| 28 November 2004 | Sunday | 15 Shawwal 1425 |
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No water under the keel
We of my family's firm were happy to be shipowners at the birth of Pakistan's shipping industry, which we remained until it died its untimely death. Since then, I have witnessed several senseless government efforts to resuscitate it, all failures. The keel of Pakistan's merchant shipping rests firmly on the muddy bottom.
Early in 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah invited my father, Rustom Fakirjee Cowasjee, to meet him in Bombay. Jinnah, a man of few words, told him: 'I long to see merchant ships flying the Pakistan flag within a month of the country's birth,' and he asked: 'Will you help?' A man of even fewer words, my father responded: 'Not difficult. Will do.'
Kassim Dada wrote of this incident in his book, 'A Ramble through Life', published in 1988: "Mahomedaliseth was the driving force. Not having any experience of shipowning, he sought the assistance of Rustom Cowasjee, one of the sponsor directors, who was the senior partner of his family shipowning firm, East & West Steamship Co. Rustom Cowasjee had been introduced to Mahomedali by Jinnah. The intention was to have Muhammadi's house flag flying on ships as soon as possible and these two sponsors decided to timecharter vessels until suitable tonnage could be purchased.
"They both went to London and were there when Pakistan became an independent nation on August 14, 1947. Muhammadi's name being unknown in the shipping world, shipowners were not willing to timecharter their vessels to this new company. The difficulty was obviated by chartering the first two vessels, the SS Strymon and the SS Vest, in the name of Cowasjee's East & West Steamship Co, and the third vessel, SS Mount Kyllene, was chartered in the name of Muhammadi."
My father kept his promise. With the help of his Greek owner friend, the powerful Stavros Livanos (father-in-law of both Onassis and Niarchos) he managed to arrange, even though the ships were chartered, that they would be allowed to fly the Pakistan ensign and that the funnels would bear the Muhammadi Steamship Co's livery.
By 1974, 71 ships were sailing the oceans flying the Pakistan flag. Then, in one fell swoop, that decimator of all things, including half his country, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at midnight on December 31 of that year sank the entire lot when he nationalized shipping. The first effort to refloat the fleet was made by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif - a mere gesture it turned out to be. At a grand ceremony held at the Sindh Governor's House, wearing the customary national giant-pizza-sized rosette, he distributed 'permissions' to 23 concerns which had been induced or pressured to apply for licences on forms that cost each of them Rs.35,000. The certificates as distributed read :
"Permission to own and operate ships - The government of Pakistan in the ministry of communications hereby grant permission to.... having their registered office at.... To own and operate ships under the Pakistan flag, subject to conditions printed overleaf. Date of issue 12th may, 1991." They were signed by the director-general, ports & shipping wing, ministry of communications.
The conditions were anything but conducive and the unfortunate three who went out and bought ships all went broke and one is still litigating in the courts of law. While handing me my 'permission', Nawaz asked how many ships I reckoned would be bought by the end of the year. Two or maybe three, I told him. He was flabbergasted. Pointing towards the evergreen bowing and scraping communications secretary, Salman Faruqui, he said: 'But Salman tells me that some 200 ships will soon be bought.' That, of course, was precisely why Salman stood where he did. Today he resides in America and has recently been joined by his brother, the Asif Zardari-appointed Steel Mill man, Osman, who has jumped bail.
Now, 13 years on, MQM's Babar (Khan) Ghauri is the federal minister responsible for ports and shipping. We all know what are his priorities, we know how his party functions, and we know that he faithfully serves to please an honourable citizen of Great Britain.
At a meeting he held with 'prospective' shipowners on November 23 (Dawn news item of Nov 24), he grandly told them: "Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is keen to see huge investment from private sector in shipping industry. We are bent on inducing private sector by giving [it] maximum incentives for boosting the economy."
Shaukat Aziz knows his onions. What he also knows is that as long as there are naval officers (one of whom was Admiral Mansoorul Haq who was later stripped of his rank and medals) running the ever-sinking Pakistan National Shipping Corporation which is guaranteed preferential treatment, no citizen worth his salt will invest in shipping.
Shaukat is being sent a list of what he should do, albeit the list-maker knows full well that all that is listed in undoable. Any man knowing shipping and investing his money will base himself at Dubai Maritime City which is being built and is planned to be operational by 2005. It is a mere hour's flight from Karachi. Anyone interested can read about it on its website. Now we turn to our neighbours, to see what their naval officers are up to. Admiral Arun Prakash, India's 20th Chief of Naval Staff, appointed to his post on July 1 this year, was interviewed by Jane's Defence Weekly at the beginning of this month. He was born in the Kashmir Valley in 1944 (his father served in the Kashmir civil service) and commissioned in 1966. His specialty is aviation and in the 1971 war he served with an IAF fighter-bomber unit. He is a graduate of the US Naval War College.
Admiral Prakash is aiming at converting the Indian Navy into a lean force, augmenting its weapon sensor and network-centric competence and extending its operational range. The ultimate aim, by 2015, is to have a three-aircraft carrier force, with adequate surface and subsurface combatants. He is keen on his country's secretive nuclear submarine programme, for as he says, logic demands that as a nuclear weapon power India must acquire a deterrent and the most important part of the nuclear triad is sea-based.
His navy is keeping a careful eye on China's activities in Myanmar and on its naval build-up, as it is on Pakistan's naval development, with particular emphasis on China's role in developing Gwadar.
A Chinese naval presence there would give China a strategic edge in the Gulf area. But not to worry, says the admiral. There is no cause for concern. The Indian Navy is being built up and is quite capable of looking after itself. He is keen that his navy be a part of the US-led eleven nation Proliferation Security Initiative formed to counter the spread of WMDs.
Was it not Napoleon Bonaparte who said long ago, 'Let China sleep,' and warned of the consequences should the 'sleeping giant' ever awaken? China makes haste slowly. Time, to this great mass of humanity, matters not a whit.
