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| January 10, 2008 | Thursday | Zilhaj 30, 1428 |
ElBaradei’s concern
Curtain calls
Remains of Indo-Pak ‘opportunity’
OTHER VOICES - European Press
IN December I wrote about what I had then described as an Indo-Pakistan opportunity, to quote the title of that article. I had called it so because it was an analysis of a rare combination of good circumstances in the relations between India and Pakistan.
THE nationwide wheat flour crisis has worsened by the day. The situation seems to have gotten out of the government’s hands due to the inability to overcome the product’s shortage and hold down its prices, which have already spiked to a record high — it is being sold for Rs20-35 per kg depending on where you buy it. No matter what the government does to manage the crisis, the imbalance in the flour supply is unlikely to be bridged over the next several days. Meanwhile, the authorities — who find themselves in a tight spot as reports of public protests in various cities proliferate — have refused to take responsibility for the crisis that began weeks before the last wheat harvest was completed. Initially, the government blamed wheat smugglers for the hike in prices. The big price differential in the home and international markets was stated to be the cause. Later, hoarders were accused of holding back their stocks to rig profits. More recently, the long power cuts and paucity of transportation were said to have been the cause of flour scarcity. Now the former chief minister of Punjab even has the audacity to attribute the crisis to a ‘conspiracy’ to malign his party.
The government would do itself and the nation some good if it probes its own policies to look for the fault-line and plan for the future accordingly. It must acknowledge that it cheated the people when it projected the wheat crop size last year at 23.3 million tons, substantially above the domestic requirement of 22 million tons, and allowed wheat export to support domestic prices. If this was not intentional — as it insists — then it needs to review its crop estimation mechanism and build it on scientific footings. Around 0.5 million tons of the grain had already crossed the borders when a fresh ban was imposed on export. A decision to import one million tons of wheat was taken in summer, but barely 100,000 tons were actually imported in October. The government made another mistake when it procured a considerably smaller quantum of wheat compared to previous years. The current situation could have been averted had the food departments of Punjab and Sindh, and Passco, procured a million ton or two more of the grain. One may also ask why effective and timely action was not taken against smugglers and hoarders.
It is feared that the flour crisis will last beyond the next few weeks because of the smaller than expected wheat crop size next season and a global shortage. Unless the government plans well in advance and moves into action, the public, especially the urban consumers, will continue to stand in long queues and pay extra billions for the product. To bring immediate relief, the government should ensure the import of the grain without delay.
THE IAEA chief is not the only one of some consequence to voice concern over the possibility of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists in case of chaos here. Almost all presidential hopefuls in the US have expressed similar concerns, some even suggesting that the US and the UK should jointly “take care” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This is in addition to the well-orchestrated campaign in sections of the British and American media against Islamabad’s capability to ensure the safety of its nuclear assets. Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in May 1998 following several Indian nuclear explosions, but save for the US-led sanctions slapped on both Islamabad and New Delhi, the world did not single out Islamabad for any special censure. Of late, however, the frequency of international concerns over this country’s nuclear assets has acquired a threatening regularity that cannot be dismissed lightly because of its implications.
The world’s concerns about our atomic arsenal have increased because of the political and constitutional crisis raging in the country. The crisis began with President Pervez Musharraf’s reference against the Chief Justice on March 9, 2007, and has continued ever since, with one event coming on the heels of another to rattle the people and the state. Besides the lawyers’ protests, there came the crackdown on the Lal Masjid, the “retaliatory” suicide bombings by the Taliban, the military action in Swat, the imposition of emergency on Nov 3, the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and the postponement of the election by six weeks. The stage is now set for the polls, but the political atmosphere has been vitiated by mud-slinging.
International concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear assets will cease only when we are able to put our house in order and give ourselves a stable political system in which it is the people’s will that reigns supreme. This requires not an election or two, even if fair, but an uninterrupted democratic order in which civil society is so strong that it is able to check extremist and fascist elements through the free play of democratic forces. While the government must ensure the transparency of the Feb 18 vote, the opposition would be wrong if it views the world’s doubts about Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its nuclear assets as a criticism of the government. It is a collective indictment. For that reason, it is the combined will of the government and the opposition that can pull the nation out of this shame. It would throw Pakistan into a new and grave crisis if the lack of credibility of the election forces the opposition to launch a street agitation.
DESPITE being a victim of many dark regimes, theatre is far from taking the final bow. The credit for its survival goes to its own spirit; perhaps the most defiant of art forms, theatre can thrive in genteel auditoriums and on the roadside with equal vigour. It lived to tell the tale in the oppressive Zia years as a parallel movement, which tackled bold themes involving censorship and dictatorship. However, it took many years for theatre stalwarts to regroup and take centre stage again. Last year saw much stage activity in all three centres of the country with Karachi’s National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) playing a major role in not only putting up refreshing productions but also infusing new blood into the field. The spotlight, however, remains on Lahore with its homegrown, more active theatre companies that resonate with comic and serious performances.
Sadly, just when the stage was coming alive again, it was hit hard by President Musharraf’s PCO and began to freeze with stringent censorship measures. Political setbacks aside, theatre has to fight on countless fronts to keep the curtain from coming down. For one, there is the issue of battling the stigma associated with full-time acting. For another, there are the ‘moralists’ branding it as a sin. Hence it is not surprising that families do not encourage this medium as a career. Then there are bureaucratic hassles such as unending clearance procedures involving the ministry of information, police stations, the excise and taxation departments and finally the city nazim’s office that dissuade the most resolute players. Also, Karachi’s once vibrant theatre world has been systematically thwarted by successive governments; apart from the absence of training grounds for the performing arts, there is an acute dearth of halls for plays. Hence, platforms built for seminars end up doubling as auditoriums with inadequate acoustics, lighting, depth and other technicalities. The government, along with NGOs, must invest in this art form to ensure that the stage is always set as a means of both communication and recreation.
This ‘combination’ consisted at that time of the following circumstances: neither their internal nor their external relations were pushing either India or Pakistan into hostility towards the other.
Nor were Russia and America dragging South Asia any longer into the hot waters of the Cold War, and relations between the peoples of India and Pakistan were rising to delightful levels.
Pakistan was too busy fighting its internal wars to have the appetite for provoking India into cross-border hostility. In fact much that is happening in the north-western regions of Pakistan and beyond is better described as a shared battle by the two countries against ‘Islamic’ extremists. At the same time, if not prevented by America, India would like to construct a major economic triangle with Pakistan and with the third most populous Muslim-majority country, Iran.
Imaginary interpretations might make certain domestic developments in India look like bursts of the BJP’s antipathy towards Muslims.
But that party has found better fields to cultivate in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and much of central India, where the BJP is getting much better dividends out of issues of caste, class and governance than it would get out of any poses vis-ŕ-vis Pakistan.
But the pith of this ‘opportunity’ lay in two other factors. The first was certain major political developments in Pakistan, particularly after the return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan, each in a new avatar.
Both had returned from their respective exiles as more capable and more dedicated opponents of Gen Musharraf, partly because of the ongoing suppression of democratic possibilities in Pakistan by him and partly the mishandling of the relations between Islamabad and the outer provinces of Pakistan by him. Both factors were encouraging leaders in India and Pakistan to take a new look at the relations between the two countries.
The return of Nawaz Sharif was bound to give a fillip to democratic politics in Punjab and the return of Benazir would have reassured the outer provinces.
The domestic factors in both countries favoured their taking this ‘new look’. Even earlier, both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir had supported what I described in December as “spells of very good relations with their opposite numbers in India, Benazir with Rajiv Gandhi and Nawaz Sharif with Inder Gujral”.
Time and space might have separated today’s India from those spells. But most Indians would probably recollect those interludes with pleasure even now, and that was a part of the ‘opportunity’.
If that is so, then it may be worth speculating how much of that opportunity has or can survive the tragic and dastardly elimination of Benazir. I had personally found her to be mercurial and unpredictable, both when she, as prime minister of Pakistan, was spitting poison against India and during a spell of hospitality which she had extended to me at her home in Larkana where, in a small gathering, she had given high praise to my book about her father, Zulfikar Bhutto (If I Am Assassinated, which was published by Vikas, New Delhi, just before Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged).
But kind or hostile, she was never without her vibrancy and more than life-size potential in a democracy. Of course now she will not be there when — and if — democracy pays another visit to Pakistan. But even in her absence she will be a force to contend with as the coming events unfold themselves.
They will surely add up to a triangle, with her memory in one corner, Nawaz Sharif in another, and in the third a huddle of all those who will try to prevent any meaningful election.
If it is the case, as I believe it is, that other countries will not simply stand by and let the militarists blatantly crush an incipient democracy under the boot again, then a huge responsibility is cast upon the democratic parties, even if it be that they have now been reduced from a robust twosome to a decapitated one and half.
How much will the ‘half’ pull, and in which direction, seeing that commemoration of her role in the PPP will be the main ‘pull’ in that party?
Will the combined pull of the rejuvenated democrats prevail or the pull of the militarists who may join hands with the militants, both being under threat of dethronement by democracy and both conspiring to prove that democracy cannot work in Pakistan?
Therefore the democratic parties will be caught in a dilemma. Each of them will try to defeat all the others rather than to help democracy to succeed. In the process they will destroy themselves and thus destroy the country by prolonging its inability to rule itself democratically.
These thoughts did not disturb me when writing earlier on this subject because at that time the military and the militants were being confronted by a pair of experienced political rulers who had a stake in making democracy a success.
Now they are confronted by the one and a half, and the half, being without Benazir and led by Asif Ali Zardari, is short on experience and public trust.
Much may come to rest on the shoulders of the many, for example the judges, and lawyers like Aitzaz Ahsan, who came out on the street on behalf of democracy and made a very good job of helping to save it. But it will now be the job of the regular parties to elicit their help and to create space for them by getting the best brains in the country behind the job of governance. The test should be their democratic credentials, not how long who has been with which party.—The Asian Age
Becoming real consumers
THE past few months have seen much bleating about high prices and profiteering, as the country geared itself up for adoption of the euro on Jan 1.
To an extent, the complaints were justified: businesses rushed to raise their prices from last summer to escape the price monitoring conducted by state services from September and to avoid accusations of profiteering come January, when standard price rises would normally have come into effect. At the same time, international oil prices have gone through the roof, raising costs for almost every business in the market.
Inevitably, as people began using the euro this week, stories emerged of outrageous profiteering by unscrupulous individuals latching on to the opportunity offered as people got used to the new currency…. The fact is, of course, that these are isolated incidents that [sic] many family-sized businesses are rounding down their prices to the nearest euro, just as they often used to round down their bills to the nearest pound, while bigger businesses have made a very public point of rounding down their conversions.
What’s more, consumer inflation, while very high in November and December, was actually lower last year than in 2006, according to figures released by the statistics department this week. Indeed, consumer spending (admittedly credit-driven) has risen much faster than inflation over the past 12 months.
There’s every reason to expect this trend to continue with our adoption of the euro…. the access to a massive European market that our participation offers is likely to allow lower prices by reducing costs for those doing business with Cyprus, until recently a tiny, very closed economy.
But if the price panic has been seriously exaggerated, it has created a very welcome new phenomenon: the Cypriot is finally becoming a proper consumer. Until now, shoppers were often happy to pay up blindly. Now, the price frenzy is making us cautious, rebellious, encouraging us at last to shop around.— (Jan 5)
A revival of democracy
THERE was an impressive turnout for last week’s presidential primary in the American state of Iowa…. The Democrats in particular benefited from a surge in the number of first-time caucus-goers and young voters.
And last night the signs were that these levels of enthusiasm had been maintained in New Hampshire. But the story of the 2008 presidential election so far has been about more than mere numbers. Party activists and independent voters seem especially energised….
There are a number of factors behind this. One is that the present occupant of the White House is hugely unpopular.
Another important factor is the nature of the candidates themselves, who are running starkly different campaigns…. the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has won many admirers among Republicans with his easygoing manner and homespun appeal.
On the Democrat side, John Edwards is running on [a] sort of social welfare reform ticket.
Hillary Clinton has run a more centrist campaign, but the participation of the first-ever serious female presidential candidate has grasped the public’s attention.
Finally, there is the Obama effect. Barack Obama is the first African American with a genuine chance of going all the way to the White House.
The Illinois senator’s upbeat campaign has caught a public mood of optimism…. The race is still open. But what the early days of this contest demonstrate is that exciting candidates and interesting policies can successfully re-engage people with the political process.
It is a phenomenon that we in Britain, with our own depressingly high levels of political apathy and stifling first-past-the-post electoral system, could learn from. We could do with some of the democratic buzz that this US presidential campaign has generated. — (Jan 9)