Urbanisation: dangers ahead

IN last week’s article I had suggested that the patterns of urbanisation in the developing world don’t apply to Pakistan and that in Pakistan’s case a significant part of urbanisation was owed to forced movement of people for political reasons. When I refer to “forced migration for political reasons”, I have in mind the movement of people such as the refugees from India who arrived in 1947-51 and the arrival of refugees from Afghanistan after 1979.

For much of the developing world, it was the rural and urban migration that increased the size of their cities and increased the proportion of urban dwellers in total population. Rural to urban migration has played a role in Pakistan as well. This is particularly true for Karachi, the country’s largest city.

However, in Pakistan’s case the character of some of its large cities – including Karachi – was defined by the arrival of a large number of people forced out of their homes for political reasons. This feature of urbanisation has to be kept in mind by policymakers when they get round to defining a strategic approach to dealing with the opportunities that urbanisation creates as well tackling the problems it brings. Before I get to the issue of policies, I will say a few words about the recent trends in urbanisation in the country.

Pakistan is currently the most urbanised country in South Asia. It is experiencing a rapid urban transition with a growth rate of urban population that is twice the rate of increase of the overall population. The pattern, therefore, is different from the rest of the developing world where, as noted by the United Nations study to which I referred (last week), urbanisation is the product mostly of natural growth.

That is not the case in Pakistan where migration is still important as a determinant of urban growth. And when we talk about migration in Pakistan’s case, we must also factor in the forced movement of people which has been such an important feature of the growth of some of Pakistan’s large cities.

According to the 1978 census, slightly more than a third of the population then lived in the urban areas. There is a consensus among demographers that the census seriously underestimated the size of the population. This may have happened for political reasons since the politically powerful landed class in the country did not wish to see a major dilution in their power as a result of the shift in the population towards urban areas.

Recent analysis, in particular by the World Bank, indicates that “rapid expansion of ribbon development along major transport routes and the expansion of peri-urban areas around cities have been classified as rural rather urban in the census statistics. Thus, it appears that the proportion of urban population is higher than official estimates.”

The bank believes that by 2015, one half of the total population — which by then would have reached 190 million — would be urban. Of the 85 million people in the country’s urban areas, 40 per cent will live in the two large cities – Karachi and Lahore.

If Lahore’s expanding periphery is counted as part of the city, it might by then have more people living inside its extended borders than Karachi. Another half a dozen cities will have populations of more than five million each.

Economic activities are increasingly gravitating towards the urban areas. Now cities and towns contribute more than 75 per cent of the gross domestic product of Pakistan. Most of the dynamic sectors of the economy are based in large cities.

Although Pakistan is a late comer to the development of skill-based sectors, the few activities that are gaining ground are located in the vicinity of schools and colleges that have the capability of producing people with the needed skills. At the forefront of this trend are the cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad that also house most of the modern educational institutions in the country.

Whether the country will be able to deal with the inevitable pressures that rapid urbanisation brings will depend upon a number of factors. Amongst these three are particularly important.

The government must deal with the problem created by poor urban services: a serious effort must be made to create institutions that can deliver better urban services to the people, in particular those that live in the poorer parts of the cities and policies must be defined that will address the radicalisation of politics and social structures of many cities. The last, as I will argue later in this article, is the consequence of the forced migration of people to the urban areas.

The World Bank which has taken note of the problems associated with urbanisation and has begun to develop responses to them has the following to say about the nature of the difficulties faced by policymakers: “The urban transition in Pakistan could contribute even more to the pace of the country’s economic growth and poverty reduction if cities did not suffer from severe infrastructure bottlenecks, service deficiencies, poor local governance and inefficiencies in land and housing markets.

“Water and sanitation coverage rates have almost stagnated since the 1990s at about 58 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. Unaccounted for water (water stolen from the municipal supply systems and sold by private vendors to consumers not reached by public utilities) is high, collection rates and cost-recovery levels are low, existing infrastructure is run down, supply intermittent, and the quality of water dubious. Other urban services are not much better in terms of quality and sustainability.

“The shortfalls in urban areas are not merely an outcome of aggregate resource constraints. They are exacerbated by constraints in the institutional, governance, and financial arrangements that have defined local service delivery and financing.”

The government — probably at the provincial level — should develop a comprehensive strategy for the provision of basic services to the poorer segment of the population in the urban areas. The strategy should include the development of instruments to finance these services.

In addition to charging the people for water and electricity that they receive intermittently and some times pay exorbitant amounts to receive them, these plans should include the grant of authority to the local governments to raise additional resources. This they should be able to do through taxation or by going to the capital markets by issuing bonds. All this means that the structure of local government should evolve further to assume these responsibilities.

By far the most important contribution the government can make to solving the problem presented by rapid urbanisation while drawing benefits that the growth of cities bring to the economy and society is by bringing the government closer to the people.

The first important step in this direction was taken by the administration of President Pervez Musharraf in 2001 when it chose to develop the system of local government. The system put in place is different from those that were tried and abandoned several times before. In that respect it has laid the ground for devolving authority to the elected representatives of the people. The system has been place for half a dozen years and needs to evolve further in light of the lessons learned since it was inaugurated.

Even in its present form, the local government system has had an impact on the lives of the people in some of the major cities of the country. At a recent meeting of the Punjab Development Forum held in Lahore, I heard a presentation by the nazim and district coordination officer of Faisalabad that detailed some of the development activities undertaken by the local authorities.

The most impressive part of the programme they are implementing is its information component which allows people to see on their computer screens what is being done in their areas.

However, putting this information on the computer is only part of the programme. The other is to make it possible for the poor to access this information. Once the people have full knowledge of what is being done for them, they should be able to vote directly for the local leadership, re-electing those who are doing a good job, sending home those who have not been able to meet the people’s expectations. Under the present structure, the nazims are elected indirectly. This needs to change with the people given the opportunity to vote directly for local leadership.

I will now address the problem of the radicalisation of many urban areas as a result of the long-distance migration that has shaped many of them. There is a significant difference in the way displaced people and those who migrate from the countryside and go to towns and cities shape the places to which they move. The former mostly arrive as cohesive communities that share a number of characteristics.

For instance, the refugees who came from India at the time of independence and settled in Karachi and other large cities of south Sindh, were from the same states of India, spoke the same language, had the same culture, and shared the same values. They, therefore, kept their identity and found it difficult to be absorbed in the population that hosted them. Rural to urban migration on the other hand is usually in the form of a constant trickle and not a flood as is sometimes the case with displaced people. When people move in from the countryside and go to towns and cities in search of jobs, they normally don’t maintain a separate identity.

This is especially the case when this type of migration is over a short distance. This is certainly the case in the migration that has fed the population of Lahore and other large cities of central Punjab over the last several decades. Consequently, in Lahore, the migrants have not constituted a separate identity for themselves as they have done in Karachi and Peshawar.

When displaced people arrive in large numbers as they did at the time of partition and in connection with the Afghan problem, they tend to create political, social and economic space for themselves that is separate from the local population.

While those who went to Karachi became active in the city’s economic life, they created a separate political identity for themselves in the form of the MQM. Those Afghan refugees who resettled in Peshawar and Islamabad became involved in the activities promoted by radical and extremist Islamic groups. One such group was behind the crisis involving the Lal Masjid in the central part of Islamabad.

Public policy aimed at using urbanisation as a factor that contributes to development must, therefore, address the problem of assimilation of the people who go to the cites, especially as displaced people. More than anything else, this requires the development of political institutions that give these people a voice.

The best way to start on this process is to develop local government institutions that can bring all urban dwellers into politics and make it possible for them to become productive citizens of the communities in which they live. Without such participation, these communities become not only politically, socially and economically marginalized, they also become disenchanted and adopt the politics of separation and dissidence rather than that of absorption.

This is one other reason why a viable system of local government must be allowed to take shape with as much autonomy as the circumstances of the country would allow.

The Lal Masjid phenomenon

IT IS a fact that the Lal Masjid clerics violated the law on several counts: they encroached on CDA land; they allowed their students to occupy a library; they also allowed them to abduct Pakistani women, policemen and Chinese women. Then, when the Rangers were posted around the mosque, the students threatened and attacked them and burnt a building. They carried guns, some wore gas masks and they fired on security personnel. Is this not armed rebellion against the state?

If it is, which state would allow it? From what I know of Islamic political theory, the latter, too, does not allow armed rebellion against the state — irrespective of whether or not it is Islamic. There are many texts prohibiting disorder (fitna) and political philosophers make it clear that even a bad government is better than chaos and anarchy.

In Saudi Arabia, when militants occupied the Kaaba in 1979, they were attacked and wiped out. In short, it is part of the job of a state not to allow its writ to be challenged through armed struggle in this manner. If every group of vigilantes, with its own version of right and wrong, started kidnapping people and threatening armed struggle the state would descend into chaos.

What is permitted in democratic states is challenging the legitimacy of the rulers through elections, strikes, demonstrations, etc.

But letting anarchy loose upon the citizens is not permitted. That has to be ended; if possible through negotiations but if nothing works through force or the threat of force. So, anyone who blames General Musharraf’s government for challenging the militant clerics of Lal Masjid does not know what a dangerous course he or she is advocating.

This does not mean that everything the government did was right. It let the crisis simmer on for about six months. The stick-wielding girls of Jamia Hafsa were intoxicated by their unusual success as militants. They, as well as male students, dared to do more but were not stopped. They were spoiled into imagining they were heroes: the madressah was shown on TV; the maulanas were lionised; the girls were interviewed. This went to their heads and they started what they thought was a revolution.

All this could have been avoided if women police had been used and appropriate punishments handed out early into the crisis.

Also, one does not see how the intelligence agencies let so many arms and so much ammunition accumulate in the mosque. If there were hardened fighters, as evidence suggests there were, how did they get in? Either the agencies encouraged the maulanas to divert attention from the judicial crisis or they (the agencies) were really so ill-informed that they did not know what was happening right under their nose.

Moreover, if Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi had asked for safe passage at any time he should have been accommodated. True, this would have been considered a weakness by many and would have made the sacrifices of military personnel and students appear in vain but then, these things were worth risking.

What was not worth risking was the backlash of ordinary, middle-class Pakistanis accusing the government of brutality or, even worse, of having done all this to please the United States. So, both for humanitarian and political reasons, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi should not have been allowed to become a martyr.

Yet another mistake was the ill-treatment meted out to the media which was prevented from going in, stopped from meeting people and even barred from seeing the Lal Masjid in its entirety the day after the operation was over.

Instead, the media should have been allowed to film and show everything, even if the scenes were shocking. Now that they have been denied this, media persons have adopted a cynical attitude towards the government which will eventually help the militants.

Helping the militants become stronger is neither in the interest of the government nor of the media nor, of course, of ordinary citizens. Indeed, it is not even in the interests of the militants themselves since history tells us that when one group of militants wins a war others challenge it and the country descends into civil war.

The media’s own role however, needs to be both praised and criticised. To begin with, the media was against the intransigent clerics. Reporters risked their lives and a cameraman was killed in covering the crisis. However, when Maulana Abdul Aziz was captured, the media turned irresponsible. He was ridiculed as he was shown in a burqa ad nauseam.

Later, he was even forced to appear in a PTV interview in that attire. That was really atrocious. One should never, not on any account, make fun of anybody or hurt a person deliberately. Disagreement with the maulana is one thing but not to respect his feelings quite another. This one unkind act might well have turned the tide against a peaceful settlement inside the Lal Masjid. Indeed, Maulana Abdul Aziz’s action should have been praised because fleeing is better than the kind of obstinacy which takes innocent lives.

Later, either because the media had been badly treated or because many media people themselves are susceptible to religious emotionality, many TV commentators started glorifying Abdul Rashid Ghazi. His last words were repeated several times and, on the whole, the government was blamed more than it should have been. Many of those who were blaming the government for inaction started blaming it for action. This was not helpful to anyone.

The media must understand that whereas its duty is to present all sides of a story, it also has to interpret events. If this interpretation goes against the basic principle that the state cannot be challenged by armed might, then it will mislead the public.

This is the beginning of a struggle against militant Islamic forces and the moderate sections of society. Whose side is the media on? This is a crucial question.

An even more vital question is: on whose side are the intelligence agencies? Elements in the armed forces? Political groups? Let us not forget that for a very long time Islamists have been used in fighting secular battles — America’s battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s battle against India for Kashmir — and the idiom of Islam has been used by the official media and in books, speeches, etc. to achieve the goals.

General Musharraf said in 2002 that he had reversed all this. But has it truly been reversed or are there elements somewhere that keep old policies in abeyance to be used some day? This is a question on which the fate of Pakistan hinges.

We must understand that the madressahs are not the only source of violence using the name of Islam. People educated in secular institutions — doctors, engineers and college lecturers — have been active in militant circles all over the world.The world is unjust and as long as the United States does not change its policies that are currently in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians and western powers are not sensitised to Muslim feelings and ideas, there will be anger.

This is the greatest threat to global peace but we can hardly influence foreign powers. What we can do is to change policies at home. Here too there is much anger. As Pakistan becomes more and more unjust and the gap between the rich and the poor gets larger, more desperate young men will emerge. They will use the idiom of religion to vent their frustrations.

If one looks at the images of the mosque one finds poor, rural people, generally from the margins of the country, mesmerised by the militant message of clerics. Were they expressing their anger and their sense of being marginalised and cheated by the system by fighting for the Ghazi brothers?

Our system is unjust and poor people respond to all those who appeal to them in the name of Islam or ethnicity or any such thing with blind fanaticism. This means that we must seriously pay attention to providing justice, material goods, services (such as hospitals, schools etc) and entertainment to the masses. Moreover, the elite should adhere to the law because one has the moral standing to challenge law-breakers only if one adheres to the spirit of the law oneself. I do not know if history will give us the time to reform ourselves but is there any harm in trying?

Taking lead in the pullout

ONLY the most implacable critics of the government could fail to appreciate the shift in foreign policy since Tony Blair left office three weeks ago. This was always going to be a difficult and controversial process.

Downing Street has already been forced to refute false suggestions of anti-Americanism made against Douglas Alexander, the development secretary, and Mark Malloch Brown, the new Foreign Office minister, last week. That is understandable. No British government is going to abandon a close alliance with the US as a central plank of its diplomacy, as David Miliband made clear again on Sunday. The question is how restrictively ministers interpret its terms.

The Bush administration expects unconditional obedience from its allies, so it is refreshing to hear British ministers set out views that challenge neoconservative orthodoxy across such a broad front. According to Alexander, successful western strategy cannot be built on unilateralism, over-reliance on military power, the rejection of international institutions and indifference to global poverty and climate change. Malloch Brown argues that Britain and the US should be close, but not "joined at the hip".

The message seems to be that, in the future, the US should be prepared to give as well as take. There is absolutely nothing anti-American about that. It is what we should expect of any genuine friend. It is therefore vitally important that ministers avoid being panicked by dramatic headlines or complaints from Washington into accepting that there is something shameful about demanding reciprocity in transatlantic relations. Our interests are close, but they are not identical. Gordon Brown needs to show that he can be as firm in standing up for Britain in Washington as he prides himself on being in Brussels.

Of course, changing the tone was always going to be the easy bit. The true test will come when differences of principle collide in the real world of hard policy choice. Will the Brown government make it clear that the US unwillingness to put serious pressure on Israel is the main obstacle to a two-state solution? Will it depart from the White House script if war erupts again in Lebanon? We cannot achieve a more balanced Atlantic alliance without being prepared to say no when it counts. An ally that always says yes is one that is asking to be taken for granted.

These dilemmas are coming to a head over the question of how to extricate ourselves from the failed US-British intervention in Iraq. Official statements so far have been guarded, emphasising that Britain has obligations and suggesting that a precipitate withdrawal is off the agenda. That has to be right. Disengagement must be a process in which the different communities are prepared for life after occupation and the basis for government by consensus and compromise is created. A sudden, unplanned withdrawal, or even the hint of one, would further destabilise the situation and inflict even more misery on a long-suffering people.

Yet the government has to recognise that its current open-ended commitment is equally dangerous. The idea that American and British troops hold any of the answers to Iraq's security problems is collapsing in the face of evidence that Bush's "surge" strategy is failing to achieve most of its stated aims. Extending deadlines and increasing force levels will not fix this: the occupation itself is one of the main reasons for Iraq's continued dysfunctionality and the violence it breeds.

The only way for Iraq to emerge from its present crisis is with the agreement of its three main communities. But as long as our troops remain on Iraqi soil there will be no incentive for them to come to the table and work out a way of living together in peace. Sunnis will refuse to play their full part in making the governance of Iraq work because they believe it will legitimise an occupation they despise. The main Shia parties will not make the compromises needed to win the participation of Iraq's Sunnis because they assume that American military power will bail them out.

It is telling that several of the missed benchmarks detailed in last week's downbeat White House assessment of its Iraq policy relate to the failure of the authorities in Baghdad to share wealth and power with the Sunni minority. As a result, many Sunnis regard the Shia-dominated government as an illegitimate sectarian project and will continue to do so as long as its writ is imposed at the point of an American gun. Only the prospect of withdrawal can break this psychological logjam and create the conditions for a lasting settlement.

The objective of British policy must be to secure American acceptance of the need for a medium-term deadline for withdrawal. Once a timetable is set, it will be possible to focus the minds of Iraqis on the need to work with each other and to draw in regional powers such as Jordan, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of a UN-sponsored initiative to underwrite Iraq's stability and progress. The alternative is to stumble on hopelessly while more Iraqis and British and American troops die.

Faced with the dramatic erosion of domestic American support for Bush's Iraq strategy, the obvious temptation might be to sit back and let war weariness push the US towards the inevitable. That would be a failure of leadership. We should not limp out of Iraq as we arrived, clinging on to the US's coat tails. Instead, our elected leaders ought to be driving the debate about an exit strategy. The seriousness of the situation, especially the toll on ordinary Iraqis and our service personnel, demands no less.

Some parts of Whitehall worry about the implications of taking this approach for relations with Washington. That is certainly a consideration. Even those Americans impatient with Bush's mistakes could be expected to react badly if Britain walked away without warning. But with more than 70 per cent of Americans now in favour of getting out, there is space for Britain to play a more active role.

General Petraeus talks about a "draw down" of troops beginning next April. The government should make it clear –– privately at first, and then publicly –– that it expects the withdrawal of any remaining British forces to be part of that first phase. Given the precariousness of Bush's position, that could just be enough to force the policy rethink the US, Britain, and above all Iraq, urgently need.

––The Guardian, London