of a very large number of people in a small place with the problems that inevitably result when so many people live in a small area. Let me now take up the situation in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s history of urbanisation is different from that of most large developing counties. This is for a number of reasons. The major difference in the nature and scope of urbanisation in Pakistan compared to that in a typical developing country is that for the former it resulted initially from international migration, not from the more common rural to urban movement of people.

In the case of Pakistan, a significant number of migrants were pushed towards towns and cities by political events over which they had little control. Over the last six decades, Pakistan has been subjected to large waves of forced migrations that have changed the country’s geographic, economic and political landscapes.

These movements of people remain to be studied to fully comprehend the changes they have brought. Some of them were positive and some others have posed problems that are unique to Pakistan.

The largest movement of people occurred in 1947 when eight million refugees from India moved to the new state of Pakistan. While those who arrived in Pakistan displaced six million Hindus and Sikhs who moved in the opposite direction, the refuges tended to settle in the cities rather than go to the countryside from which considerable out-migration had taken place. The migration, in other words, brought about a significant increase in the proportion of people living in Pakistan’s towns and cities.

In 1947, what is Pakistan today had a population of only 32 million of which less that 16 per cent was urbanised. The five million people who lived in towns and cities were concentrated in Lahore — Pakistan’s largest city at the time of its creation — and half a dozen cities of central Punjab.

But the arrival of refugees from India moved the centre of gravity of the urban population in Pakistan from central Punjab to southern Sindh. This was to have profound economic and political consequences for the country.

Karachi was the most affected city by the migration that accompanied the birth of Pakistan. It quickly grew into an urban centre of more than a million people from a small seaside town of 250,000 people.When Pakistan took its first census in 1951, its population was estimated at 1.066 million. Of these 608,000, or 57.1 per cent, were refugees from India. The city had absorbed one third of the refugee population that settled in the urban areas. Other urban centres of Sindh also attracted the refugees.

In 1951, Hyderabad, to the north of Karachi, had a population of 237,000 of which 156,000, or 64.5 per cent, were refugees. In Sukkur, refugees made up 54.5 per cent of the total. That said, the cities in Sindh did not have the largest proportion of refugees. That distinction went to the city that was then called Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) in which refugees accounted for 70.4 per cent of the total population.

Lahore, which in 1951 was no longer the largest city in the country, having lost that position to Karachi, had 386,000 refugees making up 45.5 per cent of the total population of 849,000.

A very large number of people who had left India looking for security and job opportunities were attracted to Karachi for the simple reason that it was chosen to be the capital of Pakistan. Those who did not find space in Karachi went to some of the cities that were not too distant from it.

While cities such as Hyderabad and Sukkur did not increase in size by as much as Karachi, they also attracted hundreds of thousands of refugees from India. The migration of India changed the economic, political, cultural and social landscapes of lower Sindh. This happened because this area did not lose as many people to out-migration as did the Punjab.

For lower Sindh, the settlement of refugees from India constituted a net addition to the population. Hindus retained a significant presence in Sindh which was not the case in the Punjab. One of them — Rana Bhagwandas — went on to become Pakistan’s Acting Chief Justice in early 2007.

The second large wave of migration also affected Karachi. It resulted from the capital city’s need for construction workers and workers in the service and industrial sectors.

It was this migration that brought several Pathan colonies to Karachi and gave the city a multi-ethnic character. By the time the government moved out of Karachi, the city had three distinct ethnic groups that did not easily mix with one another.

The refuges took the name of Mohajirs and continued to follow their own culture and continued to use their own language while the Sindhis — the original inhabitants of the city — withdrew to the background. Pathan migration brought another large ethnic group to the city which also did not assimilate well with other communities.

The third wave of migration began in the 1980s with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. As the Soviets were vigorously challenged by the Afghan freedom fighters, there was much economic dislocation in the country, particularly in the areas bordering Pakistan.

While the men took up arms against the occupying force, their families moved across the border into Pakistan and into the scores of refugee camps set up for them all along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Had the war not lasted as long as it did, there was some chance that the refugees would have gone back to their country and their homes. But peace did not return to Afghanistan and a large number of refugees left the camps and found jobs in the large cities of Pakistan.

Three of Pakistan’s large cities were affected in particular. Karachi, already a large Pathan city, was particularly attractive for the refugees. Peshawar, the capital of the Pathan majority province of the North West Frontier Province and that draws its name from a Persian word that means “on the border”, had become the centre of the resistance to the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan.

It was inevitable that some of the refugees would be sucked into the politics of that conflict. A significant number of Afghan refugees also went to Islamabad, the city that housed a number of agencies that were involved with the provision of relief to the people displaced by the Afghan conflict.

Pakistan, in other words, urbanised differently than other developing countries. Its large cities were formed in part by the arrival of refugees who had left their homes for political rather than economic reasons. How this pattern of city development affected Pakistan is a subject worthy of study. I will get into it in the article next week.

TWO days after the 7/7 bombings in London two years ago, Muslim community leaders gathered at the London Muslim Centre to consider the impact of the attacks and who might have organised them.

Many present refused to accept it might have been Muslims –– the common refrain was that it could have been the French, because they had just lost the bid to host the Olympics.

The discussion had the younger generation of professional British-born Muslims grinding their teeth with frustration at the stubborn naivety of an older generation of leadership. Their elders had completely failed to grasp how the community had been swept up in a global political conflict that was interacting with a local crisis of identity and generational conflict.

Wind forward two years and the story has changed. On Friday, a campaign was launched with full-page newspaper adverts condemning the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow and pledging full support to avert future attacks. On Saturday, Muslim activists and imams from across the country gathered in London to consider what could be done to tackle extremism.

Among the speakers were members of the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism operations. More advertising campaigns are planned this week. Britain's Muslims have launched their most concerted attempt yet to win the hearts and minds of the public and distance themselves from the activities of violent extremists who claim to act in the name of their faith.

For a younger generation of community activists it's been the breakthrough for which they've been waiting for years. They admit that there has been denial in the community, which has inspired fanciful conspiracy theories, but what has enabled them to challenge that has been the sheer volume of evidence in recent trials. Violent extremism cannot be dismissed as the responsibility of the odd loner.

Last week saw a succession of appalling news stories. First it was the shocking cases of the attempted London and Glasgow bombings in which respected doctors and fathers were alleged to have been the ringleaders. Then there were two terrorism trials, in Manchester and Woolwich, which resulted in three convictions.

For an older generation who migrated from impoverished areas of the rural subcontinent to offer their families a better life in the UK, this crisis is utterly, and painfully, bewildering: where did they go wrong? Such is their confusion and the pressure they are under, it might force this generation out of community leadership. Meanwhile, among their offspring, the crisis is prompting a huge soul-searching into what in their faith, historical and cultural background could give space for extremism to flourish.

Many Muslims are incensed by injustice and angry about British foreign policy, but they don't plot to bomb innocent civilians –– so what is it about these jihadis that draws them into such atrocities? And what do they use to license their outrage to commit such terrible crimes?

In answering such questions, a new honesty and self-criticism is striking. In the past few days, key Muslim community activists have admitted to me that what worries them is how certain theological issues have not been properly clarified, and can be used to justify extremism. The most important is the age-old distinction between dar al-Islam (the land of Islam) and dar al-harb (the land of the other, of unbelief –– or of war, according to the literal translation from the Arabic).

This demonisation of all that is not Muslim is the "paradigmatic, instinctive response that people fall back on in a moment of crisis", I was told. Extremists such as Hizb ut-Tahrir use this dualism, as do jihadis, to justify their contempt for the rights –– and lives –– of the kufr, the unbeliever.

Various Islamic theologians have tried to challenge this intolerance. Dr Zaki Badawi said it was unacceptable to designate the UK as dar al-harb, and declared a third category, the land of contract –– dar al-sulh –– where Muslims have entered a contract to obey the law in exchange for protection and freedom. Significantly, this was an idea promoted by the controversial Egyptian theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, that hate figure of the neocons, over 20 years ago.

There are other equally fraught issues, such as the legacy of anti-colonial thinkers like Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Mawdudi, whose inflammatory, anti-western rhetoric, taken out of context, can sound much like a charter for jihad. Their books are still sold by mainstream Muslim organisations: why, asks Yahya Birt, a prominent member of this new reforming generation, in a recent posting on his blog. Is it tribal loyalty or what, he asks.

What's remarkable is that these subjects are being aired in public and even discussed with non-Muslims; for years, the charge of washing dirty linen in public ensured silence. But Britain is now the arena for one of the most public, impassioned and wide-ranging debates about Islam anywhere in the world.

This debate won't kill off extremism, but it's one of several crucial elements required in a patient, painstaking strategy to win the hearts and minds of young Muslims. The new security minister. Admiral Sir Alan West. acknowledged as much yesterday when he spoke of a 10–– to 15-year strategy to tackle extremism. Gordon Brown was back on the hearts-and-minds theme last week –– it's been one of the most familiar refrains of the government since 7/7. But what he proposed –– a "propaganda effort" –– shows how unfamiliar he is with this brief: how could he imagine propaganda will have any effect on media-literate youngsters deeply sceptical after Iraq of anything associated with this Labour government?

The truth is that the government's hearts-and-minds strategy has been a fiction of speech writers. It has foundered in the break-up of the Home Office, been split across departments and got lost in the Department of Communities and Local Government's cohesion agenda.

—The Guardian, London

MADRESSAHS in Pakistan came under international scrutiny after the events of 9/11, with possibly thousands of newspaper articles and essays being published to shed light on the socio-political role of this institution. The western media branded madressahs as factories of jihad and nurseries of violent extremism.

For reasons of political expediency, local political leaders called them peaceful charity-cum-educational institutions while politicians belonging to religious parties denounced the West’s malicious propaganda and termed madressahs as flagship institutions of the Muslim culture.

The government took the middle ground. While vehemently denying the role of madressahs in training terrorists, it expressed its resolve to reform and modernise them. Unfortunately, in the heat of emotions, the problem was never studied seriously or scientifically.

However, recent events at the site of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid underscore the gravity of the situation. It has become clear that madressahs are not just training imams, but doing far more. Given their social network and political clout, it can safely be assumed that this institution could alter the basic social and political structure of society. The growing incidence of religious radicalism across the country has conveyed that message loud and clear.

Historically, this institution espouses a very conservative and mediaeval worldview. Its students and teachers are hostile to the processes of globalisation and cross-cultural interactions. Because of their literalism and scholarly traditions, they do not subscribe to contemporary perceptions of statehood, secular democracy, nationalism, rule of law, writ of the state, pluralism, tolerance, gender equality and dichotomy of public and private spheres.

They consider such concepts to be the analytical tools of the West and ones that are used to harm the identity of the Muslim world. Students are advised not to be fascinated with such ‘foreign’ ideas.

Then, the institution of the madressah sows the seeds of very narrow and sectarian worldviews among its students for whom the world is divided into black and white, consisting of the forces of good and evil. In this perspective, good is always at war with evil. Students are warned about the malicious intentions of local ‘evil’ (for example, the views of secular rationalists, modernists, liberals, etc.) and international ‘evil’ (Jews, communists, capitalists, etc.).

Every tactic is perceived to be legitimate in the undermining of these forces. In many cases, the use of violence is considered a legitimate option. To identify and explain these ‘evils’, terminology is borrowed from the holy scripts and selectively applied to certain events and individuals. The local and global cost of such an exercise is hardly ever calculated or taken care of.

Moreover, these institutions train their students in simplistic and moralistic worldviews. For example, for them, all evil emanates from the bodies of ‘deviant’ women. To control, cover and correct them is the most urgent issue. All symbols of modernity, such as CDs, VCRs, the Internet, etc. are considered to be the instruments responsible for the spread of evil and vulgarity. Madressah students usually have little idea of or concern for contemporary issues that need to be addressed urgently. These include diseases, overpopulation, environmental degradation, resource depletion, ecological imbalance, lack of scientific knowledge and developmental issues.Now we come to the need for reforming madressahs. The question that needs to be asked is: with such views and ideological conditioning, what is the use of distributing free computers, providing furniture and other teaching aids to this institution? It is not a problem of poverty alone but one of perspective and ideology. A basic requisite is to change the worldview of madressah administrations and students and to alter their ideology.

Probably, we lack the courage to admit this harsh reality. Our power elites still take the line of political expediency to placate the powerful clergy. It is, therefore, essential to make an honest and objective appraisal of the situation by focusing on two points:

First, what is the impact of education imparted by these institutions on our society and economy? We need to think beyond the simplistic argument that madressahs are providing free food and shelter to poor students. They may be doing so but the education that they are imparting has costly implications for society.

Second, it is erroneous to think that madressahs are just educational institutions that need improvement in their curriculum. In fact, madressahs are deeply and intricately linked with power politics at all levels, and have developed huge stakes in the existing power structure. It is, therefore, naďve to expect that the institution of the madressah would be reformed by free computer donations, noble intentions and pious rhetoric alone.

One of the most unfortunate things is that madressahs do not expose students to scientific knowledge. By design, students are trapped in a mediaeval atmosphere and remain ignorant about the realities of the 21st century. Because of structural and historical reasons, this institution still relies on rote learning and insists on blind faith in the text prepared by the founding fathers of respective Islamic sects.

Such curricula create bigotry and pave the way for violent extremism. Academic virtues like rational thinking, critical inquiry and objective rationality are alien to the madressah culture. In such a closed and suffocating environment, one cannot expect a culture of dialogue, tolerance or the cross-fertilisation of ideas.

Given this context, there is an urgent need to introduce comprehensive educational reforms in madressah education. Currently, this institution is groping in the darkness of intellectual repression and scholastic suffocation. There is need to widen students’ exposure and liberate them from a tunnel vision, medievalism and historical fantasies.

To be on the right side of history, we must prepare our youth so that they can survive in the global competition of innovative ideas propelled by rapid advancements in science and scholarship. Time is running out and if we fail to arrest intellectual decay, countless Lal Masjids will continue to crop up.

The writer is professor of sociology in Punjab University.
drmzakar@yahoo.com