Needless provocation

IT IS much to be regretted that India expelled four officials, including two diplomats, of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on Wednesday. The charge is familiar: they were acting in a manner incompatible with their diplomatic status — which is a euphemism for spying. Pakistan’s acting high commissioner has denied the allegation and maintained that they were performing their duties according to the “well-established diplomatic norms.” The Pakistan foreign office spokesman has termed the Indian action “unfortunate”, saying that the action would “vitiate the atmosphere” further. Pakistani diplomats, too, were being harassed by India, he said, but Islamabad had not gone public on the issue because it did not wish to raise tension. Another foreign ministry official called the Indian allegation absolutely baseless. In response, Pakistan has expelled four members of the Indian diplomatic mission in Islamabad.

The diplomats’ expulsion comes in the wake of the charge earlier this week by India that its charge d’affaires in Islamabad had been harassed by Pakistan security officials. That way India seemed to have prepared the ground for retaliatory action against Pakistan diplomats and declaring them personae non grata. This is not the only provocation coming from the BJP government in recent weeks. The other day, the newly-appointed Indian army chief, Gen. Nirmal Chand Vij, grimly threatened that the Indian troops could be redeployed quickly on the border with Pakistan because “the scores with Pakistan has not been settled.” Obviously, the army chief would not have been so brash and bilious unless cleared by his government.

The truth is that the hawks in power in New Delhi seem determined to maintain tension between the two countries. The bulk of the troops from the two sides have been pulled back to peacetime locations, but New Delhi remains strongly averse to any initiative for normalization of bilateral relations. War, no doubt, was averted, thanks to American diplomacy. But India has continued to maintain a hard-line posture towards Pakistan. It has refused to resume dialogue with this country and continues to accuse Islamabad of sponsoring “cross-border terrorism” in Kashmir. The Indian prime minister also refused to attend the meeting of the heads of government of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation scheduled for this month in Islamabad. Also, New Delhi has shown no interest in reopening the rail, road and air links with Pakistan. Just the other day, the Indian government hosted a conference of international parliamentarians in New Delhi, but it did not invite anyone from Pakistan. Surely, such a step would have helped improve the climate of tension and bitterness. New Delhi also refused to give visas to some Pakistan peace activists who were invited by their Indian counterparts.

One fails to see what purpose it serves to keep tension alive. The only possible explanation is the one offered by the Pakistan foreign office spokesman and the acting high commissioner in New Delhi — that in the fresh round of state elections later this year, the BJP government plans to cash in on the current anti-Pakistan hysteria to mobilize the Hindu right-wing vote in support of the ruling party, as happened recently in Gujarat. If such is the case, this is a dangerous game to play, for regardless of the immediate electoral benefits, a further rise in, and spread of, Hindu militancy and communal hatred can eventually play havoc with the peace and harmony of the country’s multi-ethnic, multilingual and multi-religious society which is already showing signs of coming apart.

Neglected in Thai jails

THE report that some 200 Pakistanis are languishing in jails in Thailand is distressing. But even more so is the revelation that the Pakistan consular staff in this South-east Asian nation has shown little interest in providing any help or support to these prisoners who have been unfortunate enough to land in jail there for one reason or the other. This apathy contrasts with that of the staff of other embassies in Thailand who are known to keep in close contact with their nationals in Thai prison, visiting them regularly on religious and other important occasions and rendering help when needed. Pakistani prisoners, on the other hand, have not been able to benefit even from organizations working for the welfare of prisoners in Thailand because these organizations can only help on request or intercession by the embassy staff. The result is that Pakistani prisoners do not benefit from the food, clothing and books that these welfare organizations hand out to prisoners.

The callous indifference on the part of the Pakistani consular staff is evident from their failure so far to take advantage of regular measures like the King’s pardon, which grants amnesty to prisoners, including foreign nationals. The latest such pardon to prisoners took place in December on the occasion of the King’s birthday. Many foreign prisoners in Thai jails who were eligible for the amnesty are back in their home countries only because their embassies had worked hard to get them pardoned and freed. The embassy has a key role to play in this respect because it has to initiate a formal request to the government of Thailand for pardon of any of its national who is eligible for amnesty. The job of an embassy abroad is more than conducting diplomacy or just issuing passports for its own nationals and visas for intending visitors to its country; it very much includes looking after, to the best of its ability, the welfare and interests of each and every one of its nationals who happens to be in that foreign country.

CHK under pressure

THE problems faced by the 55-year-old Civil Hospital in Karachi are varied and diverse in nature. Its infrastructure, initially planned to cope with a 200-bed hospital, is now bursting at the seams, given that the CHK has rapidly grown to become a 2,000-bed facility. Thus, the existing infrastructure and other relevant facilities, such as sewerage and designated public areas, have fallen drastically short of current requirements. This has created all sorts of problems to patients, doctors and visitors, whose cumulative number exceeds 3,000 on an average day. Thankfully, a sewerage upgradation plan has just been launched, and it is hoped that when the project is completed in six months’ time, things will improve. However, given the number of medical facilities it offers to patients from Karachi and the rural hinterland, the CHK is likely to remain congested and overcrowded.

While it is imperative that the authorities concerned pay attention to the efficient running of the CHK and other large and well-equipped public hospitals — the JPMC and Abbasi Shaheed Hospitals are the obvious cases in point — the increasing pressure on these facilities makes it necessary to build new hospitals in a city as large as Karachi. This is the only way the government can keep pace with the ever-growing public demand for medical treatment, both general and specialized. The quick fixes in the form of expansion plans, which have been implemented from time to time at the large public hospitals, have now reached saturation point. Besides, the facilities on offer still do not take the public hospital system any closer to the patients’ homes which, given the city’s rapid expansion growth, are increasingly located at great distances from the city centre. Karachi needs more public hospitals for which land and funds should be allocated as the city rapidly expands.