Security for VIPs and the public

Early last month, the government announced a doubling of basic salaries for all personnel in the soon-to-be-created security division of the Islamabad police. While the policemen's efficiency in ensuring security was expected to be enhanced by this announcement, what was not expected was for some policemen to perform their duty at the cost of the public's physical security.

At least two cases of policemen beating up members of the general public were reported recently in Islamabad in the course of SAF Games security duty. Suspension of the policeman concerned in the first case did not appear to have served as a deterrence.

The latest incident occurred on the last day of SAF Games when a member of Pakistan's relay team who had just won the silver medal that day was abused and beaten up by policemen who refused to allow him to enter the Pakistan Sports Complex with his wife because his car did not bear the requisite sticker. The two policemen involved were summarily suspended.

A few days before, a station house officer was suspended for allegedly torturing a waiter after a brawl with the latter, who worked in the guest house where the SHO had gone to check on security measures for SAF Games players.

Earlier in February, two police constables who had abused and beaten a university assistant professor at Aabpara market because the latter refused to get chairs for them to sit, had also been suspended.

Such unsavoury behaviour by the policemen aside, it is a fact that they work under tremendous pressures. Their role and significance, and therefore the risks attached with this profession, have increased in recent years because of the increased threats of terrorism.

Policemen are practically sitting ducks for targeted attacks against them. Prominent examples include the recent cold-blooded attack on a police station in Karachi in which five policemen were killed, and the murderous attack on a busload of police trainees in Quetta last June in which 11 police trainees were gunned down and nine others were injured.

Besides this, the policemen's vulnerability in the line of VIP security duty is also high, particularly in the case of Islamabad's police. No less than four policemen died in the line of duty during the suicide attack on the president's convoy in Rawalpindi on December 25.

In response to the new risks confronting them, reforms are being undertaken to change the role of the policeman accordingly. A senior interior ministry official said last month when announcing a major revamp of the Islamabad police that the new security division of the Islamabad police would be set up on the pattern of the paramilitary and Frontier Corps through an ordinance or act of parliament.

The importance of the paramilitary forces in countering terrorism was demonstrated in the role which it played in the recent operation in Wana against Al-Qaeda suspects and their local supporters.

The significance of the new "paramilitary style" security division is underlined by the announcement that all policemen in this division will get double basic salary, whereas only 50 per cent of the policemen in the Investigation Division will be given this privilege.

The demands on Islamabad policemen are particularly rigorous, not only in local VIP security but also where the security of visiting foreign dignitaries and the security of major functions like the Saarc summit and SAF Games are concerned. Yet, the government appears slow to reward policemen, especially when reward has been promised.

The bonus of one month's basic salary that was promised to all policemen who were involved in the security of the Saarc summit is a case in point. It has been three months now since the Saarc summit ended, and yet not all the personnel in the Islamabad police, the CDA and other ICT administration officials who worked for the summit have received the bonus.

Providing foolproof security for the VIPs and the public is a demanding job. If the Islamabad police are to perform this efficiently with full commitment and dedication, and with full patience in dealing with members of the public, its personnel must be adequately trained, equipped, facilitated and remunerated.

Facilities like housing and healthcare for the security personnel and their families are important ingredients for a dedicated and committed security force. The public on the other hand will have to learn to be more cooperative with the police while performing their security duty. After all, incidents like the earlier Bali and recent Madrid bomb blasts show that the general public too can be as much a target of terrorism as the VIPs.

Outlines of an Islamic economy

Islamic economics, although rooted in the values, principles and commands contained in the Quran and Sunnah, is neither a branch of theology (kalam) nor of law (fiqh). It represents an approach to the fundamental questions of economics i.e. what is to be produced? How is it to be shared and what is to be the shape of final consumption in a society?

Islamic economics is a nascent and evolving discipline. It represents a fresh approach to the economic problems of mankind. Economic discipline as it has developed in the West during the last two hundred years poses certain problems.

All economic relationships have two dimensions: one is technical and relates to the physical or positive laws of production and consumption; while the other concerns normative and ideological dimensions. The two are intertwined.

Over the years, economic science and policy formulation have witnessed what I call a "de-link" between the positive and normative dimensions. Previously, there were conceptual frameworks based on certain moral and ethical assumptions - sometimes explicit, often implicit. The separation of ethics and economics has come to be highlighted with far-reaching consequences for the theory and practice of the discipline.

A second development relates to the separation of economics and other social disciplines. Economics has attempted to become a self-contained social discipline, parting ways with the integral linkage with politics, sociology, psychology and other disciplines.

Obsession with the idea of making economics a more positive science and an eagerness to introduce quantitative methodologies of physical sciences, particularly mathematics, are partially responsible for this de-link from other social sciences.

Thirdly, the pursuit of efficiency and optimal allocation of resources have become the central problem of economics. Efficiency considerations have come to eclipse other equally important factors such as equity, justice and the social and ecological consequences of economic efforts. They have weakened, if not severed, the link between wealth and well-being.

Finally, money, which was primarily a medium of exchange, has become an objective in itself. The institution of interest has played a crucial role in this transformation. Consequently, the critical link between money and the physical economy has been thinned out and money has become a commodity.

These four major de-links have transformed economics. Efficiency and equity in the world economy no longer go hand in hand. While global production has increased exponentially, the economic miseries of almost two thirds of humanity remain unrelieved.

Almost 87 per cent of the global GDP is concentrated in the hands of less than 20 per cent of the world population in developed countries. The ratio of wealth between the rich one-fifth and the poor four-fifth of the world was 30:1 in 1950. At the advent of the 21st century it has increased to 85:1.

This predicament is one of the results of these four major de-links. Islamic economics represents an effort to find a new paradigm. The idea is to address basic economic problems from a moral and socially responsible perspective, and reintegrate economics with ethics so that efficiency and equity become elements of a composite reality.

Instead of a piecemeal, incremental approach, this approach is more holistic and focuses on growth involving production of useful goods and services and on the creation of assets. Productive efficiency and distributive justice are the twin objectives.

While abolition of interest and introduction of zakat are two pillars of the Islamic economic system, the latter represents an approach requiring new methodologies to come to grips with the eternal issues of an economy: what is to be produced? How is it to be distributed? And how must it be consumed?

Let us not forget that the right of private property, freedom of enterprise, market mechanism and profit motive pre-date capitalism. While capitalism built its system on the foundations of self-interest, private enterprise, market and profit, its unique contribution lies in giving them a particular shape and role.

They are not unique to capitalism. Private property and enterprise, self-interest, the market mechanism and competition are integral to the Islamic economic system. Yet their distinct character and role are fashioned by the value framework of Islam.

The individual is the building block of society and private enterprise is a premium mobile of the system. Yet property rights, legal and sacrosanct, have a dimension of social responsibility.

A fundamental Islamic concept is that property, power and authority at all levels - including state authority - are in the nature of trust. There are clearly defined lines and limits of rights and obligations within the framework of this relationship of trust.

The state has a more positive role to play without suppressing individual liberties, participatory processes or the democratic character of society including its economy and polity.

Self-interest is replaced by moral concerns and freedom goes hand in hand with social responsibility. Competition is complemented with cooperation, and efficiency with justice. This vision of the economy is relevant not only to Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world but to any society.

Islamic economics is not isolationist. It has universal relevance and takes into account diversity within Muslim societies as well as between the latter and the rest of the world. International trade, the movement of capital and investment, and financial ties among individuals, groups and states at the regional and global level are integral to the Islamic system.

Of course there are certain areas where readjustments and realignments are needed, particularly because of Islamic sensitivities with regard to interest and ethical investment. But it should be clear that the Islamic agenda for eliminating interest, does not involve any denial of profitability of capital or its right to enjoy a just return.

What is disputed is a predetermined fixed return on capital, without sharing the risks of enterprise. Capital is entitled to a return based on its actual productivity. While facilities for credit are not denied, an Islamic economy is primarily an equity-based one, not riddled with debts.

An Islamic economy is an essential part of the concept of Pakistan. The Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1949 and the Constitution contains essential elements catering to the vision of an Islamic economy.

However, very little effort has been made to translate this vision into reality, particularly where the public sector is concerned. In the 1980s, some piecemeal and disjointed efforts were made in this direction. But most changes were only ornamental.

In the private sector, however, a number of pioneering efforts have been made to bring economic relationships in harmony with Islamic values. Many enterprises and institutions have tried to switch over to equity finance.

There are quite a few success stories in the private sector. In the fields of education, social services and poverty alleviation too, the private sector has made distinct contributions.

To give an example, the allocation in the federal budget for social services is almost negligible - less than 0.8 per cent of the GDP for health care and only 1.8 per cent for education. However, it is through private philanthropy that over Rs 70 billion per year are provided for these support networks. This is equal to almost one-tenth of the total federal budget, half of which goes towards interest on external and domestic debts and almost 30 per cent on defence.

The Supreme Court judgment of 1999 and before that of the Federal Shariat Court of 1991 on the elimination of riba are important documents, but they have yet to be implemented. However, the State Bank of Pakistan has taken some serious initiatives in the recent past and there is an increasingly positive response from financial and business sectors.

A number of Islamic banks or Islamic branches of conventional banks have been established during the last three years. It is too early to evaluate their performance, but the possibilities of success are bright.

It is mainly in the private sector that Islamic banking has made progress in Pakistan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the UAE, Bangladesh and other countries. Despite similarities, every Muslim country has its own model.

Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for economics, Robert Fogel, writes in "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism": "At the dawn of the new millennium the critical issues are no longer whether we can manage business cycles or whether the economy is likely to grow at a satisfactory rate.

It is not even whether we can grow without sacrificing the egalitarian advances of the past century. Although the consolidation of past gains cannot be ignored, the future of egalitarianism in America rests on the nation's ability to combine continued economic growth with an entirely new set of egalitarian reforms that adhere to the urgent spiritual needs of our age, secular as well sacred. Spiritual (or immaterial) inequity is now as great a problem as material inequity, perhaps even greater."

British economist John Gray observes in his work "False Dawn - The Dimension of Global Capitalism": "A reform of the world economy is needed that accepts a diversity of cultural regimes and market economies as a permanent reality.

A global free market belongs to a world in which Western hegemony seemed assured. Like all other variants of Enlightenment Utopia of a universal civilization it presupposes Western supremacy.

It does not agree with a pluralist world... It does not meet the needs of a time in which Western institutions and values are no longer universally authoritative. "

The writer is a member of the Senate.

Peace at the flick of switch?

Wading through the blazing heat and dust of Aligarh last week, where she led a rickshaw-pullers rally to demand that their leader's killers be brought to book, Arundhati Roy's mind strayed into an apparently unrelated realm. Why do you suppose our ties with Pakistan have improved overnight, she asked? "It's as though someone just switched it on with the push of a button," she remarked quizzically.

Her formal lecture that day at Aligarh Muslim University's packed Kennedy Hall auditorium was devoted to a few of her favourite ideas on India's anti-terrorism laws and their links with the growing menace of religious fascism.

She also gave a vivid account of how both factors might have a common purpose in serving the interests of the United States, at home and abroad. (The assessment turned out to be dead right on Saturday when US State Department Deputy Spokesman J Adam Ereli observed that India and Bangladesh could be among the new countries to contribute troops to Iraq soon).

Later, talking to friends who had accompanied her from Delhi, Ms Roy dwelt again on the subject that was clearly agitating her mind. How is it so easy to manipulate emotions of hatred and friendship between Indians and Pakistanis? The point she raised is very pertinent: is the current India-Pakistan thaw directly and solely related to the new interests of the US in the region, as is widely believed? One may have reservations on the use of the word 'solely' but by and large the American hand is clearly seen to be shaping events in the subcontinent.

By American interests we mean, of course, energy. All that oil and gas in the Middle East and Central Asia that the US has zeroed in on would need a massive network of pipelines to ferry the booty to their most likely consumers. And India's highways would not only increase the intake of hydrocarbons, but would actually make it the hub of the new energy market in South East Asia through the proposed link of arterial roads and railway networks across the region. If all goes well, that is.

So why should we look suspiciously at the prospect of prosperity that the new energy pipelines would bring to the region? Of course, the hopes of trade and commerce between India and Pakistan are predicated on peace, which involves the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. If the promise of prosperity is adequately alluring then surely Kashmir too will not look as intractable an issue as it has been for nearly six decades.

After all there is so much to be gained everywhere. Friends and relatives visiting Pakistan in droves are coming back with tales of love and hospitality that they received from total strangers. They also talk of the affection and esteem in which the Indian prime minister is held in that country.

This is not to be wondered at if we see how all the four major power centres in Pakistan have taken turns to woo and placate Mr Vajpayee. Mr Nawaz Sharief and Ms Benazir Bhutto, representing the main democratic formations have broken the proverbial bread with Mr Vajpayee.

The army and the mullahs, too, have jettisoned tradition to cosy up to India's right-wing Hindu revivalists. Whether it was President Pervez Musharraf, representing the army, or Maulana Fazlur Rehman who leads the volatile mullahs, both have kowtowed to Mr Vajpayee as the man of the moment.

If only the same was true this side of the border. People like Arundhati Roy- and there are millions of them - see Mr Vajpayee's party and its flock as a dangerous bunch of obscurantist fascists.

It is ironical that it is precisely these Indians, many of them banded into small activist groups, who have been zealously fighting the long battle for peace with Pakistan for decades.

They include the communists, specially the militant Maoists, who gallantly stood against the tide of war hysteria and hatred unleashed by the BJP government. They held a series of demonstrations against the nuclear tests of 1998 and the border build-up in 2002.

The Maoists, known more commonly as Naxalites, are a splinter of the Indian communist movement, which had been in the forefront of the peace crusade. It was their ideology that shaped perceptions of relations between India and Pakistan for decades.

It was the proteges as it were of Faiz Ahmed Faiz in Pakistan and Sajjad Zaheer in India, and their assorted leftist allies, who carefully nurtured the slender hopes of peace during those long decades. With every war the two countries fought these groups must have felt that much more marginalized within their own political milieu.

Surely these groups still exist on each side? Coupled with the Pervez Hoodbhoys and Achin Vanaiks of the more recent vintage, they have valiantly struggled for peace and sanity in the subcontinent all these years.

So what do they make of the sudden bonhomie between the two countries? Why do they think peace was denied a chance all these years? More importantly, why is peace more widely applauded today on both sides than ever before? Is the loud cheering, to come back to my original point, because both countries are supplicants of the single deity in today's world?

These days as streams of businessmen take over the mantle of goodwill messengers in their quest for a bigger share of an expanded market, the battle-weary peace niks appear to be a bemused lot.

For them, the real question is: now that peace looks imminent are we all going to be living happily ever after? Or should we be preparing to fight another battle along our domestic fault-lines against the combined strength of two of the largest states in South Asia, and states that have been assigned the task of pushing an agenda that is not theirs?

* * * * *

The passing away of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra last week would sadden those across South Asia who were always enthralled by his widely hailed innovations in the Odissi dance form.

The 80-year-old guru last performed in Delhi in October last year when he choreographed and danced in an energetic ballet at t he Purana Qila. Among his students is Leela Samson who taught the dance form to Sheema Kirmani, Pakistan's own highly accomplished danseuse.

An Urdu scholar from Germany

German scholar Christina Oesterheld, who obtained a PhD from Humboldt University in 1986 on Qurratulain Hyder's novels, does not see eye to eye with noted luminary Mushfiq Khwaja. Known for his wry sense of humour, he told her during her recent visit to Karachi that compared to India, Pakistani intellectuals were doing little research on Urdu.

"That may be so, but Urdu is more secure in Pakistan than it is in India. While it is also true that Urdu receives a lot of state support in India, its future there is not as bright as it is in Pakistan. You cannot keep a language alive by state patronage alone. It has to be used by the people - for their education, in their job opportunities and in their entertainment," she asserts.

Ms Oesterheld, who speaks fluent Urdu and has a smattering of Persian and Arabic, has been teaching Indology at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg for the past 14 years.

She points out that there is a very strong tradition of classical Indology in Germany. "And the tradition continues. You would be surprised to hear that at times at Heidelberg University the number of students learning Sanskrit is greater than those learning Hindi or Urdu. There is a great deal of interest in classical languages. These courses attract students from all over Europe," she says.

Ms Oesterheld admits that her fondness for an "exotic language" led her to Urdu and her partiality for fiction led her to Qurratulain Hyder. "I selected her three novels for my doctoral thesis: Mere bhi sanamkhane, Ag ka darya, and Aakhir-i-shab ke hamsafar. These three novels cover a period of roughly 30 years. I thought it was a good idea to compare the literary merits of the three and see how Qurratulain's ideas evolved over a period of three decades," she says.

Reluctant to offer any critical comment on the novels, she says: "In my view, Aakhir-i-shab ke hamsafar is more successful than her earlier novels. Qurratulain tends to stray away from the main plot in her works. And sometimes the construction of her novels becomes loose. At places she becomes highly melodramatic, almost filmi. But, of course, she is a great novelist and she has carved a niche for herself in Urdu literature," she explains.

Ms Oesterheld has translated into German the works of Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Jeelani Bano, Intizar Husain, Enver Sajjad and others. She has also rendered into German the verses of contemporary poets, including Jamiluddin Aali, Iftikhar Arif, Kishwar Naheed, Fahmida Riaz, Ahmad Faraz and Zeeshan Sahil.

During her 13-day stay in Pakistan, which she previously visited in 1983 and 1994, she not only met leading men (and women) of letters but also examined Urdu publishing softwares in use at the Islamabad-based National Language Authority and the Lahore-based Centre for Research on Urdu Language Processing. She says she does not want her students to use the downloadable Naskh software they use in Germany.

Ms Oesterheld says she is very concerned about the poor condition of Sanskrit manuscripts kept in Pakistani libraries and museums. "They have attracted few Pakistani scholars.

But they should be well preserved. Or, better still, they should be made available to Indian scholars who might be more interested in them. When relations between India and Pakistan improve, they can discuss this subject," she says.

Playing host to refugees

Karachi apparently has a long history of playing host to refugees both from the East and the West. Reports that a Polish journalist is here in the city to make a documentary on the 30,000 or so refugees who stayed in and passed through Karachi during the Second World War rekindled memories about other displaced people in an old-timer.

He says that Karachi gave succour to White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. There were at least two dozen Russian families who made Karachi their home and lived and died here. Their offspring eventually emigrated to Canada and other western countries in the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Then there were the Chinese. Chinese refugees came to Karachi in two waves. Some families fled their country following the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century. The second wave came here in and after 1949, running away from the Communists. These Chinese added colour to the city, opening Chinese restaurants and dental clinics. Their children are still in the metropolis.

The city also played host to Iranian refugees in the 1920s and later in 1979. The first wave came after the downfall of the Qajar dynasty in the 1920s and then in 1979-80 following the Iranian Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq War.

Refugees of other countries who trekked to Karachi were Germans and Armenians. Another large group of refugees who made Karachi their home were people from Goa who arrived here after India took over that Portuguese possession in 1961.

The show went on

Waheed Murad, the first superstar of the Pakistani cinema, when once asked if he saw a threat to the film industry in the form of television, said: "There is no substitute for the cinema.

Ask your children if they would like to stay at home and watch something on a small black-and-white screen or they would like to go out and watch a movie in colour on a large screen in an airconditioned hall, and you'll get the answer." How right he was, but only until the mid-1970s.

Even in the early 1950s when the wide screen was yet to make its debut, there was a very large cinema-going public. Going to the cinema was an outing and there was a dress code - what they now call 'smart casual' - because there was every chance of your running into people you knew, whether it was during the normal three shows or at Sunday morning show.

There was a clear demarcation between cinema houses showing subcontinental movies and those exhibiting English films. For one thing, the matinee in the former started at 3pm, while in the latter it started at 3.30pm.

The entrance ticket to cinemas showing Western movies was higher by 30 to 50 per cent. When Rex cinema, on what was then Victoria Road, screened an Urdu film Sohni, produced by Jagdish Anand after his earlier film Sassi turned out to be a blockbuster, the cinema management gave a full-page ad in leading papers announcing that only "a great Urdu film like Sohni merits screening in Rex."

A sequel to watching a movie in the cinema house was usually dinner in one of the Saddar restaurants. So, when the film - with or without a happy ending - was over, everyone looked forward to a hearty meal.

One restaurant with good food was Pioneer Coffee House in Saddar, where you could have a wholesome Bombay-style meal. Pereira's offered Goan food. Fredrick's Cafeteria was another favourite.

On Sundays it was also the haunt of punters who had their afternoon tea there while discussing the results of the day's races. By the time the 6.30 to 9.30 show was over, the punters had gone, leaving chairs and tables vacant for cinegoers.

Fortune-tellers

For those who can't figure out where to take their guests who arrive here from abroad or from some other city, one sure winner is a visit to the palmists sitting outside the Abdullah Shah Ghazi mausoleum. These men, who number about eight to ten, are a good bet for some hours of fun. For charges as low as Rs100 per couple, they will read the palm and give advice.

One Australian visitor to the city was so impressed by the predictions made by one of these soothsayers that she has made it a point to make a stopover in the city every time she comes to Pakistan.

But, as a rule, the two things that need to be understood is that the predictions made by the palm readers have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Also, instead of going to one man who has acquired some fame in the field and makes people wait for hours outside the mausoleum before reading their palms, others who may be equally good can be consulted.

The idea is not to make life decisions based on the reading but simply to have some fun. Regardless of what transpires, the predictions become a point of reference and conversation for days.

Upset about price hike

A colleague sees red every time prices of household commodities and essential foodstuffs go up. According to her, people have been left at the mercy of profiteers who work in collusion with venal government officials.

In support of her theory she points to the sharp upward trend in prices. The price of milk has increased by Rs3 per litre to Rs25 per litre. A small loaf of bread which in October cost Rs12 is now selling at Rs14. A kilo of wheat flour cost Rs12.5 in January; the same amount can now be purchased for Rs18.

The colleague fears that prices will continue to rise unchecked because under the new local government ordinance no official agency is authorized to regulate them.

She recalls that the prices of mutton generated a lot of controversy some time back. Mutton was selling at Rs160 a kilo last September but just before the advent of Ramazan, the butchers increased the prices to Rs180 and during Ramazan they insisted on charging Rs200.

The city government stepped in, and asked the butchers to reduce the price to Rs180. Much to the embarrassment of the city government, its directive largely went unheeded. These days a customer has to pay Rs220 for a kilo of mutton, a whopping 40 per cent increase in just six months. Where in the world are profiteers allowed to make a killing in such a brazen manner, she wonders.

email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com.