Laboratory of hate

WHAT a cruel coincidence that the birthday of Mother Teresa, who embodied love for Indian children, should have fallen in the same week of August when two Christian children and their mother were burnt alive by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in Khandmal district in Orissa.

True, the Naxalites claimed that they killed the Hindu mahant (priest), Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, because he had indulged in crimes against Christians. But the Naxalites’ statement is taken with a pinch of salt. The Hindu extremists are said to be the real culprits.Orissa is the same state where a leading Christian missionary Graham Staines, and his two sons, were burnt alive a few years ago. His brave wife is still working for the amelioration of the poor. The current state chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, was in power at that time as well and even then he failed to take appropriate action against the Hindu extremists. Christian missionaries have been imparting free education and treating patients in this area. But that has not made the Hindu extremists tolerant. They have been attacking Christians for decades.

The central government too has done very little to guarantee the Christians their constitutional rights. A union minister has said that the Orissa government has once again failed in its job. Such statements do not bring Chief Minister Patnaik to book or punish the government which has failed in its constitutional obligation to protect the minorities.

This time the state did not wake up for five days. The VHP spread its vandalism to Khorapur and some other parts of Orissa. They destroyed and burnt houses. The Christian tribal people sought refuge in the jungles. According to official figures, some 16 persons were killed and 558 houses and 17 churches burnt. The chief minister refused to hold an inquiry.

That the central government failed to dismiss Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat after the pre-planned killings of Muslims is understandable because the government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was at the helm of affairs in New Delhi. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stopped after expressing his indignation because the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh instructed him not to go beyond that. Why the Manmohan Singh government has faltered in dismissing the Patnaik government cannot be comprehended.

It is obvious that the centre is afraid of the BJP which supports the Biju Janata Dal government in the state. Probably, the impending general election has enfeebled the Congress.

Such fears are unfounded and reflect cowardliness. Had the state government been dismissed, the impression would have gone around that the Congress, heading affairs in New Delhi, was willing to go to any lengths to uphold the rule of law. This would have rehabilitated the party in the minds of the people, particularly the minorities, who want to refurbish the country’s secular credentials which are at present clouded.

The disconcerting aspect of Indian society is that the sense of tolerance and the spirit of accommodation are wearing thin. They have provided for centuries the glue to the country’s ethos of pluralism. This glue should never be allowed to dry up. This keeps the country together. Yet it is unfortunate that there is no political party which sees beyond the next election.

There are not many credible persons left in the country to enunciate, much less retrieve, old values. The political parties do not realise that there is no alternative to pluralism in a country where the dialect changes after 100 kilometres and where the complexion of the population is different from the one left behind at a short distance. Parties have an obsession with acquiring power by hook or by crook. The sanctity of methods has gone and with it the pull of Gandhian philosophy. The government has been concentrating for the last two years on the nuclear deal with the US. New Delhi has had no time for anything else.

Yet, if the nation is to preserve the fundamental values of a democratic society every person, whether a public functionary or private citizen, must display a degree of vigilance and willingness to sacrifice. Without awareness of what is right and a desire to act according to what is right, there may be no realisation of what is wrong. Over the years for many, particularly government servants, the dividing line between right and wrong, moral and immoral has ceased to exist. They are busy amassing wealth and there is not even a routine piece of work that takes place without the palms of an array of government servants being greased.

If one were to determine the watershed for the deterioration one would woefully conclude it all began with the economic reforms, the craze for acquisition. The mania of the government for maintaining the growth rate of three to nine per cent has led to the survival of the fittest. The poor and the weak have been driven to the wall. The government still has faith in the trickle theory — the higher the growth rate the more its fruits reach the lowest. This does not seem to hold water.

The World Bank, the government’s mentor, has said in its latest study that India is home to roughly one-third of the world’s poor. It has also a higher proportion of its population living below $2 a day than Sub-Saharan Africa which is considered the world’s poorest region. The progress made in the last 61 years since Independence is that the poverty rate — those living below $1.25 per day — has come down from 59.8 per cent to 51.3 per cent. This means that nearly 500m people still live on Rs40 to Rs50 a day.

If India is to mean anything to people within the country and in the neighbourhood, it has to go back to its original ideal of a welfare state. In his first letter to the chief ministers, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said: “Government policies in the immediate future should be geared to meeting the requirements of the common man.”

In the same way, measures for enforcing secularism should be implemented. Secularism does not mean that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians cease to pursue their religion. It only means that religion will not be allowed to play a part in civil affairs. We cannot afford to let the traders of hatred have their way.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

The social farce

ALTHOUGH Pakistan’s attention seems completely diverted towards the upcoming presidential elections, there are other equally important things happening in the country such as the burying alive of two women.

The words of Baloch Senator Israrullah Zehri has angered a lot of people. The politician believes that such acts cannot be condemned as they are part of the local tradition of not allowing women the freedom of selecting their partners without the consent of their parents or guardians. Those trying to challenge authority, hence, must be punished according to tribal norms.

The feminists, in particular, view it as an issue of women’s rights. However, this problem is a subset of the larger issue of the lack of social and political development and the gradual militarisation of society. It should be viewed in this context.

While analysing the issue, let us differentiate between reality and the response to it. The social reality is what was expressed by the Baloch senator, according to whom honour killing is part of the local culture and traditions. His statement angered many but I would prefer Zehri over others of his kind — like one particularly prominent, foreign-educated and seemingly liberal female politician who many years ago made a similar claim during a private conversation. I was perturbed how she hid her feudal character under the garb of western sophistication. Such elements are difficult to catch and protest against.

Over the years, especially during the past couple of decades, society has become more militarised which means that what is defended as local culture is actually a greater distortion of religion and local traditions to enhance the power of individuals. The power play that we see in the country amongst politicians on a larger scale is actually an extension of a similar game that is played at the micro level in society. Women get punished as well as men because they don’t have a similar power status. This is the norm of a feudal, tribal and militarised society.

Surely, Mr Zehri did not know any better. He, like many others of his kind, has only seen the exercise of naked power. The senator was only trying to defend what he sees as a symbol of power that is his ultimate goal and that of others strutting about in the corridors of power. Balochistan is not alone in this. Such savage acts are presented as custom in other parts of the country as well. Recently, when I expressed my concern to a Sindhi journalist regarding the opening up of new madressahs in interior Sindh as a means to influence the Sufi traditions of the region, his response was that what was a matter of greater concern were incidents of honour killing — all defended in the name of tradition.

Can honour killing stop without debating the structure of society and without wanting to change it? The answer is in the negative. Protests against individual acts of violence will certainly provide relief to a few but will not root out the problem. The religious clerics led by the feudal/tribal leaders (or the other way around) will keep arguing that women have fewer rights than men. But their claims and counter-claims are all a farce until people begin to address the issue of restructuring the culture which is the basis of such crimes.

And one has to be realistic in understanding two critical points. First, feudalism and tribalism do exist in the country. For those, who believe that feudalism is no more in this country, the answer is that the institution has morphed into newer shapes. It might have ended from the perspective of the mode of production, but its socio-cultural forms exist. In fact, the institution has deepened its roots.

Second, the militarisation of society has influenced the process of morphing so that individuals, groups or institutions who represent the non-feudal class behave like them as well. For instance, there is no real difference between Senator Zehri and Pervez Musharraf who not too long ago had claimed that women get raped to get Canadian visas. The underlying sentiment is similar — gender rights or human rights are not possible because it challenges the power of those at the top who will then choose to treat issues of rights as cursory and one to be ignored and brushed aside as minor problems, even non-existent matters.

Let’s be very clear that such acts of brutality have nothing to do with religion or morality, otherwise such brutal rules would be applied elsewhere too. I am reminded of a tragic incident in a village in south Punjab where a young girl, who had sought shelter at a shrine after running away from her stepmother, was gang-raped. Ultimately, she was imprisoned on charges of adultery because the culprits had greater access to the local pir who was a member of parliament as well. The victim did not represent his constituency while the culprits did. The power structure was clearly tilted against her and so was the local standard of morality.

Interestingly, similar norms were not applied to some of the female members of the pir’s family known for morally dubious practices. Even the orthodox mullahs of that area have never ventured to punish the immorality mentioned above or issue fatwas. In fact, moral turpitude is a reality in all closed spaces. Peep inside any closed household, especially those that claim to be the spiritual saviours of the people, and there will be a number of stories, the protagonists of which go unpunished due to their higher social background.

The social system says that money and power determine whether or not one is punished for an act of immorality. These two aforementioned attributes make it convenient for many to hide their sins and escape honour killing or jail sentences. More important, the menfolk of such families are not even expected to hide their immoral acts. In many cases, being a mullah or a pir is sufficient licence for anything otherwise condemnable.

So, while we agree that Mr Zehri has correctly projected honour killing as a local tradition, could we also ask him to see the circumstances in which such practices are born? Burying men or women alive or killing them for honour is not about religion or tribal morality but about the ability of some individuals to exercise naked power.

The question is that is it social imbalance that Zehri and others like him were elected to defend or will he see the real purpose of his and others political existence? Furthermore, closed spaces and unequal power will always breed moral corruption. The current power structures have to be broken if morality is to be restored to our socio-political space.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Fighting terrorism through reconstruction

DURING his visit to Pakistan in 2006, US President George W. Bush unveiled an economic package for the country. In addition to other things, the construction of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) in the tribal regions was promised.

These zones were aimed at facilitating job creation and economic development in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the NWFP, the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir, and Balochistan, within 100 miles of Afghan border.

There are reports in the media that some headway has been made in the direction of legislation in the US Congress. The scheme of ROZs primarily aims at providing market access to the goods manufactured in the tribal areas at no or a lower rate of customs duty with a view to attracting investors and industrialists to come and set up manufacturing units in the restive tribal areas. The industry located in these areas would spur economic development by providing employment opportunities to the population and improving their standard of living.

The rationale behind setting up the ROZs is to provide opportunities for economic development in areas which have always remained backward and have thus provided a breeding ground for extremism and violence.

The ROZs are, prima facie, considered a viable route to sustainable economic development. In fact, this model has generated dividends in some other parts of the world. It is imperative that in order to make this measure a meaningful enterprise, it should clearly be known that the idea of ROZs cannot advance unless there is peace in the tribal areas.

If turmoil continues unabated, it will not be possible for entrepreneurs to set up businesses and industrial units in the proposed reconstruction opportunity zones. In order to attract both domestic and foreign investment in these areas, the establishment of peace and normality is a prerequisite.

It is against this backdrop that the policy of dialogue and political engagement being pursued by the Pakistan government assumes critical importance. It needs to be understood by those criticising this policy of dialogue that tackling the phenomenon of terrorism is not merely military in nature. Rather, it presupposes other factors too with political engagement being on top of the list. Therefore, the Pakistan government should be supported in its endeavours for the establishment of peace and order to achieve the objective of rooting out terrorism in the region.

Long-term and durable strategic objectives should not be compromised at the altar of short-term tactical details. Every region has its own peculiar traditions, value system and set of social and religious norms. No policy can succeed without addressing these aspects. Thus any comprehensive policy for economic development and tackling terrorism in Fata should include a mix of political, economic and cultural components.

In order to achieve these objectives, the most important element relates to the building up of institutions through a blend of local traditions and innovations, which are credible enough to win the confidence of the populace. These institutions can serve as a vehicle for eliminating perceptions of exclusion and disenfranchisement through identification and the redressing of the root causes of political conflicts.

Divergent approaches often give birth to confusion with the result that a trust deficit marks relations among stakeholders. There is a need to work out procedures and structures to make the most of efforts without falling victim to a lack of confidence in one another. People of the tribal regions should be encouraged to develop feelings of ownership of such projects. This can go a long way in making ROZs a successful venture. The lesser the trust deficit, the greater the feelings of ownership, and hence, the better the chances of the ROZs succeeding.

Furthermore, the legal framework of ROZs being considered by the US authorities should aim at achieving results rather than being an eyewash. Lessons should be drawn from the previous experience of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) of both the US and the European Union. Although the GSP aimed at providing preferential market access to products of developing countries, the heavy cost of proving their origin and comparatively less concession on duty for labour-intensive industries resulted in low utilisation rates. This gave rise to perceptions in developing countries that the GSP failed to achieve the desired results.

Against this backdrop, it is important that the cost for proving origin in the case of goods manufactured in ROZs must be minimal, which requires liberal and flexible rules of origin. It is also required that maximum concession is given to labour-intensive industries like textiles, leather and sports goods etc so that these industries may gainfully employ the maximum number of people living in Fata.

As regards market access regarding textiles, there may be opposition from the US textiles lobby for granting favourable access to Pakistan. Legislation on the proposed ROZs should not be susceptible to such pressures and misgivings as Pakistan has less than three per cent market share in US textiles and clothing export, which is very low. To make the optimum use of the ROZs, it is imperative that safeguard mechanisms like the allocation of quota and the capping of production should not be resorted to. Furthermore, to enable the ROZs to deliver the desired result, public-private partnership should be its important facet.

Studies conducted to explore the link between poverty, political freedoms and terrorism show that countries undergoing democratic transition are more likely to be exposed to the threat of terrorism and extremism. Countries in the intermediate range of political freedom are more prone to terrorism than those with either high levels of political freedom or highly authoritarian regimes.

Pakistan can also be classified in the intermediate range. Therefore, the terrorist dangers facing us should be confronted head-on with confidence and by adopting a multi-pronged approach. Fighting terrorism through economic reconstruction should be an important ingredient of an integrated and comprehensive policy designed to tackle terrorism.

Aid to Pakistan

IF the Obama-Biden ticket succeeds in November the prospects of a significant jump in American development assistance to Pakistan would grow considerably. This would ignore the evidence that much past aid to Pakistan has been wasted.

Between 1950 and 2000, donor assistance to Pakistan has been of the order of $60bn. Yet, the country’s social indicators are languishing at the bottom end of the list of countries. The health system is sick; the infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births in 2007 was 80 compared to 12 in Sri Lanka. Education is in a shambles with half the population still illiterate, an increasing number having to turn to madressahs, and the rest receiving indoctrination instead of an education. No wonder, religious and social intolerance is rising rapidly.

Hopes that new aid would be used wisely are misplaced without explaining what has changed that would lead to better utilisation. Its poor use is often blamed on rampant corruption and weak governance. These have deteriorated over the years, not improved. Even otherwise, these are lame explanations that reflect poorly on the donors.

These conditions are well-known before the assistance is programmed and should be built into the design of aid-assisted projects. The fact that they are not suggests that either the donors are really naïve or they have a hidden agenda. Unfortunately, the average citizen in Pakistan has by now become convinced of the latter.

The remedy is not to stop all development assistance to Pakistan but to design it in a way that good outcomes become possible. The Pakistani situation seems immensely complex from afar causing well-intentioned people to think they could never understand its workings. There is, however, a simple way to understand why outcomes of development assistance are so poor in Pakistan.

A useful analogy is with the subprime mortgage crisis in the US. It is possible at times for the interests of various players to be aligned in such a way that no one has an incentive to call a halt to the madness at the same time as the regulatory mechanism fails to do its job. Unlike the US, public response mechanisms are so weak in Pakistan that even failures of huge magnitude go unquestioned; people just adapt to their fate.

Take the example of the health system in Pakistan that I have been researching. US governments are interested in moving money to Pakistan when they believe their strategic interests are at stake, Pakistani governments are more than happy to receive it, the US Agency for International Development is rewarded for disbursing funds quickly through the pipeline, and private US contractors have an easy source of income.Pakistani NGOs that are supposed to watch out for the citizens are unable to resist the lure of big money; most of them end up as subcontractors on the major projects. Despite the lack of results, not one of these players has shown an interest in stopping to take a second look.

The only parties who gain nothing out of this cycling of money are unable to exert any meaningful influence on the process. The US taxpayer is not well served by the Government Accountability Office whose primary concern seems only to ensure that the disbursement of funds follows proper procedures. And the Pakistani citizen is not consulted at all; it would be hard to find one who knows what is being done in his or her name. There is not even an easily understood term for Millennium Development Goals in the local languages.

For aid to become effective a number of design changes are needed. First, nationwide programmes need to be replaced by geographically delimited projects whose deliverables are clearly specified. Second, different donors should be placed in a competitive framework executing similar projects in different locations. Third, beneficiary populations have to be involved and represented by citizens’ committees that are provided information about budgets and key milestones. Fourth, media representatives need to become engaged to keep a scorecard and to regularly disseminate information about the progress so that corrective actions can be taken in time.

Some of these elements, consciously or by happenstance, were part of the design of the immensely successful Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) that have contributed so much talent to Silicon Valley and are now fuelling the software boom in India. In the 1950s different donors were assigned the tasks of funding, implementing and nurturing each of the various IITs and the resultant competition for prestige contributed greatly to the success of the outcomes.

Intelligent design and credible accountability are the keys to effective utilisation of aid to Pakistan. Without these US taxpayer money would continue to be poured down a dark and bottomless hole furthering even more corruption, cynicism and hostility in Pakistan.

The writer, a public health physician, is the 2007-2008 Pakistan scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington, DC.

www.thesouthasianidea.com