ARE the political parties that are hoping to gain power and influence in the coming elections, equipped to deal with the many serious problems the country faces? To answer the question, it would be useful to review what the parties are offering.

Of the several parties that will compete in the elections there are two, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, that are generally referred to as mainstream. Both are preparing for the elections on the basis of what they represented in the past. Neither has developed a programme that would tell the people how they will govern if they were to gain power and how they will deal with the types of problems that I identified in earlier articles.

There is little evidence that either of the two mainstream political parties has developed a programme that would address Pakistan’s structural problems. How will the two political organisations ensure that the robust rate of economic growth of the last five years continues into the future but in a way that ensures a better distribution of income?

How will the issue of provincial autonomy be addressed? Will the parties allow greater space to the provincial administrations and local governments to provide public services that the people need? What will they do to ensure that the country obtains a greater proportion of the investment it needs from domestic sources and not from external capital flows? How will the country’s large human resource be developed to help the economy move forward and also to get better integrated in the global economic system?

Specifically, if these parties attain power, what will they do to ensure that the entire school-age population is enrolled in primary schools? That this will happen by the year 2015 was a pledge made by President Pervez Musharraf in New York in 2000 while putting his signature on the Millennium Development Declaration.

What will the parties do to improve the knowledge base of Pakistan’s large human resource so that the country can benefit from the large and growing demand for people with skills to participate in the global workplace?

In providing answers to these and many other questions, the political parties competing for power will need to present to the people a picture of the way the Pakistani state will evolve under their management. When communism was the rage in many parts of the world, those who pursued that ideology wanted an all-powerful state to manage the economy and control the political and social systems.

With the collapse of communism in Europe and with the radical transformation of the ideology in China and Vietnam, the main ideological issue is the appropriate role of the state.

This question is being asked not only in the developing world but also in the industrial and post-industrial parts of the world. This is what distinguishes the left from the right in the political spectrum. The left envisages a larger role for the state, particularly in the areas where the private sector functions poorly. The right wishes to see a small state with considerable space allowed to private initiative.

It has become customary in most political writings and press coverage of Pakistani politics to describe the PPP as a left of centre party and the various factions of the PML as right of centre. However, these are, at best, careless epithets since neither of the two organisations has spelled out its programme to justify these descriptions. The Pakistani electorate has no idea how the PPP and the PML will use the state to address the problems Pakistan must deal with and the opportunities that still exist for the country to succeed.

The only time the two organisations developed a programme of sorts was when their leaders met in London several months ago and pledged to follow a “Charter of Democracy”. The main point about the charter was the promise not to collaborate with the military in pursuit of political power. That pledge has been broken, at least by the PPP which has actively negotiated with President Pervez Musharraf in an effort to do a deal of power.

In return, the party would work towards giving President Musharraf another term in office. History, in other words, is being repeated with the PPP using expediency rather than principles and promises to gain political goals.

That the PPP is generally referred to as a left-of-centre political organisation and the PML in its current appearance as right-of-centre is largely because of their inheritance and not because of their programmes.

It is because of the memory of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s political rhetoric that the PPP continues to be treated as a party of the left; it is because of the patronage of General Ziaul Haq in the 1980s that resurrected the PML and gave it its current form that the party has the appearance of an ideological stance. It is history’s legacy that has provided these labels, not well developed and articulated programmes in the form of party manifestos.

The PPP was to gain power twice in the 1990s, both times after gaining the most seats in the elections. As I will discuss in a later article, the use of power during this period was not in pursuit of any programme of reform. The PML also had two opportunities in the 1990s and, as was the case with the PPP, power was not used effectively to further a programme of social and economic reform.

Both parties are now identified with their leaders rather than with their programmes; both are in the field to see their leaders gain power; both have been negligent, if not altogether wary, about indicating clearly how they will use this power once they receive it through the electoral process.

As against the mainstream parties, some of the smaller organisations have approached their constituencies with a clearer picture of how they will function if they were somehow to gain power or be in a position to exercise influence over its use. The constituent parties of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal belong to this category of political organisations as does the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The MMA clearly stands for the introduction of what it believes to be the principles of Islam in all aspects of life in the country. Laws of man cannot supersede those given by God in His revealed work. The role of the legislature, therefore, is to implement what the Almighty has said his people should do. There must not be any deviation from God’s word.

The MQM also has clear aims it would follow — in fact, has followed in the few years it has held power in Sindh’s urban areas. Its policies are those expected of an ethnic group that would use the state to deliver benefits to the people it represents. Once again, the people — both who support and oppose the party — know what to expect from the organisation.

There is no such ideological clarity available from the mainstream parties. Without it, the people who go to the polls would be casting their votes for individual leaders and not for party programmes. If developing the political system is the real objective of the two mainstream parties and not the acquisition of power, they must spell out clearly how they would use the state to further the interests of the constituencies they aim to represent.

INDIA is a great country and it is natural that, like any other great power of the past, it should be nostalgic about it. Accordingly, since independence its main ambition has been to join the ranks of the great powers of the world.

Of late, it has been working very hard to gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. However, so far it has not succeeded in gaining the status of a great power. The question is why?

In my view it is because the Indian leadership has not been quite clear as to how to go about it. It seems to have misjudged the trend of history by adopting policies which were out of sync with the times. For instance, when the world moved into a Cold War mode in 1948-49 the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, along with Soekarno, Nasser and Tito, founded the Non-Aligned Movement in 1955 hoping that it would create a third pole and they would be able to play a role in international affairs.

For the first few years, Nam held the promise of emerging as the moral voice of the majority of nations. It provided an alternative to those smaller countries who did not want to join the camp of either superpower. However, its moral authority started to wane when three of its founding fathers, Nehru, Nasser and Soekarno, began to lean in the direction of one superpower, the Soviet Union. Nehru and Nasser took India and Egypt so close to the USSR that for all practical purposes the international community saw them as members of the Soviet bloc.

Nasser was forced into Moscow’s lap by the British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. But there was no cogent reason for Nehru to move India away from close friendship with China to a devastating border war with it in 1962 and to hastily accept US–British military aid which compromised its status as one of the leaders of Nam.

But for that war, India would have been in a position to play an important role on crucial international issues such as China’s permanent seat on the UNSC. It would have earned it China’s gratitude and most likely facilitated the resolution of the Sino-Indian border differences.

That would have also helped Nehru bring NAM to play a crucial role during the Cuban missile crisis and later in the Vietnam War. This would have enhanced Nam’s influence, and with it that of Nehru, because at that time the UNSC was suffering from paralysis caused by the veto power used by the two superpowers against each other.

The war with China was not the only major mistake made by Nehru. Much before that, during the long struggle for India’s independence, he led an epic movement to prevent the birth of Pakistan and keep India united. But ironically, he became the ultimate cause of its division and Pakistan’s creation. Then he created the Kashmir dispute and left it unresolved with the result that till today India’s relations with Pakistan remain tense and it has failed to emerge as the natural leader of South Asia, which would have been to its great advantage. Instead, Kashmir has become an albatross around its neck.

The tale of India’s great follies does not end there. Having lost the war with China and won the war against Pakistan in 1971, it should have adopted the policy of promoting peace and harmony in the region, economic development at home and strengthening Nam’s role in world affairs. Instead, Mrs Indira Gandhi accelerated India’s clandestine nuclear programme and a nuclear test was conducted in 1974.The prime minister failed to understand that instead of providing India greater security vis-à-vis China, it would prod Pakistan to embark on a similar course, which if successful, would neutralise India’s conventional supremacy.

The result is that today India has neither the mantle of leadership of non-nuclear non-aligned countries nor enough military prowess to become a regional power. If India had not taken the decision to go nuclear in 1974, when it was too late to give it advantage vis-à-vis China, Pakistan would not have become a nuclear power, neutralising India’s supremacy in conventional weapons.

India made another big mistake when Mrs Gandhi reversed Premier Morarji Desai’s policy of opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In spite of the fact that the invasion was a clear aggression against a member of the UN, India supported it. This was unfortunate because she was perhaps the only world leader who could have persuaded Moscow to withdraw before it was too late.

Even if she had not succeeded, she would have gained in stature personally and given India a powerful voice in world affairs. But her support of an aggressor rendered India isolated and NAM more irrelevant as more and more countries began to vote in the General Assembly for a resolution calling for Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Mrs Gandhi’s policy also antagonised the Mujahideen who were fighting against Soviet occupation and gave Pakistan an opportunity to discredit India and get more international economic and military aid. Consequently, within months of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Mujahideen, with the backing of the ISI, began their operations in the Kashmir valley. Almost 18 years have elapsed since then, but the fire continues to burn and has inflicted heavy costs on India in terms of life, resources and the alienation of the people of Indian-held Kashmir.

Had Mrs Gandhi opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, India would have come out on the winning side internationally, created goodwill in Pakistan and increased the prospects of detente with it.

In spite of these colossal mistakes, India seems to be committing another one by signing a nuclear deal with the US which is bound to prove useless in the long run. It will neither give it a more effective deterrent than it already has against its two rivals nor greater offensive capability against them. One does not have to look beyond than the US-North Korea nuclear tension to comprehend the equation between two nuclear powers, irrespective of the disparity between them.

On the other hand, there will be several negative effects on India. It will undermine India’s efforts to normalise relations with Pakistan and China, intensify the nuclear arms race in South Asia, which will force not only Pakistan but also India to divert precious resources away from poverty alleviation, exacerbate the opposition to its membership of the UNSC, and dovetail its foreign policy with that of the US which has become the most hated and feared power of the world under President Bush.

Thus one cannot help feeling sorry for India which has squandered an opportunity to give prosperity to its people and emerge as an influential power in world affairs. India, by virtue of its size, natural resources and population, can still achieve its dream of becoming a world player but only if it moves away from the military-nuclear path to that of peace, harmony and rapid economic development.

WHILE political fires rage, one single factor, inadequate population planning, steadily continues to erode Pakistan’s socio-economic fabric. To be sure, there have been positive initiatives galore, but equally, negative trends are prominent, especially alarmingly high numbers of maternal and infant deaths.

As a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs) 2000, Pakistan aims to reduce by three quarters, by 2015, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, maternal morbidity and mortality. According to Unicef and UNFPA reports, we are still far from this goal.

However, some promising trends have emerged from a recent comprehensive survey of 95,000 households by the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS), which obtained nationally representative data on family planning. Children born per woman have declined from about five to 4.1; likewise, the population growth rate has registered a downward trend, from the earlier 3.4 per cent to the current 2.3 per cent.

To maximise these positive trends, this year’s slogan becomes especially pertinent — ‘male responsibility in maternal healthcare’. Undoubtedly, in order to achieve a better quality of life for all, it is essential to involve men in safeguarding maternal health. Repeated childbirth, especially for women who are too young, too old or too weak and malnourished, is a recipe for disaster. The travails of child-bearing impact on all women, more so the 72 per cent who have access to only delivery at home, largely with inadequate pre-natal care and untrained ‘dais’. Barely 28 per cent women deliver their babies at a health facility, mainly because they happen to live in cities.

Two recent news items come to mind: the first was almost swamped in the screaming headlines of the March judicial crisis; the second was just as tragic as the first. The first story is of Hakimzadi, and her tuberculous labourer husband, Mohammad Hanif. Hakimzadi was in hospital for delivery of a seventh child. Unable to pay the hospital bill, the parents felt their only recourse was to sell the baby, for the ‘princely’ sum of Rs4,500.

The second case was similar. A poor woman, expecting her sixth child, has decided to sell the baby when it is born, because she simply cannot afford another child. For any woman to reach such a decision is unbelievably tragic. Had population planning not reached them?

Both stories are painful reminders of planning gone wrong: Pakistan is no longer a welfare state — those who face grim poverty are virtually excluded from its ostensible progress. The added impact of political tension, strife and bombing, bigotry and mediaeval social norms, all complicate the outreach of services, add pressures to daily living and deprive people of their livelihood. Both stories are urgent reminders of the critical need to address the predicament of those living below the poverty line, not only in economic terms, but also with urgently needed social sector services.

Sparkling economic progress, luxury and ostentation surround us, but parallel, unrelenting poverty remains. The benefits of this economy fail to reach the poor. Does the population ministry reach out to those who cannot afford even a square meal a day, let alone contraception?

Forty million people face harsh grinding poverty, from which there is little hope of escape. The present high population graph engenders great pressures, with growing poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation and civic strife. In addition to other risks, women’s lives are further endangered with repeated childbirth. For every woman who dies in childbirth, another 30 survive with chronic or acute illness.

This state of affairs will continue for as long as decent and sustained nutrition from infancy onwards, optimal healthcare and trained and skilled assistance at childbirth is not made available to every woman. Babies also suffer — 19 per cent are born with low birth weight, compromised future health and the risk of fatality. Continued malnutrition results in moderate to severe stunting, affecting 37 per cent of the population. Both physical and mental development are hampered: infant and under-five mortality rates are still unacceptably high at 79 per 1,000 and 99 per 1,000 respectively.

The national chain of health facilities remains woefully inadequate to address medical problems, including emergencies that frequently arise during pregnancy and delivery. Sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, HIV/AIDS, or Hepatitis B or C carry their own severe impact. Violence and abuse during pregnancy are reportedly widespread; in the range of at least 50 per cent.

Had social sector development received greater prominence, perhaps the picture would be different, with more precious lives saved. Incomprehensibly, the use of contraception is still relatively limited to a mere 30 per cent, indicating that a substantial number of married couples of reproductive age aren’t even practising contraception. Why not? Are the reasons so very difficult to tackle?

Low female literacy, subservience, the preference for sons, and the currently high rates of infant and child mortality are all linked to persistently low contraceptive practice, as are poverty, malnutrition, ignorance and the insufficient outreach of health and family planning services.

A woman’s subservience leaves her voiceless in expressing the number of children she wishes to have; she does not consider her own health a priority. In desperation, unable to practise contraception, she turns to high-risk unsafe abortion. Approximately 100,000 such unsafe abortions are estimated to take place each year. Can any nation afford such relentless, grim misery?

Many women are afraid to practise contraception — they fear that childlessness, or the absence of sons, would tempt their husbands to remarry. Clearly, the day is still far off when every woman will feel entitled to, and receive, optimal healthcare, irrespective of whether she gives birth to a daughter, a son or no child at all.

The question remains: why cannot that surprisingly low contraceptive prevalence rate be enhanced, so that it contributes to women’s reduced fertility, and thereby, to improved health? Are the hurdles towards achieving this so insurmountable? Other countries in the region, despite facing similar problems, have achieved greater success. Sri Lanka is an outstanding example, with 98 per cent literacy. What has brought Pakistan to the bottom of even this list of countries?

The current state of marital ties is often characterised by oppression, a power relationship rather than a partnership, emotional tension, an absence of gender equality within the home, overbearing patriarchal structures, domestic violence, battering and abuse. All such factors serve to prevent the building of a successful liaison among equals. In such a relationship, it is difficult to see how a woman may voice her choice regarding fewer or no more children.

Nonetheless, women have expressed considerable desire to control the spacing and number of births, for instance, 20 per cent of women would prefer to wait two or more years before the next birth, 52 per cent women wanted no more children, or had been sterilised.

There is need to consider the views of women for designing women-sensitive population plans, so that a holistic outlook with a vision of the future is attained. Such an approach, with vigorous and improved outreach of healthcare and family planning services, may yet result in improved quality of life, with fewer deaths and healthier children.

These efforts need to be maximised. We need to look beyond the traditional, medieval mindset, and change the population picture to a progressive one, with ‘male responsibility in maternal healthcare’ being a significant theme for progress.

LET us, for a moment, imagine a hypothetical world where everyone speaks the same language, people are oblivious of any language barriers; there is no ill-will among individuals because everyone is bound together by a bond of common language.

Such is the world in which tranquillity ought to prevail, but obviously it is too Utopian to actually happen. No matter how globalised this world may become, variations in language will continue to exist because people are identified by the tongue they speak.

But that does not preclude us, as individuals, from learning foreign languages which would bring numerous advantages to us. As a famous Czech proverb says, “You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once.”

With all-time sky-rocketing competition in the international job market, articulation in one or more foreign languages gives an edge over others and thus enhances our career potentials. A recently published report commissioned by Michael Thomas, the Hollywood language teacher who has taught many celebrities, highlights some interesting benefits brought to those who learn a foreign language.

According to him, people who learn a foreign language earn an extra £3,000 a year — a total of £145,000 over their lifetime. Companies are prepared to pay workers as much as 12 per cent more if they speak or learn a foreign language.

Apart from the monetary aspect, the options for careers may also improve dramatically. No matter what field a student is planning to be in — business, the sciences, communications, advertising, teaching, government service or overseas employment — the knowledge of a foreign language is often the extra selling point needed to land that perfect job.

From the point of view of aesthetics and self-pleasure, learning foreign languages can be an enjoyable activity. Obviously it is not a week’s process and comes with constant endeavour but the end-result is absolutely satisfying. Where multi-linguity provides a sense of self-achievement and inculcates self-confidence, it also provides an excellent opportunity to enjoy the literature, theatre , music and culture of other nations.

The world is being referred to as a global village. In a world where nations and people are ever more dependent upon one another to supply goods and services, solve political disputes, and ensure international security, understanding other cultures is paramount. Lack of intercultural sensitivity can lead to mistrust and misunderstandings, to an inability to cooperate, negotiate, and compromise, and perhaps even to military confrontation. Therefore, multilingualism enables a society to flourish because it enables the individuals to communicate their minds in the most lucid manner.

Fortunately in Pakistan, our educational system teaches us at least two languages, if not three: Urdu, our national language and English, the language used in official transactions. This should give Pakistanis an edge over their monolingual peers in other places. But our system suffers from serious flaws. The languages are not being taught as they should be. As a result, the students are not so proficient in them and many cannot communicate effectively. Moreover, only a few schools in Pakistan pay attention to teaching foreign languages such as French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

This might be attributed to the fact that there is a general lack of awareness of the importance of learning a foreign language. We as a nation still have to understand the importance of language not just as a medium of communication but also for national integration and for the image of the country. As Khalil Gibran exhorts us, “Be a craftsman in speech, so thou mayest be strong, for the tongue is a sword, and speech is more valorous than any fighting.”

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