Political pranks in Pakistan

THIS is with reference to the letter headlined “Political pranks in Pakistan” (June 13). I agree with the writer that good politics and governance have fallen into decay in Pakistan. The decay started during Gen Ayub Khan’s era and continued during the days of Gen Yahya, Gen Zia, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. As a consequence, no institutional development took place owing to which now there is a dearth of national and provincial leaders.

Why has there been this decay? For one simple and important reason: the utter disregard for the rule of law in the country. Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani realize this and, for the sake of the rule of law, are fighting on the issue of the LFO, and not indulging in political pranks.

The LFO is a very complicated issue (reference articles by Prof Emeritus Anwar Syed of June 1 and June 14) and it should be resolved rationally, otherwise the political decay will continue.

The uniform of Gen Pervez Musharraf is also an important political and legal issue. It is not just “go baba, go”. It is “yes president, yes” if, and only if, the Constitution of the country and the elected legislature are recognized in its true value and status.

A complete disregard for the Constitution is the main reason of the decay of politics and governance. This ominous trend has to be reversed.

As regards the plundering of the country, it should be understood that everyone is involved: the military-politicians, the bureaucrat-politicians and the public-politicians. The NAB website has details on this subject. But the most tragic part is that of the involvement of the army in politics. As a result, the status of and respect for the military in public are at their lowest ebb.

I am amazed at the assessment of the letter writer, wing commander (Retd) Ahmed Zafar Farooqi, that the trainees of “..military institutions are far better than any politician of today can boast of.” What has this training to do with politics? Did the Quaid-i-Azam and Liaquat Ali Khan acquire this training? If the military institutions are giving this kind of training, then I am afraid it is a very poor training. Ayub’s Khan decade of development, Gen Yaha Khan’s splitting up of the country, and Ziaul Haq’s Islamization campaign are not very good examples of politics and governance by the military trainees.

Let us be very clear on one point. Unless there is the rule of law in this country, according to the Constitution, the country will continue to decay and its people will remain victims of the political pranks.

ENGR A. RAHIM

Troy, Michigan, USA

Improving Pakistan Railways

I AM writing in response to a letter which appeared in this paper last month about the Pakistan Railways. I am working as a divisional engineer (DEN) in this organization. I fully endorse the views of the writer and want to suggest some urgently needed administrative measures:

1) Contracts pertaining to engineering works are the main source of corruption in the railways. The appetite for commissions and kick-backs begets a perpetual tug-of-war among civil, mechanical and electrical branches. To curb this corruption, at divisional level, the CSS cadre ‘divisional commercial officer’(DCO) should be the final authority for granting contracts, with engineers working as his advisory staff.

2) To put an end to the inter-cadre rivalry, especially among the civil and mechanical engineers, the CSS cadre officers at respective hierarchical levels be assigned co-ordination and vigilance responsibilities.

3) In its organizational set-up, the railways has amazing resemblance with the army. The main operational and commercial job is done by general administration ‘commercial and transportation’ group, while civil, mechanical, electrical, signals, telecom, medical and railways police provide service and assistance to them. So for proper checks-and-balances and accountability, clear rules and regulations should be delineated for the empowerment of the general administration railways group.

4) To encourage and reinvigorate the officers, promotion mechanism should be streamlined.

5) For junior field officers like the ATOs and the ACOs (BPS- 17), whose job is related to safety and operations, it is required to hold day and night inspections of the stations. Similarly in the case of accidents they have to reach the spot immediately. Thus they should be provided with proper vehicles along with office and residential phones. To ensure availability in case of emergency, field officers should be provided with mobile phones.

Now with a new minister, a new chairman and a new general manager, it is high time that these steps are taken on war- footings to revamp this decaying national asset.

HAMMAD SARFRAZ

Lahore

Private practice by doctors

HALF-hearted measures are a tradition with our bureaucracy and that is why nothing seems to work properly in our country. New private practice rules for government doctors have been announced, according to which they will have to see their private patients in the government hospital in the evening and deposit half their earnings in government treasury which will be spent on the poor patients coming to the hospital during working hours.

This is a good step but the Punjab health minister has announced that these regulations will become effective from June 2004. However, in the meantime, perhaps, to beat this rule, interviews for six posts of specialists were held recently under the chairmanship of the Muzaffargarh DCO for the local DHQ hospital. This is in spite of the fact that the already present permanent specialists in the absence of private practice regulations are plundering the poor people here at will. Thus the newly-recruited specialists are also bound to start doing the same on their appointment.

The Punjab government is requested not to issue letters of appointment to the newly-selected specialists until the final enforcement date of the new private practice regulations.

ABDUL SAMAD

Muzaffargarh

Katrak Hall residents’ plight

I DRAW the attention of the Sindh chief minister and the works minister to the stoppage of work on the extension road from the Quaid’s mausoleum to Saddar Dawakhana passing through the Lines Area.

Not only are the nation’s scarce resources being wasted by ad hoc, stop-go working but, in the process, roads, drainage systems, etc. have been uprooted piling up huge mounds of debris all over. The abandoned trenches and debris have closed the main gate of the Katrak Hall Parsi Compound. The poor residents have to enter and exit from a hole made in the wall.

The disruption has created immense misery to the residents which is compounded by damaged water pipes, broken sewerage drains and breeches in the boundary wall. The abandoned area has become a happy hunting ground for thieves, beggars and land-grabbers.

I request that chief minister to visit the Parsi Katrak Hall and observe these conditions for himself.

M. P. BHANDARA

MNA, Rawalpindi

Guddu barrage irrigation system

THE combined river flow has increased to 500,600 cusecs which is almost 200,000 cusecs more than the withdrawal capacity of the country’s irrigation system (Dawn, June 10). This should be sweet music to all farmer’s ears, especially in Sindh. But it is not.

The tail-end farmers all over Sindh are groaning under the perennial shortage or total lack of water. In fact, the irrigation system in Sindh is generally in disarray. But in Guddu Barrage, no irrigation system worth its name exists. The left bank canals of this barrage are totally mismanaged. All the rules and laws enacted to run the system efficiently and justly are openly flouted by influential farmers and officials.

Outlet nodules are invariably over-sized or broken. The banks of the small distributaries are breached to irrigate the fields of the upper-end farmers who do not let the water pass downstream until their 100 per cent lands are irrigated.

No irrigation official dares or cares to stop this immoral and illegal practice, which has resulted in complete ruination of the tail-end farmers all over.

One such classic example is of Reti Minor Canal (of Seharwah) in Talaqo Daharki. The tail-end farmers of this canal have not received irrigation water for the last three years. Even in this season of overflowing rivers, they have not received a single drop of water as yet because the upper-end farmers do not allow it to pass downstream. They are giving it to their cotton crop while the tail-end farmers have perished.

Their animals have died from hunger and thirst. Their families are facing famine. Their lands are parched and their future bleak. All their pleadings for fair and just distribution of water only amuses the mighty and the powerful. This is their way of eradicating poverty and un- employment. To top it all, the chief minister of Sindh, a provincial minister and a federal state minister (water and power) belong to this district.

Do you think we have an under-doze of democracy?

CHAUDRY RUSTAM ALI

Daharki

The locked money

WHILE the British India was partitioned into the sovereign states of Pakistan and India under the Indian Act of Independence in 1947, the ruling Nizam of the British Indian State of Hyderabad Daccan decided to remain independent.

Immediately thereafter, India invaded the Muslim majority and the Muslim-ruled independent state of Hyderabad and almost occupied it by Sept 16, 1948.

On the eve of this occasion, the wealth of the Nizam of Hyderabad (£190,794,009), on the initiative of the state’s prime minister and his finance minister, was transferred into the account of the high commissioner of Pakistan then in London, officially held in

the National Westminster Bank in London, where it is locked since then, as a disputed asset.

The Nizam of Hyderabad filed a case in a court to claim its recovery in 1954, but the court turned down his claim with the remarks that it was the ‘legal property’ of the Government of Pakistan and the Nizam had no right to claim it. Later, the Privy Council of the House of Lords of England also rejected his appeal and upheld the decision of the court.

With regard to the dispute over the rightful ownership of this bank-locked money, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and General Muhammad Ayub Khan agreed “during 1960” that it may be divided into the ratio of 60:40 between India and Pakistan, respectively. Again in 1978, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, then foreign minister, and Gen Zia-ul-Haq endorsed it as a key to this problem.

In addition, the governments of India and Pakistan further decided, in 1979, to take a joint-legal action against the National Westminster Bank, London, for the recovery of this ‘bank-locked’ money, which now stands tremendously increased.

As nothing has been practically done since then, it will be in the common interest of both the countries to pursue it expeditiously for its earliest recovery without any further delay.

MIRZA GHULAM HAIDER

Multan

Wheat flour & newspaper

IN your editorial headlined, ‘A measure of progress’ (June 12), you remark (with reference to Pakistan): “A lower middle-class family, for instance, can buy more than a month’s stock of wheat flour with the money payable for a month’s supply of a newspaper.”

No, sir. It seems you are either oblivious of the price of wheat flour or of a newspaper, or of both. The average quality atta is currently selling at Rs12 per kg. A lower middle class family consumes approximately 2.5kg of atta per day costing it Rs900 per month, whereas the prices of newspapers range from Rs10-13 per copy or Rs300-390 per month. No match between the two. Please rectify the erroneous notion.

GULZAR AZIM FAIZABADI

Karachi

Who is more wrong?

THIS is with reference to Mr. Nazim Ali Hoti’s letter ( June 19). He has asked who is more wrong, the moulvis or the companies which use young girls in advertisements.

I never said anything in support of the companies either but I only ask one question: why their (moulvis’) version of Islam revolves around only two things when we have very many things to think about.

Don’t they think of alleviating poverty, spreading education, fighting sectarianism, improving the quality of life of the common people by providing them with electricity, transport and many other basic facilities, thus bringing the GDP level up (according to Mr Ataur Rehman, the combined GDP of all Muslim countries is less than Japan’s) and above all, preaching tolerance which is missing almost everywhere in Pakistan?

NIAZ H. JAFRI

Karachi

The budget & single women

THE new budget is out and I must say it’s a positive one indeed. Among the many good moves is the special interest rate that the NSS will now give to the widows and the 15 per cent increase in pensions. These two relief measures are in addition to the exemption from property tax and various other benefits the widows are entitled to.

This is a commendable step no doubt, but are the widows the only single women who need support? What about the poor divorcees or even, the abandoned wives? Women who get no child support, no pension and no social and financial help from anywhere?

The fact that a widow might be rich does not take away her right to all these benefits. Her late husband could have left her enough property and assets for her to roll in luxury for ever. Her wealth is immaterial, what counts is the fact that she is a widow.

This title establishes her in the category of the ‘needy’. The divorcee on the other hand can be pathetically poor, struggling to make both ends meet, trying her best to be both father and mother for her hapless kids. The NSS is the only safe option for investment and a source of income she has. This, too, has been continuously made less and less profitable for her!

A divorcee is a social ‘pariah’ in Pakistan. Please, Mr Shaukat Aziz do not make her a ‘financial pariah’ too.

RAFIA MIRZA

Lahore

Performance of police

ARRESTING six people for their alleged involvement in an explosion outside the Aladdin Park is a good performance by the police. It was also a good performance when they recovered explosive gadgets in a raid on a house in Korangi.

In fact, these explosives could have caused more disasters in the city. Despite many failures, we hope the police will continue to act against the outlaws.

FEROZ SADRUDDIN

Karachi

Finding high commissioners

ON June 6 Mr Kunwar Khalid Younus suggested in these columns that the governments of India and Pakistan try for the posts of high commissioners people like Khushwant Singh, Kuldip Nayar, Gulzar, Gopichand Naraang, Justice Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, Jamiluddin Aali, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi and Iftikhar Arif.

I will ask Mr Younus a question: does he expect these great men to follow the line of diplomacy as will be given to them by the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan who would not qualify even for the posts of baby-sitters in the West?

RAHIM JUNEJO

Karachi

The parable of the gardener and WMD

AN interesting controversy emerged in early fifties among the philosophers of the British analytical tradition over the question of the existence of God. The believers and the sceptics developed sophisticated arguments to prove the existence of God or reject the proofs of His existence. Famous philosopher Anthony Flew came up with a very interesting argument to disprove God’s existence. He cited the parable of the gardener to silence his adversary the believer-philosopher. The parable in the words of Anthony Flew runs thus:

“Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot.’ The other disagrees, ‘There is no gardener.’ So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.’ So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds.... But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still..the Believer is not convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.’ At last the Sceptic despairs, ‘But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?

This parable did not conclusively end the controversy over the existence of God issue, but it certainly has been considered to have given to philosophers a very strong principle of logic, namely the falsifiability principle. According to this principle, if a statement cannot be falsifiable in principle, then it is a meaningless assertion.

I see a strong parallel between the parable of the gardener and the WMD issue. One may ask Bush and Rumsfeld “Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible eternally elusive WMD (of Iraq) differ from an imaginary WMD or from no WMD at all?

DR ARIFA FARID

Karachi

THREE items in your issue of June 5 (“Russia, US at odds over Iran” by Sergai Blagov, “Bush administration’s credibility falling” by Jim Lobe, and “Blair grilled over WMD intelligence”) make an interesting study concerning the pre-Iraq-war vociferous claims by Two Bs (Bush and Blair) about the axis of “evil” possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Doesn’t it prove that all WMD were stock-piled in the minds of those who were under psychosomatic influences? The solution lies in bombarding their imaginative powers to smithereens.

 M. AYYUB

Lahore