The tea-party is over
SOCIAL occasions are usually for fun and joy, but the Boston tea-party was shockingly different in the sense that it got politically hot and rough, challenging the travails of taxation without the right of representation.
The cargo of repression was thrown overboard by the colonists in a demonstration of defiance, showing resentment over an unjust regime of taxation. The key incident, in the history of the United States, led to the War of Independence against the British rulers who, until now, were “governing without the consent of the governed”. Soon, the coercive colonialism had been shipped back to the country of its origin, and a spirit of freedom docked the New World, anchoring with a legitimate authority, offloading the democratic virtues of equality, liberty and fraternity that will thrive under a just and fair tax system, for a participative, contributive and productive society.
Democracy and taxes are closely entwined. There is an indispensable nexus... liberty for the individual, revenue for the state, and prosperity for society on the whole.
The idea of taxation bolsters the ideals of democracy, by raising the revenue reserves for a state, which are purely for the welfare of the people. There is a three-word tax philosophy for a democratic society — earn-pay-share. An individual earns money, pays taxes and shares benefits with the other people.
Early civilizations supported the need for taxation. History, in the context of taxes, has recorded a shift from a totalitarian dictatorship to an egalitarian leadership across the world; people had ever disliked the exorbitant extortion by the autocratic rulers, but always favoured the transparent taxation from representative governments.
‘It is in the giving what we receive’.
The monetary contribution of an individual, in the form of taxes to the exchequer is quintessentially a way of empowering the people. It rivets the interest of a person in the matters of a government. The people who give their money to the state believe in the eternal vigilance. They want to know, where does the buck stop? So do the elected representatives. The tax money is regarded as sacred as the vote of a person. Thus, tax has become a powerful tool of politics in the hand of an individual, wielded without fear.
‘When taxpayer’s money talks, government listens’.
In the democracies of the developed world, an individual has a greater say in the affairs of a government because his tax money lends him voice to call in question the actions of an elected government. The people should know about the art of fiscal management in order to have the right of self-determination. Their will to pay makes them exercise their will.
On the contrary, in the developing world, the people are less inclined to pay taxes, so they are least bothered to elect a government of their choice. The voters’ turnout remains low even during a general election. People neither fill the national kitty nor the ballot boxes.
But, dishonesty from the state, by stealing tax money and apathy towards polling, gets paid in strange ways; these people are ruled by such political leaders and public officials as liberally enjoy the graft-based spoils system. Again, these Third World tax-illiterates are abducted, burgled, and slain by their own people because a chronically cash-strapped economy leaves the country with archaic poverty and anarchical society.
Evasion is just an illusion. If you don’t bear the cost, you will have to pay the price. By paying tax a person contributes towards his own security in society and gets the assessment of a good citizenship.
The taxpayer’s money is a boon for a state. It brings economic sovereignty for the state, by making it less reliant on foreign aid; education and health for the people, by providing schools and hospitals and strategic security for the nation by modernizing defence.
Every state imposes some duties on its citizens. Mere consumption taxes on goods and services do not, in any way, disentangle an individual from the liability of personal income tax. Expenditure is not worth investment. Earn, not just to burn but also to glow a lamp that can cause light around, so, you don’t have to curse the darkness. Here, we can draw a line between the voluntary (direct) and involuntary (indirect) taxes. It makes a great deal of difference, because voluntary actions tend to bring a good change in life.
The Boston tea-party is long over. Now, every individual brews his own tea in the kettle of opportunity provided by every free republic. He fills his cup with black tea of income, but for the desired relief and taste in the tea cup it is better to add the whitener of tax offered by the state. Although, sweetener may be lacking.
KHALID HASAN KHAN
Karachi
Frontier BISEs’ affairs
THROUGH these columns I want to draw the attention of the NWFP governor towards the anomalies being reported in different BISEs of the province. The chairman, BISE, Kohat, has in a recent press statement admitted that the papers of top 20 matric students have been rechecked, out of which four have been penalized for having indulged in unfair means. Similarly, the class IX students of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Malakand, have broken all previous records by obtaining more than 400 marks out of a total of 425. This appears to be a little too much. The BISE, Mardan, has also reportedly announced tight matric results.
In view of the above and in order to streamline the working of a number of boards set up in the NWFP, the education authorities concerned may be directed to undertake the following measures:
a. The conduct of various examinations and compilation of results may be made more transparent and fool-proof.
b. The papers of various subjects may be prepared by experts of repute belonging to different boards.
c. All papers be centrally marked by a board of examiners, consisting of responsible teachers. Their checking fee be reasonably enhanced and they should be provided with necessary lodging and other facilities during the period.
d. The papers should not be sent to remote places where these can be easily traced.
e. The papers of all matric students (Part I) of the BISE, Kohat, who have obtained A-1 grade (more than 80 per cent marks) should be rechecked by unbiased teachers so that the board is in a position to regain its credibility in the eyes of the affected students and their parents.
f. The newly-established boards be provided with requisite guidance for overcoming such problems from old boards, including the FBISE and the BISE (Peshawar).
MUSHTAQ KHATTAK
Peshawar
Bandi Mera villagers’ agony
BANDI Mera is a village of about 25,000 people in the suburb of Abbottabad. It is also a beautiful health resort. But it suffers from a number of problems because of the wrangling of the so-called politicians.
The area suffers because of petty political tussle between various vested interests. Thus, the problems of the people have piled up. For example, the plan to develop Karala Bagh Road is held up because some interested group does not want it to be implemented, though provincial minister Sirajul Haq has already given his assent for the plan’s execution and also made a grant in this regard. This road is now in a shambles and when a patient is carried to hospital outside the village (there’s no dispensary here), it poses great threat to the life of the patient.
Another major problem is the absence of any high school in the area. In such a situation the girls and boys have to go to another village for secondary education. But for many girls the exercise of going to another village every day is hazardous. As a result, over the period the number of girls drops. Thus, generally speaking, the girls are not able to get education beyond the middle level. Other pending schemes of the village include a water scheme, and connection of the Nakrora mohallah with telephone exchange network.
In the face of such helplessness, the members of the Bandi Mera community welfare association have of late been appealing to the people, the philanthropists, the nazim and the naib nazim to solve the problems and of the people.
Will Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and Chief Minister Mohammad Akram Durrani take note of the matter and come to the rescue of the people by solving their problems?
MALIK AJMAL
Karachi
Teachers’ appeal
I WOULD request my tribal chief, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, to do justice to the teachers belonging to the nationalized cadre in the Sindh region. For a long time, we, specially the schoolteachers, have been seeking justice from the Sindh government but no tangible result has come out.
I would like to bring it to the notice of the prime minister that the services of the teachers in Punjab before the nationalization of their educational institutions have been taken into account for the purposes of pensions and other benefits and they are provided with all the financial emoluments, but the teachers of the same cadre in Sindh remain deprived of any such benefits.
The provincial ombudsman has already issued instructions to the Sindh government to provide justice to us, while the provincial education department is said to have sent some papers in this respect to the finance department for necessary action. Will the prime minister look into the matter now and save us the agony of waiting hopelessly?
JAFFAR KHAN JAMALI
Sukkur
Tarbela Dam and Irsa
RECENTLY I have seen two reports (one a news item in Dawn, July 9, and the other, a report prepared by an agency, November 2000, for the “world commission on dams”. Both reports differ on some important technical aspects, i.e. the storage capacity and optimum level of the filling of the dam.
The Indus River System Authority has mentioned optimum level of 1,550 feet and 1,512 feet with 5.098maf, the present storage (against the total capacity of 7.2maf), whereas the consultants have mentioned 11.5bcm (9.45maf) at the reservoir level 417m (1,368 feet), considered safe by Wapda. What is a safe water level and what is the reservoir capacity are important engineering aspects of the dam.
ABDULLAH MAHESAR
Islamabad
Ayodhya issue
THIS refers to a column by Mr Kuldip Nayar on the above subject in your issue of July 12.
I fully agree with the suggestion made by the writer regarding the solution to the “complicated Ayodya issue”. I strongly appeal to all the 51 members of the All India Muslim Personal Board to immediately accept the proposal and donate the “disputed site” to the Sankeracharyaji, of course, on obtaining a constitutional guarantee from parliament that “all the religious places of the Muslims, including the mosques at Mathura and Kashi, would stay intact as they were at the time of independence on Aug 15, 1947.
This gesture of goodwill towards the Hindu community will not only settle the issue once and for all, but the “big brothers” in return bear the cost of the construction of another mosque at the nearby site to be mutually agreed by the Muslim Board and Sankaracharyaji.
I am also positive that if the Muslim Board takes one step forward, the other side will take 10 steps to safeguard the interest of the minority.
SHAH NASIMUDDIN
Karachi
Why use word mosque?
WHEN the Spanish crusade was at its peak and the Muslims were being systematically annihilated, the word ‘mosque’ was coined by the Spanish victors. The meaning of the word ‘mosque’ is a mosquito-nest humming with the voice of the defeated Muslims in large numbers.
The English and the Americans too immediately took the cue and started calling the ‘place of Muslim worship as a mosque’, synonymous to masjid. As usual we, the Muslims of the subcontinent, followed our ‘masters’ and continued repeating the word mosque, without realizing that any effort to keep them in good humour will not change their perception.
A MUSLIM
Karachi
What harms our exports
THIS has a reference to a report headlined “China makes big headway in US market” (July 12).
A local garment manufacturer, in his exploratory trip to Dubai, found the following :
Against his plan to sell his products at 95 cents, to his amazement he found a similar Chinese material quoted at 65 cents. And even the Indian, Bangladeshi and Indonesian goods were offered for sale much cheaper than the Pakistan products.
In such a scenario, how would Pakistan survive in the export market from 2005 when trade would be free of the barriers of tariff and ‘quotas’ would be off? Here we must search for the reasons why the Pakistani products are already non-competitive. So far as the labour cost is concerned it is almost similar to the countries mentioned above and the Pakistan government too encourages the exporters by offering different incentives. Where then does the problem lie?
It is none other than the power utilities — KESC and Wapda. Besides charging exorbitantly high power tariff, these utilities are so poor in providing uninterrupted power supply and regular power outages that it results in an increase in the input cost of the export products, not to mention the delays in meeting the deadline for exporting the goods in time when unscheduled loadshedding is resorted to by these organizations.
AMIR ALI ESMAIL
Karachi
‘White elephants and the PR trade’
I WAS rather amused to read Ayaz Amir’s column titled ‘White elephants and PR trade’ in your newspaper on July 11. It seems a sheer case of cynicism and finding fault with anything happening in the country. What one expects from a columnist of repute like Mr Amir is some intellectual contribution rather than pointing fingers at others just to unveil one’s malice and defeatism and that, too, in the case of a workshop of national import.
The columnist begins his piece with the grandeur of the NDC building. Instead of being impressed by its immaculate and proper maintenance, he finds fault with its size and construction, without showing concern for the plight of such other buildings of national importance as are in poor state owing to laxity on the part of their management.
The writer has also not liked the day-to-day activities of the workshop. Had he taken the trouble of going into the details of its goals and objectives — promoting understanding of statecraft, developing a comprehension of the elements of national power and their impact on security, enhancing mutual understanding of security interests and perspectives, etc. — he would have been at ease to contribute intellectually rather than accusing others on one pretext or the other.
Our friend has also taken the opportunity to criticize the guest speakers of the workshop. It would have been worthwhile if he had mentioned the dignitaries of his choice who could suit the presence of the important participants drawn from all walks of life.
RASHID AKHTAR
Rawalpindi
Railways’ claim
THE Pakistan Railways claims that all the land along the railway tracks belongs to it, though it has no proof with it.
My request to Advocate M. D. Tahir, Lahore, is to file a writ against the PR claim as these tracks were built during the Raj era.
M. Y. NAZ
Lahore
Relationship with Israel
ONE thing that we can achieve by having close relations with Israel is that we can have good media ties with major companies like Time Warner, Buena Vista and Touchstone which control major television news channels owned by Jews.
This will help boost the Pakistan’s Kashmir cause on the international media which is dominated by Indians as they have close relations with Israel.
BILAL MUGHAL
Islamabad
Maoist movement in Nepal
THIS refers to the clarification issued by Mr Mukti Nath Bhatia of the Royal Nepalese Embassy about the Nepali Maoists, titled “Maoist movement in Nepal”.
Now, in my turn, I would like to clarify some things. Firstly, what Mr Bhatia conveniently refers to as ‘half-truths’ have been repeatedly verified in the World in Focus section in your prestigious newspaper, by various international journalists, mostly from the Inter Press Service, a Third World news agency. What Mr Bhatia says about the Rana dynasty is itself fanciful and typical of how apologists of monarchy used to refer to about the Bourbons, the Romanovs, the Habsburgs, the Mughals and the Ottomans, all mercifully vanished now from the stage of history. He omits to mention that had the Rana monarchy been as benevolent and kind as he puts it, the Nepali people would never have arisen against its excesses in 1990, when they won a big victory by forcing the feudal kings to become constitutional and establish a parliament.
The Nepali Maoists are the rightful children of the seeds sown by the Nepalese people in 1990; as much as the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was a child of the 1905 anti-monarchist parliament in Russia and the 1949 Chinese revolution a child of the 1911 anti- monarchist bourgeois revolution. In fact, it would not be inaccurate to say that the Maoist uprising in Nepal is a product of the continuing poverty and misery experienced by the Nepali people, despite the great victory of 1990.
What kind of benevolent monarchy is this which dissolves every second government in Nepal in the fear that it would actually demand the end of the excesses of the Ranas against the Nepali people and call for the end of this much-reviled monarchy? Every time King Gyanendra has dissolved the parliament, it has always appointed staunch monarchists and pro-government prime ministers in its place, something which has put back the gains of the Maoist movement back by some years.
Contrary to what Mr Bhatia says, the CPN (M) is not composed of ‘lawless groups’ but highly principled cadres rallied around the Marxist-Leninist ideology. If they had been lawless, they would not have captured more than one-third of the country in mere seven years; if they hadn’t been popular and genuine revolutionaries, US imperialism and Indian expansionism wouldn’t have become as alarmed as they are now and sold sophisticated arms to the Rana dynasty in the wake of the 9/11 events.
Every freedom-living individual in South Asia now knows that the Maoist struggle in Nepal is a genuine people’s war against a genuinely anti-people monarchy. It will take more than mere verbal sophistry to defeat it. Readers who wish to check which ‘version’ of Nepal’s Maoist movement is true are requested to access the website of the Revolutionary Worker newspaper (www.rwor.org). This will put matters in their correct perspective.
RAZA NAEEM
Lahore