How prepared are we for a calamity?

This concern has been raised by recent natural calamities in the region, in particular the Asian tsunami disaster. The likelihood of a natural calamity occurring in Pakistan is not as remote as some may think.

According to a press release last week by the Meteorological Department in Islamabad, a strong earthquake in November 1945, the epicentre of which was in the Arabian Sea, about 100 kms from Pasni, had generated a tsunami which hit the Mekran coast, killing 4,000 people.

According to the Geological Research Centre in Quetta in a television programme last week, a major earthquake had rocked the city in 1935, wiping out more than half of its population of 50,000.

A report in Dawn last week had revealed forecast of big floods in the country in 20 years' time due to fast melting glaciers. Moreover, the Meteorological Department has warned that recent studies suggest that Balochistan and its coastal areas as well as the Kashmir region are areas at risk of a major earthquake.

According to the seismic risk map published by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, the country is divided into five seismic risk categories. The two highest risk categories are located in Balochistan, the NWFP, the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir.

Islamabad itself lies at the edge of a "major damage zone" (the second highest risk category). Rawalpindi lies on the edge of a "moderate damage zone" (the third risk category). Pakistan is also surrounded by high seismic risk area countries like Afghanistan, Iran and India.

Pakistan has mercifully been spared from being hit by major natural disasters which have struck the region in recent years. Two of these were much too close for Pakistan's comfort, viz., the September 2003 earthquake in Bam city in southeastern Iran which killed 26,271 people (revised official figures) and the 2001 Gujarat earthquake in western India which killed nearly 20,000 people.

Several recent major coastal calamities in the region also ought to jolt us out of complacency regarding the safety of Pakistan's coastal areas, particularly the ports of Karachi and Gwador.

These calamities include the super cyclone which hit the eastern Indian state of Orissa in October 1999 killing over 10,000 people; the worst rains in 50 years which struck Bangladesh in September 2004 killing over 700 people and causing considerable infrastructural damage; and most importantly the tsunami disaster, which occurred incidentally on the first anniversary of the Bam earthquake, i.e., 26 December.

The tsunami is a real life example of how a local earthquake, which occurred off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, can have unexpectedly disastrous regional/global consequences.

Uncannily, a few weeks before the tsunami disaster, BBC television had announced that it would be televising in its winter season 2005 which begins in January, a docu-drama of a global disaster in waiting entitled Super volcano.

The two-part programme describes the possible global fallout from an eruption in an underground super volcano in Yellowstone National Park in the US, a volcano which geologists say eruption is long overdue as it is routinely known to erupt every 600,000 years, and the last eruption was 640,000 years ago! According to the BBC programme, the disaster causes 500,000 casualties in the US and a billion deaths world wide from global climatic change brought on by the ash of the eruption which spreads around the world.

While it would be difficult to prepare for such a global doomsday scenario, Pakistan ought at least to gear up efforts to strengthen its disaster response network to more localized natural disasters, and also establish disaster prevention and mitigation programmes for reducing the impact of such disasters on its people, settlements and economic development.

An official of the Geological Research Centre in Quetta told a programme on a private television channel last week that the government is totally unprepared for the eventuality of an earthquake like the one that hit Balochistan in 1935.

Experience in the developed countries has shown that accurate forecasts, e.g. of hurricanes in southern US and of typhoons and tsunamis in Japan, can save many lives through timely evacuation.

Studies elsewhere, including India, have also concluded that the implementation of preventive measures (like earthquake resistant buildings) considerably reduce the quantity of loss in natural disasters in terms of lives and property, even after adding in the extra costs of implementing the preventive measures. Besides, the trauma and relief costs are also considerably reduced.

To prepare ourselves for earthquakes, cyclones and tsunamis, we need to invest in the latest systems of prediction and forecast for these natural phenomenon. These systems should be linked to international forecast and warning centres related to these phenomenon as well as similar centres in regional countries.

Encouraging research, education and training in scientific disciplines like earthquake engineering, flood engineering, etc., will help to build up a pool of human resource working in disaster mitigation.

In addition, we would probably need to set up some kind of a Disaster Management Centre in the Capital with connections to similar centres in all provincial capitals and other disaster vulnerable cities in the country.

These DMCs should have state-of-the-art technologies in managing a situation caused by natural disasters, including Remote Sensing, Geographical Information System, Global Positioning System, Computer Modelling and Expert Systems, and Electronic Information Management System.

Besides, these DMCs should also have channels of communication with all prediction and warning establishments within the country and outside, as well as organizations like the Red Crescent, Edhi Trust, hospitals, other civil defence outfits and related NGOs.

Another important preventive measure is to ensure that buildings, particularly in major and even moderate damage earthquake zones, should have earthquake resistant features.

Not only should there be a standard building code and guidelines for earthquake resistant design and construction of all buildings and other structures like bridges and dams, but these guidelines should be strictly implemented, particularly in major earthquake- prone cities like Islamabad, Quetta and Peshawar.

The tendency to build taller and taller buildings in the urban centres will cost dearly in the event of an unprecedented earthquake if preventive measures are not taken.

In Pakistan as is the case of many developing countries, population pressure and fast urban expansion has increased vulnerability to any natural disaster. We should not wait for a disaster to happen to test our shortcomings in risk reduction measures and pre-warning systems.

The city as it was-II

Last weak I gave you an account of the early history of my city from the Handbook of Lahore, by J.L. Kipling and T.H. Thornton. It has been reprinted under the title, Lahore as it was by the National College of Arts). The authors describe the city under the Pathans as follows:

But there is not only a total absence of old Hindu architectural remains. With the exception of two small mosques in the heart of the city, the Nimiwala Masjid and Shiranwala Masjid, and the ruins of one or two shrines, there are no architectural relics of an earlier date than the time of Humayan.

This fact, coupled with the silence of earlier writers, leads to the conclusion that Lahore, at the period of the Pathan dynasties, though of considerable importance, was not remarkable for its extent or the beauty of its buildings. Amir Khosru, at the end of the thirteenth century, alludes to Lahore and the twin city of Kaur simply as inhabited spots in the midst of a desolate waste.

Ibn Batuta, who travelled from Mooltan to Delhi in the middle of the fourteenth, did not think it worth a visit; Timur, at the end of the same century, left it to a subordinate to plunder; the Emperor Baber, who always took care to see what was to be seen, and in his Memoirs has left graphic descriptions of Kabul, Samarkand, and the environs of Delhi, leaves Lahore unnoticed; lastly Amin Ahmad Razi, author of a work called Haft Aqlim, dated AD 1624, states that, until the time of Akbar, Lahore was nothing more than a number of detached hamlets.

In an architectural point of view, therefore, Lahore is essentially a Mughal city; and its Muhammadan remains, with a few exceptions, are in the Mughal style; the exceptions being the tomb of Shah Mussa, by the railway station, which is Pathan; and the mosque of Miriam Makani or Miriam.

To the Mughals we owe the introduction of what now form three striking characteristics of the principal cities of Upper India. In the first place, there grew up with them a new style of architecture, more splendid and elaborate, though less massive, than the later Pathan, from which it was developed.

In the next place, to their love of the picturesque in nature, a pleasing feature in their character, we owe the construction of those regularly planned gardens, with their dense foliage, fountains and initiative cascades, which have excited the enthusiastic admiration of travellers to the East.

Coming from the well-watered valleys and waving foliage of Ush and Andejan, Baber regarded with almost European disgust the dusty, treeless plains of the Punjab. In his Memoirs, he bitterly complains of the ugliness of the cities of Hindustan.

'They have no walled gardens,' he says, 'no artificial water-courses;' and he seems to have lost no time in setting them a good example, by laying out a magnificent garden at Agra.

'The men of Hind,' he continues, 'who had never before seen places formed on such a plan, or laid out with such elegance, gave the name of Kabul to the side of the Jumna on which these palaces were built.'

Lastly, the same appreciation of natural scenery, combined with a solicitude for the preservation of the dead, characteristic of Tartar races, led to the erection of the numerous garden-enclosed tombs, which form a picturesque feature of the environs of every Mughal city.

REMAINS OF THE MUGHAL PERIOD: Lahore, with its numerous gardens, tombs and ornamental gateways, must have been in the days of its splendour, a fine specimen of an Indo-Mughal city; and though no city has perhaps suffered more from devastations and the hand of time, it can still show no mean specimens of architecture.

In the old gateways leading to the fort, we have examples of the old and massive style of Akbar, contrasting remarkably with the elegant but somewhat fantastic architecture of later periods.

In the two elaborately carved vestibules, with pillars of red sandstone, supporting a sloping entablature, in the quadrangle of the citadel, known as Jehangir's Khwabgah, we have good specimens of the Hindu-Moslem style of art, usually supposed to have been peculiar to the time of Akbar.

In the tomb of Jehangir, at Shahdara; the mosque of Wazir Khan, on the south side of the city; the Pearl mosque; the Throne-room and marble pavilion in the citadel; the tomb of Asof Khan; the gardens of Shalimar; the Gulabi Bagh, or 'Garden of Rosewater,' the gateway of Zeb-un-Nissa, and the Imperial Mosque of Aurangzeb, we have examples of the Indo-Mughal style proper, with its usual characteristics of bulb-like domes, supported on elaborate pendentives, ogee arches, with feathered edgings, marble lattice windows, and brilliantly enamelled walls.

As works of art none of them can perhaps bear comparison with the chefs d'aeuvre of Delhi, Agra, or Fatehpur Sikri; but there is one special feature in the Mughal buildings at Lahore which cannot fail to strike observers, namely, the profusion and excellence of the coloured tiling and enamelled frescoes used as an external decoration.

By it the architects of the day were enabled to compensate, to some extent, for the want of stone material and the consequent impossibility of sculpture, and to give to brick walls that appearance of cost liness and durability which, in an aesthetical point of view, is essential to success.

The native name of this species of decoration is kasi or kashi. It appears to have been introduced, in the form in which it is found in this part of India, from China, through Persia, by the Mughals.

Tradition attributes its introduction to the influence of Tamerlane's Chinese wife. However that may be, the earliest instance, according to Fergusson, is the celebrated mosque of Tabriz, built about the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century of our era, just after the conquest of Persia by the Mughals.

The next is the tomb of Muhammad Khudabandah, at Sultaniah, built by the successor of Ghazan Khan, the builder of the mosque at Tabriz. From this date, the use of glazed tiles became common in Persia; but it was not till upwards of two centuries from this time that it came to be so in Hindustan.

The earliest instance of this mode of decoration at Lahore is the tomb of Shah Mussa, built in the reign of the Emperor Akbar. The colours of this, the oldest specimen, are as vivid, and the decoration is as perfect, as in any of the later ones; but the art did not come into general use until the time of Shahjehan, when it took a new form.

Encaustic tiles were, to a great extent, disused, and the designs were executed on a hard kind of cement. This process, being probably cheaper, led to the almost universal adoption of kashi designs as an architectural ornament.

There is hardly a mosque, or a tomb, or a gateway, built during this period, the walls of which are not covered with them. Strange to say, after the reign of Shahjehan, it became almost entirely disused, and the art may now be said to be lost in the Punjab.

Coloured tiles are still manufactured in Lahore and Mooltan; but the colouring is very poor, and the process of executing coloured design upon plaster is altogether unknown.

Fault-lines more daunting than tsunami

It is strange but true that for the usurious baniya, India's ubiquitous moneylender, even mere weather forecasts will bring profits. It is a carefully masked fact after all that in this country, as possibly elsewhere too, the met department holds a vital key to the stock markets.

Predictions of a good monsoon or a looming drought invariably influence the movement of shares of large and small companies listed at major bourses. They also affect the calculations of the moneylenders who prey on unsuspecting poor peasants in fair weather or foul, only tweaking the usurious interest rates somewhat according to the exigencies of their profit plans.

Early knowledge about rain-bearing clouds or leaked information about their expected arrival over agriculturally sensitive regions, or even deliberate dis information about their impending appearance, or simple miscalculations, as so often happens, can play havoc at the stock markets, and they do.

While India boasts of weather scanning satellites and other assorted technologies that should make life easier for its people, the scourge of flood, drought and near-famine conditions that visit the country each year mock these lofty achievements, allowing human vultures to drool at opportunities they see in these unhappy visitations.

What applies to everyday occurrence of callous profiteering from adversities is also valid for bigger calamities. Memories are stacked with instances of hoarding during wars with Pakistan and China to make super profits from illicit sale of food-grains, edible oils, sugar, salt and so on.

All these go well with the attributes of the baniya. Which makes it curious that the same people are the mainstay of India's so-called ultra-nationalist Hindutva movement.

The baniya of course is not a caste-specific Indian phenomenon. It is a metaphor for social vultures everywhere. And so when the FBI issued a warning about a host of suspicious websites that have come up to seek funds in the name of tsunami relief, it merely extends the reach of the vultures on a global scale.

As people and organisations across India rush to rescue and rehabilitate the tsunami victims, they are confronting not just the wreckage left by the killer waves but also the deep and apparently intractable iniquities thrown up by the country's social fault-lines.

They are also coming face to face with the generally unknown and unsung history -and geography - of parts of the country. This was captured dramatically in a front-page picture carried by The Hindu newspaper. It showed a naked man chasing away relief helicopters with a traditional bow and arrow.

The Sentinel tribes of the Andaman are probably the only surviving Paleolithic people, and are generally considered hostile to 'outsiders'. The outsider in this instance is the state itself, which is hurtling into the 21st century with impressive technological achievements, none of which has touched these people or any of the other endangered tribes in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The most distressing stories relate to the plight of the Dalits in relief camps along the Tamil Nadu coastline. They are a blot on the the world's largest democracy which has been unable to shake off centuries-old caste prejudices even in times of catastrophe.

In the Nagapattinam district, among the worst hit, Dalits are not allowed to drink water from tanks put up by Unicef. Even in relief camps, fishermen of Meenavar community don't want to sit with Dalits and have food.

Some of them manage to get rice but other relief items coming in like biscuit packets, milk powder and family household kits are denied to Dalits. Says M Jayanthi, a coordinator of South Indian Fish workers Society (SIFS): "Dalits are facing discrimination in all relief camps where they are present.

But society does not want to raise the issue, as it would complicate things further. Without making it public, we are opening separate facilities for Dalits exclusively."

Here's a stark report by the Indian Express : "At Ground Zero in Nagapattinam, Murugeshan and his family of four have been living on the streets in Nambiarnagar. That's why like 31 other families, they have been thrown out of relief camps.

That's why they are hounded out of schools they have sneaked into, they are pushed to the rear of food and water lines, given leftovers, not allowed to use toilets or even drink water provided by a UN agency. That's why some NGOs are setting up separate facilities for them. Because they are all Dalits."

All these are old issues unrelated to the tsunami tragedy. Adding to the social quagmire are state-sponsored economic policies that have all but ruined whatever little fellow feeling there was among the communities for self-help.

According to P. Sainath, a grassroots journalist who writes for The Hindu, the worst thing that could have happened to the poor victims in Tamil Nadu was the breakdown of the state's healthcare system.

"We have spent the better part of 12 years gutting public healthcare, privatizing hospitals and charging user fees in government ones from people who cannot pay, fracturing an already inadequate and fragile system. Now, when there is a deadly danger of epidemics, there is little to fight them with," he argues.

Clearly, therefore, while the world may be planning to spend billions of dollars on a tsunami warning system, enough to make any baniya drool with anticipation, the Indian state might wish to consider budgeting a few cents worth of medicine and clean drinking water, preferably with no caste taboos attached, for those who are always the worst hit in a calamity.

*****

Actress-turned social activist Nandita Das and husband Saumya Sen, a talented documentary maker, played host to a dozen street children from Pakistan last week. This was part of their Leapfrog project to bring the marginalized children of the two countries together. An Indian 'delegation' of street children had earlier visited Pakistan.

It was an emotional evening for everyone at Delhi's Habitat Centre as boys and girls from both countries exchanged their experiences with each other. "I used to think all Pakistanis were ugly black people," said an Indian boy shyly.

"I was so silly." A Pakistani girl expressed her love for an Indian boy who she said she had adopted as her younger brother. Another young man came up with the theory that if child labour were abolished it would give new employment opportunities to adults. Nandita believes her efforts are bearing fruit as the message of love and brotherhood has caught on with the marginalized classes in both countries.

Spectre of gang war

Not too long ago, Lyari had a vibrant folk culture marked by night-long sittings on pavements and along narrow lanes and merrymaking. Concerts celebrating weddings and other joyous occasions often continued into the small hours. Weekends were enjoyed by both the elderly and the youth: the former spent their time in idle chit-chat while the latter played a lot of sport.

But all this seems to have changed. Now the local people live in daily fear of violence from hooligans belonging to two hostile gangs, determined to fight pitched battles on the streets of Lyari.

Roads and streets start to wear a deserted look immediately after sunset. Few residents hold concerts at weddings. Instead of eating out or having their evening tea at roadside restaurants, most people stay indoors in fear of their own life.

The two gangs have been employing all sorts of criminal techniques - target killing, indiscriminate firing and day-light robberies - to secure a monopoly over drug-pushing in the locality.

Apart from small-time gangsters who often get killed in terrorist ambushes, many residents have been caught in the cross-fire. Quite a few locals have been gunned down on suspicion of being informers of police or of a rival gang.

In addition to robbing bus passengers at gun-point, the gangsters also obtain money by extortion. They do not only force traders and shopkeepers to pay what is referred to as protection money in police jargon, they also get common citizens constructing their houses or holding weddings to part with large sums of cash.

As expected, the worst hit section of the population is the youth. A lack of employment and recreational opportunities, along with the easy availability of drugs and weapons, makes them fall prey to a hateful crime culture. Little wonder, then, that most of the gangsters and victims of target killing are jobless young men.

The gang war has been going on for quite some time. The casualties are regularly reported in the press. But neither the Rangers nor the police force has succeeded in rounding up the gangsters and bringing them to justice, thus lending strength to the impression that the criminals are more powerful than the custodians of law.

Political shenanigans

It is quite well known that provincial leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League are not on a cordial footing with one another. Since they saw that the conspirators who contrived to have former Sindh chief minister Ali Mohammad Mahar dislodged from power were rewarded by the powers that be, they never stop longing for the coveted post which is currently occupied by Dr Arbab Rahim.

Although PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, accompanied by trouble-shooters Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed and Senator Tariq Azeem, was reported to have undertaken a visit to Karachi to make the quarrelsome leaders settle their differences, his trip left local party cadres more divided.

It did not escape the notice of astute political observers that Dr Rahim was not present at the meetings which Mr Hussain held with party leaders either at the residence of Maqbool Shaikh or at the Punjab House.

It is worth noting that in anticipation of resurgence of rumours of discord among provincial leaders with the arrival of the PML chief in the city, the cabinet of the Sindh chief minister had resolved to stay united or at least present a united front for a while.

One of the factors believed to be chiefly responsible for discontent in party lawmakers is the cabinet's failure to formulate a recruitment policy which is expected to create employment opportunities for as many as 20,000 people.

Furthermore, since the local government is often at variance with the provincial government over policy issues, quite a few development projects fail to get off the ground, thus causing greater disquiet among the lawmakers and their constituents.

By the same token, the chief minister was also criticized by local party cadres who accused him of doing little in the wake of an announcement by the National Reconstruction Bureau which said that local government elections would be held soon.

However, Mr Hussain assured them that their grievances would be addressed within 15 days. He thus handed Dr Rahim's rivals a stick with which to beat him at will.

Outdated textbooks

Ask Dr A.H. Nayyar of the Quaid-i-Azam University about the textbooks used by various educational institutions across the country, and he will tell you that they contain a lot of prejudice. They also contain a lot of wrong information.

Browsing through his child's Sindhi book for Grade IX, a colleague recently chanced upon a chapter on New York. His surprise knew no bounds when he found that the book referred to the Twin Towers as the tallest building in the world. According to the book, the Twin Towers have recently replaced the legendary Empire State Building to become the tallest building in the world.

Apparently, 9/11 tiptoed past the educationists who compiled the Sindhi book which was revised last year. The essay on New York was added at the time of the revision of the textbook.

The World Trade Centre was built in 1973 and enjoyed the distinctive status for not more than a year when Chicago's Sears Tower snatched its title. In 1998, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers became the tallest structures and only recently Taipei's 101 Tower has replaced it.

These facts show the essay on New York must have been written some time in 1973. It is not known how the education department got hold of this piece and what made it include the essay in the revised textbook without so much as bothering to check whether its information was up-to-date or not.

According to the education department, it revised the textbooks to modernize the syllabus. This is evident from new essays on the Aga Khan Foundation and Jamshed Nusserwanji in the same textbook.

While there are no factual errors in the new essays, the education department would do well to update the essay on the Aga Khan Foundation which was apparently written 14 years ago.

email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com.