THE federal minister for defence and commerce, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, spoke about withdrawing subsidies on gas and electricity insisting that people would have to live without these. Since the minister is an elected representative who has to interact with people regularly and be answerable to them, one would shirk from calling him heartless.

The fact is that the government cannot afford to bankroll subsidies on oil and gas for which it would have to borrow money from the banks.

Qualified economists and those with experience of working with the IMF and the World Bank get very angry at the suggestion that Pakistan should not remove subsidies. They are of the view that the country would, in any case, have to pay the price difference for oil and gas and electricity which it could pass on to the consumers or pay itself through bank borrowing. This, in turn, would increase the government’s financial burden which will eventually be passed on to the public. Additionally, this would reduce the efficiency of the government and influence the growth of the economy. Not to forget that the multilateral aid donors these days are full of believers in private sector and smaller governments who would not like to see any government increase its sphere of influence. What’s good for the developed world is good for the developing world as well!

To the aid donors, countries and people have to make a choice about when will they pay their dues. The people of Pakistan, for instance, will have to bear the burden of a price hike in the energy sector be it today or tomorrow. What is inevitable is that they will have to pay up. For a good economist, people taking responsibility for paying the subsidies is a smart move which will be good for the economy. But socioeconomic development is not purely a function of the economy but is linked with the politico-economy of a state.

More important, removal of subsidies is bound to increase the short-term burden for the poor man, which, in turn, could lead to greater instability. Using economic progress as the logic for putting immediate burden on the people is hardly convincing. Nor does the idea impress anyone that the greater burden falls on the rich and not the poor. Increased prices might eat into the rich man’s savings and reduce his/her profit margins, but the rich are in a better position to survive than the poor once subsidies are removed.

An equally boorish idea is that of trickle-down to the masses. This concept has never worked except in Europe after the Second World War and there too the US had provided ample resources to counter the Communist threat. So, the bottom-line is that increasing financial burden in the short-term hurts as much and has an equally long-term effect on the poor.

The more significant issue, however, is to question what does a government define as an item important enough to be subsidised? Why is it that the government is willing to pass on the burden of fuel adjustment to the poor consumer but willing to foot the bill for other conspicuous state consumption? Electricity and fuel, at least, are items consumed by all including poor people. It matters if the price of these two items goes up as it increases the burden on the poor as well as the cost of other things which, in turn, further enhances the burden on the poor. But then there are other subsidies which government officials hardly talk about in the form of privileges for a select few.

The grand golf courses, the huge officers’ housing schemes (be they for civilians or the military), sports complexes, gyms, opulent facilities for civilian and military bureaucracy and political leadership, or many other similar structures also constitute subsidies which are more expensive because the benefit is for a limited number of people rather than the public at large. Such subsidies do not constitute public good despite the fact that these use public spaces. This is not to suggest that Pakistan is the only country where the elite get subsidies from the state. However, it is important for people’s representatives to negotiate subsidies favouring the poor as well to balance out the negative impact of concessions for the rich versus those for everyone.

For instance, India has a large programme of subsidies for poor farmers. The idea is to protect the farmers from the threat of famine and starvation. Many efficiency-minded analysts and economists have problems with the programme which they consider as being highly inefficient and prone to corruption. Under the programme, farmers get assistance to purchase food through a large bureaucratic system. However, the counter argument is that the programme might be inefficient but it is necessary to keep the balance within the larger society. After all, the Delhi government spent billions of dollars to construct a metro to subsidise the rich capitalist who wanted his workers on the job on time. So, why complain about the subsidies provided for the poor people?

The price adjustments are there to stay which means that commodity prices are not going to go down. The government in Islamabad seems to shirk from removing subsidies which, as mentioned earlier, would hurt only a limited number of people who seem to have accumulated most of the capital. For instance, there is so much resistance to apply the capital gains tax as opposed to the general sales tax which will affect everyone including the poor.

Perhaps, while making claims about withdrawing subsidies the commerce minister or even the finance minister have not thought their financial policy through. It is supposedly a people’s government which is expected to offer more to the common man than what we have had in the past. If the finance officials have not given serious thought to the issue of subsidies it could be due to the fact that the government has had no time to plan its policies. It is surprising that Pakistani political parties do not make shadow cabinets once they are out of power. Such a tradition prepares them well in advance for the time when they are in power and cater for the eventualities. The problem of the current economic plan is one of the ramifications of such lack of planning.

It will certainly help if the present regime would carefully think about how it distributes resources and opportunities amongst different classes.

The writer is an independent political and strategic analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

THE two states which I have visited in the last few days are Kerala and Gujarat. They are hundreds of miles apart, but I saw something common between them. Kerala in the south is left of centre and Gujarat in western India is right of centre.

Both are headed by persons who are ideologically fundamentalists. Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan is committed to communism which has Stalin as its hero. Gujarat is headed by Narendra Modi, a fundamentalist in Hindutva drawing inspiration from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Mahatma Gandhi, who won us independence, does not figure in the ideology of both. Nor does his picture hang in the politburos of the two. At the Communist Party headquarters in Kolkata, you can see the pictures of Marx and Engels. At the RSS headquarters at Nagpur, photos of Shivaji and Maharana Pratap Singh are on display. Even when I have inquired about the reason for the absence of Gandhi’s portrait, they have simply shrugged their shoulders as if he does not fit into their scheme of things.

What l found most disturbing was the incipient Islamic fundamentalism beginning to creep into Kerala. Some 40 years ago, Gujarat had its first Hindu-Muslim riot. From then onwards, Hindutva forces have constantly pushed their way in by using weapons such as propaganda and at times through communal riots to be where they are. They have more or less achieved their objective as the Gujaratis themselves do not distinguish between Hindutva and Indian nationalism.

The disturbing trend in Kerala can still be stopped by liberal Muslim leaders. Instead, money is sought from abroad to finance fundamentalists to help them buy the best properties at key places. The Left is unhappy. They are the ones fighting against fundamentalists, the BJP hardly figures anywhere.

What I am expressing my horror at is the manner in which Gujarat has undergone a change. It was a secular society before the communal riots in 1969. Today, it is the stronghold of Hindutva. I am concerned that Kerala may also go the Gujarat way and become home for Muslim fundamentalists. The recent Deoband fatwa against terrorism has made the entire Indian Muslim community think.

However, the terrorists have brought back the vocabulary as if they are fighting against ‘idol worshippers.’ The Indian Muslims have preferred to stay away from the debate which the terrorists are trying to degenerate into an anti-Hindu campaign. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had said that fundamentalism among minorities could be curbed. But if the majority community were to take to fundamentalism, the country would go fascist.

India has, by and large, followed his principles of secularism. But where probably the nation has failed is in Gujarat, which is behaving as if pluralism does not suit the genius of India. In this kind of atmosphere, institutions adjust themselves to the wishes of the master. I saw the fear of Modi all around. He has been taunting the centre to take action against him for the Gujarat carnage. The centre has been found too timid to do so. Now he is blessing action against writers who point out that things have not returned to normality and that the state remains divided on communal lines.

For example, political psychologist Ashish Nandy wrote early this year that “Gujarati Muslims too are ‘adjusting’ to their new station. Denied justice and proper compensation, and as second class citizens in their home state, they have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor agencies. The state’s refusal to supply relief has been partly met by voluntary groups having fundamentalist sympathies...” I experienced this when I was at Ahmedabad earlier this week.

What Nandy has stated is the truth without any embellishment or exaggeration. Things are in fact worse. This is a blatant attack on freedom of expression. How can a free press, an integral part of a democratic society, exist if Modi is so touchy about even the mention of the riots in which 2,000 Muslims were killed? I am encouraged to see that some 170 intellectuals, including academics, writers, film makers, journalists and activists, from all over the world have issued a joint statement condemning the anti-democratic forces “that claim to speak on behalf of Hindu values sometimes and patriotism at other times, especially in Gujarat, but who have little understanding of either”.

The ball is now in the court of the Gujarati middle class, whether living in the UK, the USA or in India itself. They must speak out because it is their name that is being dragged through the mud and it is they who are being blamed for changing their values to chauvinism and narrow-minded obscurantism. At the same time, they should ensure the rehabilitation of Muslims who were ousted from their villages and were not being allowed to return. I met many who want to go back to their homes and who are willing to forget and forgive if given a chance to restart their lives.

Modi’s party, the BJP, is busy devising strategies for the next general election and coining slogans for electioneering. Probably, the Gujarat example goes down well in some Hindi-speaking states. It’s a pity that the BJP has no compassion when it comes to the Muslims. But I don’t expect even a modicum of rethinking from a party which has dreams of establishing a Hindu rashtra and anointing Modi as prime minister after L.K. Advani.

I recall the example of Bhindranwale, a Sikh fundamentalist, in Punjab. He could have been dealt with otherwise and the marching of forces into the Golden Temple was not justified. After all, the place is the Sikhs’ Vatican. At that time the Sikh community should have asserted itself and blocked Bhindranwale from occupying the space which belonged to the nation.

New Delhi’s failure to take on communal forces has created an atmosphere in Gujarat where even a person like Nandy cannot highlight the truth. Mind you, it has taken 40 years for Gujarat to be what it is today, a purely Hindutva haven. This may happen in Kerala and Islamic fundamentalists may clone Gujarat. New Delhi has so far stood helpless in the case of Gujarat. That is to be deplored. Would the centre remain inactive in Kerala and other parts where extremists use Modi as their role model to propagate communalism?

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

IN Shakespeare’s play, a desperate Macbeth is reassured by the three witches that the likelihood of his losing power is as high as that of a forest some distance away moving to the castle gates. Reassured by this, Macbeth feels secure until the day of his downfall, when his incredulous eyes witness the said forest making steady and unrelenting progress towards him. It is enemy soldiers, camouflaged by the branches of trees.

Similarly, until some months ago no one in Pakistan would have seriously believed that certain areas of the country could possibly be in danger from Pakistan’s Taliban elements. True, the Jamia Hafsa stand-off in Islamabad and bombings in Lahore and Rawalpindi were alarming examples of disruptions the militants were capable of in areas hitherto regarded as beyond their reach. But what is currently happening in the NWFP raises nothing less than the chilly prospect of fanatics from tribal areas taking control of Peshawar.

Let’s be clear about one thing: whereas Macbeth is a moral play about a power-hungry murderer and disrupter of law and order who is defeated by the forces of good and all else that is orderly in society, people who threaten to overrun Pakistan are forces of ignorance and regression. As I write, they have set fire to eight girls’ school in Swat. They must be resisted at all costs.

Although the Taliban movement would, in all likelihood, have caused Pakistan tremendous problems at some stage or another, the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 served as a major catalyst. Who knows, Osama may indeed have been handed over to an Arab country, with Washington in negotiations about him. And had the blunder of Iraq been avoided, Al Qaeda would have lost support anyway.

Would the Taliban have survived perpetual international isolation? My guess is, not. But of course, many interests of important people would not have been served that way. The way to hell, it just occurred to me, is paved not with good intentions but with evil ones, as it should be. So all this did happen, as we do not need to be told, and Pakistan is bearing the brunt of it. For where were the Taliban to go when bombed, if not to the tribal areas?

Don’t forget, Washington had it all figured out: their ally Gen Musharraf would put paid to them on the other side of the border, as this was Pakistani territory after all. After having threatened to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age”, they were allegedly paying him large sums of money to do the job so they could get on with business in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

What was left entirely out of the equation was that the tribal areas had always for a number of reasons been largely beyond the writ of the Pakistani state; to expect them to suddenly be brought under unprecedented military control under the newly created situation in Afghanistan was seriously delusional. To compound the mistake, and while all of us were still recovering from the shock of the illegal and mendacious attack on Afghanistan, Iraq was invaded.

As a result, Taliban and Al Qaeda had a field day. Greatly strengthened, they decided to respond to Musharraf’s ineffectual pounding by declaring a war on the Pakistani state, which has since had to negotiate from a position of weakness with ruthless elements that have decimated traditional tribal leadership.

The situation today is that we have a democratically elected government that is dealing with a number of problems such as the judges issue and a food crisis. There is chaos to some degree, which the militants are taking advantage of. They sign agreements one day, and burn schools the next. Pakistan is vulnerable at this stage, and it is time for all political and societal forces to show a resolute front to those trying to blackmail the country.

While it is inadvisable to take military action in the tribal areas and Swat at Washington’s behest, as that would be counter-productive, Pakistan must meet the militant threat by mobilising political forces. There is no alternative to Fata becoming a part of the Frontier province and thus being brought into the political mainstream. Socio-economic uplift is all very well, but it is a long process. Pakistan needs an urgent solution.

The question is, considering the demographic changes that have taken place in the years since 2001, how strong is the support in the tribal areas for fusion with Pakistan? An even more vexed question that will have to be settled is: is Afghanistan willing to recognise the border with Pakistan? What about tribes with members on both sides of the border? These are the questions Pakistan has put of for a long time. Now it has to find answers in a hurry. It is a daunting task, but must be undertaken.

Chances of success are fair in the short run if, firstly, priority is given to the threat from extremists. Second, if foreign interference is kept to a minimum. Third, political parties are allowed to operate in Fata — not to forget, an ANP-supported candidate won in Bajaur last year. This would, to some extent, dilute the necessity of Washington dealing with the Pakistani president because he appoints the provincial governors, who appoint the PA in charge of the tribal areas. Then, the writ of the state is extended to Fata and Swat, which means no Sharia law and lastly, terrorist activities are severely dealt with. A recent poll has shown that support is seriously declining worldwide for such activities.

Sounds unlikely? That’s what people said about the Berlin wall coming down, but it happened because there was a will to make it happen. Those who witnessed and suffered the horrors of Partition didn’t do it for the sake of a Pakistan ruled by fanatics. No, the woods that are approaching won’t provide shade. They will darken the skies until no light can be seen.

The writer is a Cambridge-educated analyst based in Hamburg.

p_v_hassell@t-online.de

PROPONENTS of a US military withdrawal from Iraq routinely brush off criticisms that their ideas are “irresponsible.” But until today, the charge that withdrawal cannot be accomplished responsibly — and just how that would be done — has never been coherently answered.

With the release Wednesday of the report “Quickly, Carefully, and Generously: The Necessary Steps for a Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq”, withdrawal-minded experts, analysts and politicians sought to pull all the answers together in one document.

The report, written by the organising committee after meetings of the more than 20-member Task Force for a Responsible Withdrawal for Iraq in March, does not address the underlying reasons why the withdrawal option is the best one — that case, it says, has already been compellingly made — but rather focuses on how it can be responsibly carried out.

Whenever the topic of withdrawal is broached, said one of three workshop participants from Congress, Rep. Jim McGovern, “the (Bush) administration screams, ‘bloodbath!’” — raising the spectre of Iraq descending into chaos, igniting regional wars, and, as presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has said, Al Qaeda “taking a country”.

But far-fetched warnings of worst-case scenarios aside, the alternative of, as the report puts it, withdrawing “US troops while pursuing a diplomatic and political solution to Iraq’s civil conflict” is out there.

“What we need to argue is how,” said McGovern on a media conference call to discuss the report. “The alternative to not doing anything and not talking about this is resigning to the status quo.”

The report lays out a comprehensive plan for withdrawal of US forces by internationalising what is currently the US role as the centre of political power and humanitarian aid in Iraq, engaging in regional dialogue to stem outside interference in Iraq and convincing neighbouring friends and foes alike to take a constructive role in reconstruction and development, and fomenting Iraqi reconciliation with international and regional support.

Part of the plan is to create a true national reconciliation between the sometimes fighting and always feuding Iraqi sectarian and political factions to be accomplished by a US-endorsed process of a UN-led “pan-Iraqi conference” that would draft an Iraqi national accord.

While the US media often toes the Bush line that al-Maliki is making progress towards reconciliation, the Iraqi government has yet to significantly accommodate other disenfranchised minority political and sectarian groups. Organising committee member Chris Toensing of the Middle East Research and Information Project disputed this notion — noting that though the civil war had cooled down, the political structural problems still existed.

The Task Force also called for robust diplomacy with all of Iraq’s neighbours, including US regional adversaries Syria and Iran. “(The report) shines a spotlight on many policy ideas that don’t get enough attention here in Washington,” said the Centre for American Progress’ Brian Katulis, “and one of them is the need for stepped-up diplomacy.”

Syria and Iran, despite their important role in the region and particularly with Iraq, have yet to be meaningfully engaged by the Bush administration.

“We’re changing the rules of the game and we’re changing the incentive structure radically for the neighbours to be engaged,” said Toensing. He stressed the importance of diplomacy under a UN lead and that the Bush administration has made, at best, half-hearted efforts at engagements.

“Iran and Syria would not be approached hat in hand by the US,” he said, “but rather, by the UN as an equal partner in trying to promote stability in Iraq.”

“Wider diplomatic outreach” with all the neighbours, including Sunni powers, “and trying to bring them together into a more comprehensive and sustained security dialogue about Iraq” is an important step towards a constructive regional role, said George Washington University professor Marc Lynch.

The report also calls for a short-term extension of the current UN mandate for the presence of foreign troops as a means to cover US troops from prosecution as they prepare to withdraw. The Bush administration, in contrast, plans to sign a controversial bilateral agreement with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to continue the status quo of US troops as an occupying force.

During the initial extension, Caleb Rossiter, counselor to Rep. Bill Delahunt, said on the press call, a longer-term UN mandate would be drawn up that would cover the withdrawal and ensuing international involvement.

Part of that, in the even farther long-term, could be a “blue-helmeted peacekeeping force” — referring to UN peacekeepers by the distinctive colour of their helmets. But that prospect is clouded by Iraqi resentment of the UN after corrupt programmes that benefited the dictator Saddam Hussein and UN sanctions that crippled the country in the 1990s.

Asked by IPS about the issue during the call, Task Force advisory group member Carl Conetta of the Project on Defence Alternatives said that US withdrawal can serve to “alter the spin on blue helmets and troops on the ground.” He said that peacekeeping forces would be “invited” by Iraqi authorities.

Rossiter, whose boss, Delahunt, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Bush-al-Maliki security agreement, said that the UN will “need to be able to operate — as a new force — directly with the Iraqi government,” as opposed to the current set up that has the UN now operates through the “true force” of 160,000 US troops. n — IPS News