What the reforms package means

THE Indians have a name for it and a place for it in their pantheon of governing deities. They call it Ardhanhari. It is a composite of Shiva (the god of destruction) and his consort Parvati — half male, half female. Together, the two, the male symbolizing the contemplative shakti and the female the active shakti, fuse into one composite omnipotent force.

On August 21, while presenting his constitutional reforms package at Pakistan Television Studios in Islamabad, President Pervez Musharraf revealed the creation of a similar entity in Pakistan — a fusion of two potent powers, of himself as the president of Pakistan and of himself again as its Chief of Army Staff; the nation’s two supreme authorities, civil and military, co-joined, like a set of Siamese twins, at the head.

Although this is not the first time in the history of the country that a president in uniform has also retained control directly or indirectly over the armed forces, it is perhaps the first time that the presidency of Pakistan has been equated constitutionally with the level of one of its subordinate service chiefs. By this amendment embedded in the Legal Framework Order, the Chief of Army Staff is no longer a shadow, watching and waiting in the wings, or an alternate president, a quickening heartbeat away from the presidency. The heartbeat of the Chief of Army Staff and of the president will for the next five years pulsate as one. Should one die, the other twin dies simultaneously.

To many Pakistanis, President Musharraf’s announcement through the Legal Framework Order of the concentration of all power in his own person was already overdue, a belated formality to his earlier unconstitutional act of appropriation when he ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on October 12, 1999. If that act of daring had been initially to protect the post of the COAS, his subsequent self-appointment as the Chief Executive brought him as COAS at par with a prime minister, and the referendum earlier this year elevated his COAS-ship one notch higher.

The latest constitutional amendments, however, like the last of Salome’s seven veils, reveal what some perceive as naked ambition in a man who describes himself disarmingly as “a democratic dictator”, determined to achieve a peaceful transition back to democracy.

The quality of the forthcoming general elections will be the true test of that claim. To the contestants the elections seem like an unending obstacle race in which the impediments are put in place, rather as a Roman road was built a few days ahead of the approaching forces.

Whatever may be the results of the general elections, Musharraf is convinced that General Naqvi (head of the National Reconstruction Bureau) has constructed enough defences to prevent any elected prime minister from ever reaching the inner sanctum of effective power that, according to him, must and will remain firmly in his own hands, as president and COAS.

Whatever an elected prime minister may do or want to do, he or she will always feel constrained by two constitutional restraints — the power of dismissal by the president under the restored Article 58(2)b, and the collective pressure of the National Security Council, which will act as the modern resurrection of the Star Chamber of Tudor times.

What will be the role of the parliament, then? Its role will be to legislate, President Musharraf has said, since financial powers and authorities have already been devolved to the district officers. That contention might have been unarguable had so many politically canny nazims not surrendered their nazimships to contest for assembly seats in the forthcoming elections.

What will be the role of the National Security Council? It will be a forum, General Musharraf maintains, a consultative body that will determine and safeguard the national interest. Any action the Prime Minister may take or plan to take would be subjected to the litmus test of examination by the NSC.

The very expansiveness of its composition — the president/COAS, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Chairman of the Senate, the service chiefs (the chairman of the JCSC representing the army) and the governors of the four provinces — might well prove to be its inherent weakness, for the success of the NSC deliberations would depend, as in the case of a tribal jirga, on an unquestioned acceptance by all of its decision. What use would an NSC decision be if it was neither binding nor enforceable? And enforceability, General Musharraf anticipates, lies in the ambidextrous hands of the president/COAS.

There are a few who suspect that General Musharraf’s inclinations towards a Turkish style of governance stems from the formative years he spent in Turkey during his father’s posting there. To many more, especially those with a professional interest in politics, his constitutional amendments package will result in a permanent constituency for the Pakistan army in the body politic of Pakistan. If you want the army out of politics, General Musharraf declared brazenly during his press conference, you first have to bring it in.

No leader in Pakistan’s history has ever dared, even with the same sort of constitutional advisers that President Musharraf is relying on, to attempt such a radical expropriation. That he does not regard this as a negation of civil rights or a disequilibrium between an elected government and a subordinate agency is his own perception. His justification for the provocative Legal Framework Order is that he is simply recognizing the “realities on the ground”.

In this perception, he has been assisted less by the inventive General Naqvi and more by the ineptitude, corruption and undiluted self-interest of Pakistan’s professional politicians who have looked to the army as a referee, if not a saviour, in their rough and tumble confrontations. To many voters above the age of 21 (those newer voters below will not remember), the contestants in this national obstacle race are themselves the major obstacles. When someone, for example, told President Musharraf that Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan (the grand old midwife of Pakistani politics who has assisted in more abortions of governments than natural births) had no confidence in him, he retorted that he had no confidence in the Nawabzada either.

His feelings for the Sharif family border on contempt. While he does not dismiss their potential as possible opponents, he is confident that under the terms of the agreement under which its 14 members were sent into exile, the Sharif family cannot expect to leave their gilded incarceration for ten years. That agreement, Musharraf has declared, is not with the Sharif family but between the government of Pakistan and the Saudi government—-in his words ‘state to state’.

What he might find more difficult to explain is the other ‘ground reality’, that the Sharif family faces twelve cases initiated, pursued and now suspended sine die by the National Accountability Bureau, and yet fosters the expectation that some of its members will be allowed to contest the forthcoming general elections.

The only opponent General Musharraf fears, as have the Pakistan army bonapartists for the past twenty-five years, is undoubtedly Ms Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People’s Party. Since 1977, she has been the equivalent of an Aung San Suu Kyi in their lives, the troublesome irritant that will not go away, and even if she is away abroad, cannot be wished away. Vulnerable, with a sick mother, a husband in continuous custody for over five years, the spectre of arrest and imprisonment should she return, she remains driven by the propellant prospect of power (however hamstrung) for an unprecedented third term.

In a sense, she is playing the hand her father taught her. In 1970, he contested the elections, unsure of the public’s response, but once the results confirmed his primacy in West Pakistan, he used it with devastating skill. Ms Bhutto, ironically, is similarly poised. She is as unsure as Musharraf’s government is of the actual strength of the PPP vote bank. If permitted to contest, she becomes the prodigal daughter returning home. If prevented, she can reject the electoral exercise as partisan and discriminatory, and the results as unreliable and precast.

If extraditionless movements of citizens between the states of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are shown to be possible, perhaps President Musharraf’s government might consider requesting the Saudis who moved the Sharifs out of Pakistan on a private Saudi plane to return the compliment.

They should ask the Saudi government to suspend sine die the charges against Ms Gulzar Asghar, a pregnant young mother who, according to HRCP, has been imprisoned on a false charge concocted by her in-laws and kept in jail at Madina, release her and have her flown out of Saudi Arabia on the same private aircraft home to Pakistan.

Task before Johannesburg

THE statistics are awesome: 65,000 delegates from 185 countries; more than 100 heads of government; a press corps of 4,500; a police security force of 27,000; and a total bill of $60 million. All these make the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg the biggest international convention ever held. Bigger than the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the predecessor of the WSSD and the benchmark by which it has to assess the world’s environmental developmental record over the past ten years, and set an agenda for future action.

WSSD 2002 differs from Rio 1992 in another way too: the prominent presence of multinationals like McDonald’s, Nike, Rio Tinto and British American Tobacco. The traditional ‘bad boys’ of the green movement — responsible for exploiting and causing environmental-societal damage to countless developing countries — are sitting side by side with governments and civil society groups. WSSD is about promoting partnerships.

Some of those already announced seem bizarre, to put it mildly. McDonald’s — symbol of globalization and its attendant evils — is now an official partner with Unicef and will work to raise money for it. Greenpeace has joined up with Shell, Monsanto and mining giant RTZ in the Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Such partnerships could be interpreted as recognition by the main antagonists in the green debate that economic development and environmental protection do not necessarily conflict. Indeed, that in the longer term, one cannot happen without the other. If so, it would be a truly laudable development.

But there is an alternative, more cynical explanation: that big business is jumping on the green bandwagon to subvert it from within. According to this interpretation, multinationals have been drawn to Johannesburg to prevent rather than promote green action. By giving sponsorship dollars to meet the enormous costs of WSSD they have bought influence — influence that will be used to protect their interests. One green campaigner likened the presence of powerful corporate entities to ‘having Al Capone helping you draft criminal justice laws’.

As WSSD 2002 got underway, the world was reminded of how multinationals gained their notoriety. On August 28 an Indian court refused a request by federal prosecutors to reduce the culpable homicide charge against Warren Anderson to one of ‘hurt by negligence’. The former carries a maximum jail sentence of 20 years, the latter just two.

The court is in Bhopal, scene of one of the most horrific industrial ‘accidents’ in recent history. Warren Anderson, now retired, was the Chief Executive of Union Carbide, the American firm that had a pesticide plant near Bhopal. The ‘culpable homicide’ charge is for the deaths of 4,000 people following a gas leak from the plant on the night of December 2, 1984 and for the subsequent deaths of 14,410 people (according to Indian government figures and 20,000 according to unofficial estimates).

The actions of Union Carbide that led to the 1984 disaster, and its subsequent attempts to evade responsibility, are symptomatic of multinationals’ abuse of developing countries. For the first point to stress is that what happened in Bhopal in 1984 was not an ‘accident’. It was the inevitable and predictable result of negligence, cutbacks and — quite frankly — lack of concern on the part of Union Carbide about the safety of its Indian employees and nearby residents.

The Sevin manufacturing plant should never have been built so close to the densely populated city of Bhopal. The lethal pesticide should have been stored in small concentrations, not the 50-ton tank used in the Bhopal plant. The tank should never have been allowed to become 90 per cent full — way over the 50 per cent safe limit. The cooling system designed to keep the pesticide at 0 degrees Celsius, and hence safe even if it did leak, should not have been disconnected. A faulty flare tower meant to burn off escaping gas should have been repaired. The maintenance crew should not have been cut from six men to two. The night watchman’s position should not have been abolished.

A firm that fails to carry out such basic safety precautions cannot then claim, when the inevitable disaster occurs, that it was an ‘accident’. Furthermore, when the inevitable disaster occurs, it should face up to its responsibilities and make every effort to compensate those who suffered because of its negligence. Union Carbide made every effort to evade responsibility.

It blamed the leak on sabotage by a ‘disgruntled employee’. It ensured that the subsequent case was heard in an Indian rather than American court — where levels of compensation would have been much higher. It eventually accepted ‘moral responsibility’ and reached an out-of-court settlement with the Indian government for $470 million — equivalent to just a few hundred dollars per victim. Walter Anderson, Chief Executive of Union Carbide in 1984 and the man who initiated the cost-cutting drive that contributed to poor safety procedures at the Bhopal plant, made one brief visit to the site a few days after the leak. He has never been back since. The company has done nothing to clean up the Bhopal site — still highly toxic.

Neither of the above — the disaster or the shameful ‘compensation’ — would have happened in the US or any other industrialized nation. Union Carbide has a pesticide plant in West Virginia, where all the safety procedures that were not followed in Bhopal are rigorously implemented. The Bhopal gas leak was inevitable; a West Virginia gas leak is virtually impossible. Should it ever happen though, one can well imagine how huge the payout would be for 20,000 American deaths.

The Union Carbide-Bhopal disaster is symptomatic of something else: Third World governments’ complicity in abuse by multinationals. The Indian government, far from pressing for justice for its blighted citizens, is trying to appease the Americans. It was Indian federal prosecutors, not Mr Anderson’s lawyers, who sought the reduction in charges against him. Eighteen years have elapsed since the disaster, yet the Indian government has not even started extradition proceedings against Walter Anderson. The reason for this incredible appeasement policy? — to attract more US multinationals to India!

Union Carbide’s devastation in Bhopal is an extreme example, but there are many lesser cases of multinational abuse in developing countries. Mining companies have caused massive environmental damage in many parts of Indonesia. Rio Tinto, mining giant and one of the corporate attendees in Johannesburg, plans to start extraction in Sulawesi, a protected area of Indonesia. Vast areas of the South American rainforest — the planet’s ‘lungs’ — have been eroded by logging companies.

There are also many other examples of multinationals evading compensation for the damage their operations cause, or paying ridiculous amounts. Cape plc, a British multinational, exposed its South African workers to asbestos long after it introduced procedures to minimize the exposure of its East London workers. Those among the latter who developed asbestosis were compensated: the South African victims were not.

The bottom line is that multinationals follow vastly different standards for salaries, working conditions, safety procedures, environmental protection and responsibility in the developing world than in the developed world. It is this discrepancy that Johannesburg needs to address.

If we go on like this: OF MICE AND MEN

IN 1951, sitting for an exam conducted by the Punjab Public Service Commission for selection of Information Officers, we were required to write an essay on the subject of Kashmir as a dispute. The question was, “How would you solve this problem?”

I thought I was being terribly clever when I wrote that neither I nor anyone else in Pakistan, nor the United Nations for that matter, could find a way out of the impasse to which the dispute had been led by Indian stubbornness to stick to Jammu & Kashmir at all costs. The only way out was for the people of the state themselves to make the supreme effort and launch some kind of freedom movement from inside.

Today, 51 years later, the thing seems to be coming true. No, I am not claiming to be a seer. Though there is something else — more in the line of Cassandra than this — for which my wife used to credit me with perceptive powers. In the case of Kashmir it was sheer commonsense and a study of contemporary world history that I wrote in that way.

No captive people in the world (I wrote in the essay) have succeeded in getting rid of an aggressive occupation unless they learned to make sacrifices for their liberty. Outside sympathy can be a help, so can the UN’s legal stand, but these can only supplement a people’s own efforts. They can’t do more than that. Remember President Ayub’s ill-prepared abortive attempt called Operation Gibraltar in mid-1965? It failed to catch on because among Kashmir’s Muslims the urge to help their saviours was just not there.

Let me make another prediction — again this is after taking into account the thinking in Kashmir. Actually there is nothing prophetic about what I am going to say. At the moment an overwhelming majority of the Muslim population of Kashmir wants to become part of Pakistan. There is no doubt about it. The feeling there is too strong, and every unbiased foreign observer confirms it.

But it appears that if the Kashmiris do succeed somehow in forcing India to leave them to their fate (India will never agree to a plebiscite because the result will be too humiliating for it) at some crucial stage in the process, nationalism may take over with the aim for an independent state. There is no dearth of those who support that option, both inside Kashmir and in Pakistan.

I know how violently some people in this country react to the eventuality; what is now called the Third Option. They think that the Independence Act of 1947 did not provide any other way out for the native states except to accede to either India or Pakistan. They are wrong. The decision to remain independent was exercised by the Nizam of Hyderabad who then suffered for it in the form of an invasion by India. But legally his decision was unexceptionable.

All this talk somehow makes me feel that we are more interested in owning the Kashmiris, making them part of ourselves, than seeing them free. Whereas, if you ask me, the Third Option will not be bad at all. If we could digest Bangladesh, why not a sovereign Kashmir? Emotionalism apart, we in Pakistan haven’t given too good an account of ourselves as an independent democratic people, sensible enough to manage our political, economic and social business without making a mess. Even our sovereignty is doubtful, given the authority that the United States exercises over our external and internal affairs.

What then shall we offer to the Kashmiris if they become part of Pakistan? An effete and corrupt administration, an undependable political system, squabbles among the provinces, ethnic and sectarian strife leading to extreme intolerance and frequently to bloodshed, and a promise of periodic martial law? Not a very nice menu for the freedom-hungry Kashmiri!

For long years the Kashmiris got a better deal than that from the Indians. The latter could have continued there for ever if they had more sense and a wiser understanding of the Kashmiri psyche. But they suddenly got into a hurry to integrate the state into the union and withdraw its special status. Now of course it is too late, but their reaction to Kashmiri independence may well be, “If we must lose it, why lose it to Pakistan?”

Readers may recall the veiled allusion of Khushwant Singh, otherwise a liberal Indian, during a visit to Lahore some years ago to the possible fate of Indian Muslims if India were to be ousted from Kashmir. He seemed to believe that the majority community would vent its anger at the loss of Kashmir on the hapless Muslim minority. Was he trying to tell us to advise the Muslims in Kashmir not to struggle so seriously for their freedom?

But things have now been changing rapidly in India. Even with Kashmir not yet lost the Hindu juggernaut has expressed its determination to exterminate its Muslim citizens and their culture. Things can’t be worse for the latter if Kashmir goes from the Indian stranglehold.

Would you like me to tell you why my wife was afraid of my prognostications? Whether you want to or not, here goes. She asked me in the early sixties what I thought was the future of Pakistan. (This is where Cassandra comes in.) I said, “My dear, if we go on like this, repeat, if we go on like this, East Pakistan will be lost to us in ten years.” It went earlier than I expected.

After that (I said to her) it will be the turn of West Pakistan. The Pathans are already enamoured of Pakhtoonistan (in the changed circumstances — what happened in Afghanistan — I was proved wrong). Balochistan and Sindh, being on the seaboard, will be tempted to strike out on their own, unless the army puts its foot down. As for Punjabis, we may have to ally ourselves with the Sikhs to form a viable though land-locked Punjabi state.

I admit though that I was not serious, but the words uttered in jest did contain an element of grim truth. And horror of horrors! I was shocked to read a few weeks ago of an almost identical scenario drawn up for us by some Americans, down to the formation of a joint Muslim-Sikh Punjab.

I used to tell my wife not to lay too much store by my forecasts, and allayed her fears by repeating my rider, “if we go on like this.” But like many others in Pakistan she used to say, “But we are going on like this, aren’t we?”

Another icon

ANOTHER American icon has landed on its keister. The banks are accused of being in on the Enron swindle. They made it possible for the company to fix their books so that loans could be listed as profits and profits could be listed as loans.

I didn’t understand it when, by luck, I went into my bank and asked for a loan of $4,000 to help me buy a used Honda.

The banker replied, “We don’t make loans. We arrange for people to use the money we give them so nobody can make heads or tails of it.”

“I don’t care what you call it as long as I get my loan,” I replied.

“Now the first thing you must do is create a dummy corporation in the Cayman Islands.”

“What for?”

“So people will think your Honda is there, when in fact it will be in your garage. Now you list your car in the books as an asset.”

“That makes sense. I’ll call the company Bad Apple.”

“Then you borrow $4,000 from the bank across the street.”

“I get it. I use that loan to pay you back, you clear your books, and I owe the bank across the street instead.”

“Because you paid us back so quickly your credit rating will soar. You can then go to another bank across town and borrow $10,000. You pay off the $4,000 of the previous loan and still have $6,000 left for gas and oil.”

“How much can I borrow now?”

“The banks will come to you, and since you’re an offshore company, they will tailor a loan for you of $100,000.”

“But I only want $4,000 for my Honda.”

“You have to think big. Do you know what you can do with $100,000?”

“I could buy a Mercedes Benz.”

“That would make sense, particularly since you must now move your money from the Cayman Islands to Bermuda to confuse the IRS.”

“Can I quit while I’m ahead?”

“Not really,” he said. “You have now reached the point where the banks are more worried about you than you are about them. They will wine and dine you and send your wife flowers.” “My wife would like that because she is against my buying a used Honda.”

“The bankers are eager to throw money at you. You can buy futures in soy beans and pork bellies, sell natural gas that you don’t own, and make Bad Apple one of the largest dummy corporations in the business.”

“But at some time they are going to call in all my loans and I could lose my Honda.”

“Not if you declare bankruptcy.”

“Isn’t that tacky?”

“No. Everybody’s doing it.”

“What do I do now?”

“Just sign this agreement. If you don’t make your payment in 30 days, then we will take back the Honda.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Locked up in confrontation

FOLLOWING a recent US State Department statement that the plans drawn up by President Pervez Musharraf for the restoration of democracy in the country may not be quite up to the mark, there have been a series of statements from Washington aimed at removing any impression of a souring of relations between the two governments.

The US apparently realizes that the implied criticism of the military government’s package of political and constitutional reforms could undermine Gen Musharraf’s position in the country. President Bush himself reiterated the other day that Pakistan’s relations with the US were very cordial and cooperative and that President Musharraf continued to enjoy his complete confidence as a friend and ally.

In her deposition before the Senate in the course of her testimony seeking the confirmation of her appointment as the US ambassador in Islamabad, senior American diplomat Ms Nancy Powell was warmly appreciative of Gen Musharraf’s effectiveness as Pakistan’s president. She said she had no hesitation in declaring that the general was “firmly in charge of his country, even though his job is one of the world’s toughest.”

Mr Richard Armitage, who recently visited India and Pakistan, appeared on a major American TV network, to reiterate his government’s confidence in Gen Musharraf’s “ability to curb the infiltration of the militants into Indian held Kashmir, despite fresh violence in the region.” Maintaining that incidents of violence were ‘on the upswing’ in the region, he maintained that it was doubtful that Pakistan by itself could “establish an airtight security zone along the LoC.”

He pointed out that there were jihadis who were outside the control of any Pakistani authority and that there were other jihadis based inside held Kashmir itself who did who not need to cross the LoC “to cause trouble.” This was in a way clear endorsement of Pakistan’s contention that the insurgency in Kashmir is basically of an indigenous nature and not the result of “cross-border infiltration” or of aid and instigation from Pakistan.

Mr Armitage’s observations were mainly in the context of India’s allegation against Pakistan of sponsoring “cross-border terrorism” and apparently not a comment on Pakistan’s internal political situation or on the forthcoming elections. However, he did make an oblique reference to the coming polls in Pakistan saying that “we do believe Musharraf is a man of his word and we are going to treat his word regarding the fairness of the polls with the care it deserves.”

In the context of the on-going US-led operation against international terrorism, it is only natural that Washington would not want any lessening of help and cooperation from Pakistan, Afghanistan’s next-door neighbour. The logistic and infratsructural support given by Pakistan to the international security force is absolutely vital to a successful outcome of the hunt for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda activists. Pakistan’s continued support to the operations in Afghanistan would inevitably figure in Gen Pervez Musharraf’s talks with the US officials during his forthcoming visit to New York in connection with the UN General Assembly session.

Because of its front-line status in the world coalition’s war on terrorism, there is now a greater awareness among the Americans and the other western nations of Pakistan’s political and economic problems, particularly of the compulsion for it to continue to spend a large part of its resources to be able to meet the security threat it faces from India on account of the unresolved Kashmir issue.

The West must realize that there can be no real peace in the region unless the Kashmir issue is got out of the way. The Americans at the highest level have lately been spending a lot of their time and efforts trying to get India to come up with a positive response to Pakistan’s repeated call for negotiations to settle the dispute. However, New Delhi has so far remained unresponsive.

Reports suggest that the Americans may be in the process of developing a fresh strategy acceptable to both Pakistan and India for facilitating a solution to the Kashmir problem. The matter may be taken up by the US officials with the Indian and Pakistani leaders separately when they are in the US on the occasion of the first anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001.

As a prelude, Lisa Curtis, special adviser to US assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, Christina Rocca, has reportedly been talking to Kashmiri leaders in both Indian held Kashmir and Azad Kashmir. Ms Curtis has not had any direct contact with Pakistani officials but in a meeting with the chairman of Pakistan’s Kashmir Committee, Sardar Qayyum, she reportedly affirmed that the forthcoming UN general assembly session would provide an opportunity for more substantive exploratory efforts. A statement attributed to Sardar Qayyum claims that the veteran Kashmiri leader has kept President Pervez Musharraf informed about his talks with Ms Lisa Curtis.

At the same time there have been unconfirmed reports that Pakistan could agree to “a crucial shift from its present stance on the Kashmir problem.” The matter is said to be receiving “top-level consideration in Washington”. Such reports appear in the press from time to time. They could even be in the nature of a ‘trial balloon.’ However, in principle, a shift away from the traditional stance could be helpful in the long run and should not be ruled out.

From Pakistan’s point of view, the Kashmir issue should ideally be resolved on the basis of the relevant UN resolutions. However, in spite of two wars and a number of top-level meetings between the representatives of India and Pakistan, this has not happened. The issue remains unresolved.

New Delhi is getting ready to hold elections to the legislative assembly of the occupied state but such elections, stage-managed and rigged as they are, have served no useful purpose in the past and cannot be expected to do so now.

In any case, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (which represents 23 different groups of Kashmiri freedom fighters) has never participated in such exercises. At the time of writing, its top leaders are meeting in New Delhi to decide whether one of its component parties (the People’s Conference) which appears inclined to enter into a dialogue with India and to participate in the Sept-Oct elections should be expelled from the Hurriyat or not.

Indian observers of the Kashmir situation themselves recognize the futility of such elections. Veteran Indian commentator and author, Praful Bidwai, in a recent commentary summed up New Delhi’s dilemma over Kashmir. He said: “Popular alienation from the Indian state is a central, inescapable feature of Kashmir’s reality. Unless New Delhi gets its act together and cleans up the mess in Jammu and Kashmir in a purposive, comprehensive way, rather than through the tokenist ‘packages’ that fail to impress any one, it cannot combat this alienation. One precondition for any progress in Kashmir is a dialogue with all currents of opinion.”

Bidwai does not elaborate on his proposal but it is clear that no dialogue could be fruitful without the APHC, Pakistan and Azad Kashmir being included in such talks.

Tax-cut haemorrhage

THE US Congressional Budget Office’s report that federal tax revenue has taken the steepest percentage drop in more than half a century is no cause for panic. In a time of recession, running deficits is what governments do, because to further restrict spending would deepen and prolong the downturn.

But the report’s projection that deficits will continue for at least four years does indicate the government’s vital signs are weakening — and could drop dangerously low unless the administration ends its addiction to tax cuts.

An unexpectedly deep plunge in capital gains tax revenue, a slowing economy and the administration’s 2001 tax cut have all contributed to a revenue shortfall, with receipts running 6.6 percent under last year’s. The deepening debt has helped kill a prescription drug benefit programme, which would have cost more than $40 billion a year.

Still alive, however, is the prospect of a war against Iraq, which could cost more than $50 billion even before expenses of an occupation are counted. What’s more, America’s allies aren’t willing to help foot the bill this time.

But the most significant roadblock to bringing down the deficit is the 10-year, $1.35-trillion tax cut that Bush proposed and Congress approved last year. The wealthy, who spend a smaller percentage of additional income than the less well-off and thus offer less stimulus to the economy, will receive the lion’s share of cuts in coming years.

President Bush is calling on Congress to make his cuts permanent instead of sunsetting them after 2010. If it agrees, that will almost certainly wipe out any return to budget surpluses.

Even worse, the president, in the aftermath of his economic forum in Waco, Texas, is widely reported to be considering more tax cuts. He would, among other things, reduce the capital gains tax rate below the current 20 percent for long-term gains and allow more generous write-offs for selling stocks at a loss.

— Los Angeles Times