Like at the centre, Sindh also witnessed a change of guard in 2004 with assertive Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim from Tharparkar replacing the docile Sardar Ali Mohammad Mahar of Ghotki as the provincial chief minister. But Dr Rahim could not make any difference to the conditions prevailing in the province except displaying some flashes of showmanship. Sindh continued to suffer from crises pertaining to water, financial resources, law and order and wheat etc.
As in previous year, Sindh remained in the throes of an acute water shortage and many in the province agonized over President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's insistence on construction of the Kalabagh dam which is seen as a death warrant for the agro-based economy of the province.
Sindh's representatives' frequently complained about injudicious water distribution at the sessions of the Indus River System Authority. The opposition to the dam project and resentment over the construction of the Greater Thal canal continued with almost all the political parties, excepting those in government, taking to the streets. The Anti-Greater Thal Canal Action Committee, comprising almost all the major political parties and farmers' organizations of the province, held a number of protests including a couple of demonstrations in Hyderabad, a march from the mausoleum of the Quaid-i-Azam to the Karachi Press Club and a motor rally from Hyderabad to Mirpurkhas, and on the call of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, a strike and a hunger strike were observed and the National Highway blocked for nearly an entire day.
The constitution of the technical committee on water resources was delayed for some time by a dispute over its terms of reference and irrigation experts, technocrats, farmers and writers of Sindh rejected the dam proposal at a meeting convened by the parliamentary committee on the water resources. Even then, the federal government seemed to be adamant on the dam project.
The continued water shortage led to low production of cash crops like rice, wheat and cotton, sparking recurrent protests by the farmers across the province. The growers whose land lie at the tail end of the canals raised a hue and cry against the irrigation officials for encouraging water theft by influential landlords and failing to maintain the irrigation network which resulted in a number of canal breaches in the water-starved province. The negligence was also exposed by the appearance of ditches under the Sukkur Barrage and the army's engineering corps was assigned the job to undertake the repair work with the help of a private company. At one point, the company personnel left the work unfinished because of lack of funds.
The growers were further oppressed by the refusal of sugar mill owners to commence sugarcane crushing on time and pay government-fixed prices to them. Cotton growers also did not receive the fixed price for phutti. Despite promises, a relief package was not announced for the rain-hit farmers of Badin and Thatta districts.
Fishing in the waters of Badin district has been a bone of contention between local fishermen and the Rangers for decades and the former this year scored a partial victory by forcing the government to end the Rangers' control over the lakes of the area. The contract system for fishing in Keenjhar Lake was abolished and the licence system restored.
The release of highly contaminated water of the Manchhar Lake into the Indus caused deaths of more than 40 people in Hyderabad due to consumption of the poisonous water but an inquiry committee constituted by the chief minister failed to pin responsibility for the disaster on any particular department/agency.
The lingering issue of the National Finance Commission award also dominated the political scene. Sindh's representatives, led by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's provincial finance minister, stuck to their stand that the resource distribution among the provinces should not be based solely on the population factor and multiple indicators, including revenue generation and backwardness, must be considered in this regard.
The last session of the commission, held in February in Karachi and presided over by then federal finance minister Shaukat Aziz, recommended an increase in the provinces' share in the divisible pool from the existing rate of 35.5 per cent. Nevertheless, the proposal was not implemented as the federation failed to announce the seventh NFC award and continued resource distribution on the basis of the sixth award which, according to the Sindh government, means an annual loss of Rs12 billion for the resourceful yet cash-strapped province.
Apart from its stand on the NFC award issue, the performance of the Sindh government remained dismal. It kept on announcing that the ban on recruitment in government departments was going to be lifted but failed to issue a notification in this regard due to financial constraints.
The creation of four new districts by bifurcating Larkana, Jacobabad, Mirpurkhas and Dadu districts opened a Pandora's box and it was alleged that the move was aimed at damaging the vote bank of an opposition party and strengthening the hold of some feudal lords/tribal chieftains on their areas. In the last week of December, disturbances and protests in the area, followed by police firing left at least four people dead.
The image of the Arbab government's tilt towards feudalism/tribalism was reinforced when the chief minister's house in Karachi became the venue of a jirga with some provincial ministers presiding over it. Later an unsuccessful move was made to legalize the jirga system by promulgating an ordinance (although the Sindh Assembly was then in session). This came in the wake of an historic decision of the Sukkur bench of the Sindh High Court banning jirgas. The verdict came after the high profile Shaista Almani/Balakh Sher Mahar case which, according to some observers, was blown out of proportion by a populist Sindhi newspaper to create difficulties for then chief minister Mahar.
The Sindh Assembly remained a battlefield with members of treasury and opposition benches preferring their party interests over public issues and creating unruly scenes in the house. From March to December, the opposition submitted requisitions for four assembly sessions on burning issues like the murder of MPA Abdullah Murad Baloch but only one of the sessions was convened. The treasury benches managed to get a resolution passed, calling on President Gen Pervez Musharraf to retain his uniform - in the absence of the leader of opposition Nisar Khuhro and other vocal MPAs of the People's Party Parliamentarians who were in Tharparkar in connection with the by-election.
The MNA seat was grabbed by incumbent Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz by obtaining a record number of around 1.5 million votes amid complaints of rigging and the use of government machinery by his supporters led by the chief minister. Later Mr Aziz decided to retain the Attock seat which created heartburn among the people of Tharparkar and Sindh. He did try to compensate by announcing a special development package for the neglected desert area rich in natural resources.
The year ended with the not entirely unexpected release of the PPP leader and spouse of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, and his subsequent arrest in Islamabad, which provided a new lease of life to the party. However, from giving a walkover to Mr Aziz in the Thar by-polls by fielding a weak candidate to remaining silent on the uniform issue after Mr Zardari's release, the PPP inched towards normalizing its relations with President Musharraf. This was seen by some as a big loss for anti-establishment and pro-democracy forces in Sindh. The death of Imdad Mohammad Shah, G. M. Syed's son, and veteran nationalist Abdul Hamid Jatoi increased the crisis of leadership in Sindh.
Coming to the social issues, the inhuman practice of karo kari, like previous years, claimed more than 250 lives with women making a majority of the victims. After much hue and cry, parliament did enact a new law on honour killings but it contains loopholes which will provide an opportunity to the perpetuators of the heinous crime to go unscathed.
As far as other crimes are concerned, suicide attacks in places of worship and ambushes on high profile targets went along with target killings in the provincial capital and tribal feuds and kidnapping for ransom (and political purposes) continued to haunt the rural areas with explosions on electricity transmission lines, gas pipelines and rail tracks adding a new dimension to the law and order situation. In most cases, blasts on gas pipelines were caused by gas pressure on obsolete pipes lacking maintenance but the explosions on rail tracks and dynamiting of electricity towers seem to tell a different story.
However, it was 'cross border terrorism' (turmoil at the Sindh-Balochistan border in Jacobabad district) which attracted greater attention from law-enforcing agencies and the villagers who had to bear the brunt of the forces. The outlaws always left the area (often courtesy their informers in the police) before an operation was launched against them and police and paramilitary forces could do nothing but detain innocent people and raze their houses to the ground to enable them to boast of a successful operation. A similar approach was adopted during an operation against bandits in Shah Belo and other forests of upper Sindh.
The unbecoming attitude of the police vis-a-vis the public came to the fore also through a number of raids on police stations and the recovery of illegally detained people by court officials deputed by judges acting on petitions filed by relatives of illegal detainees. However, no legal action was taken against police officials indulging in the unlawful practice. As a result it continued unabated.
To end on an optimistic note, the year saw the launching of the second Sindhi-language private TV channel, Sindh TV, while its predecessor, KTN (Kawish Television Network) intensified the information revolution in the land of Moenjodaro by expanding its news as well as entertainment programmes. The thaw in Pakistan-India relations gave a rare opportunity to Indian Sindhis to visit the land of their birth or ancestry which culminated in the participation of a delegation of Indian legislators and writers in the Shah Sachal Sami International Peace Conference in Karachi followed by a tour of their motherland.
Like at the centre, Sindh also witnessed a change of guard in 2004 with assertive Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim from Tharparkar replacing the docile Sardar Ali Mohammad Mahar of Ghotki as the provincial chief minister. But Dr Rahim could not make any difference to the conditions prevailing in the province except displaying some flashes of showmanship. Sindh continued to suffer from crises pertaining to water, financial resources, law and order and wheat etc.
