The cost of reconstruction

THE October 8 earthquake will be long remembered as a cataclysmic event in Pakistan’s history for a very long time to come. The sweep of death and destruction across a vast swathe of territory from Kashmir to Hazara and Swat and Islamabad is heart-rending. The calamity has affected rich and poor, ministers and ministered, men and women, and old and young indiscriminately. More than a week after the calamity, news and images of the devastation and mangled bodies do not fail to shock. Adding to the trauma are footage of heaps of children’s bodies trapped under the debris of collapsed school buildings.

In the parts of the country that have been so affected, the standard question and discussion among the survivors is who among them is alive and who is not. In the parts of the country that have not been affected, there are many who have lost someone they knew. And not a day passes without coming across someone who has lost someone in the tragedy. The sense of personal loss is widespread.

Questions arise about the state of preparedness and the efficacy of response by the state machinery. These questions are, however, inappropriate at this point of time, with bodies still being dug out and burials taking place but they will and should be raised and answered at an appropriate moment in the next few weeks. The issue is not one of playing the blame game and resorting to witch-hunting, but of holding those occupying public offices accountable and ensuring that any future calamity anywhere in the country is handled more effectively and efficiently.

This is important in view of the undocumented lessons of the disastrous May 1999 cyclone in the Badin and Thatta districts of Sindh, where storm warnings were not conveyed to the people at large, relief work was patchy and geared more for the benefit of television cameras, rehabilitation and reconstruction work was never undertaken in earnest and the affected population was all but forgotten and abandoned.

Relief work in the earthquake affected areas is currently underway and, given the scale of the human tragedy, will have to be maintained for a length of time. Survivors will need direct, active and continuing provisions in terms of temporary housing, food and medical care for up to a year at the least. Among the survivors is a class of long-term dependents, i.e. thousands who have been widowed, orphaned and disabled and who no longer have the extended family support because of the extensity of deaths. Included in this category are the elderly, who have lost their supporting sons. And particularly vulnerable are teenage girls and young women who have lost their extended family members. This class of dependents will need to be supported, looked after and cared for over a decade or two.

Beyond the massive relief effort that will have to be undertaken over a length of time, there will also be the need to deal with the impact on the economy. In this respect, three kinds of statements have appeared from responsible elements at the highest level of officialdom. One, that there will be no impact; two, that sufficient foreign aid will begin to flow in; and three, that the reconstruction work will spur the economy on account of enhanced demand for construction related materials.

All the above presumptions are incorrect. First, statements denying any impact are downright irresponsible. Second, statements to the extent that sufficient foreign aid will flow in to mitigate the impact betray a mindset that thrives on living off the spoils that come as a result of human tragedy. The generals and their collaborators under Ziaul Haq prospered from the travails of the Afghan people for over a decade and the current dispensation under General Musharraf has benefited from the largesse that came by way of the tragedy of 9/11. The latest catastrophe in Pakistan itself now appears to have rekindled their hopes for more manna to drop from heaven.

Third, statements relating to the boost that the economy will receive from the reconstruction activity are conceptually erroneous. For an underdeveloped country, the purpose of economic development activity is to increase the size of the economy. Reconstructing a part of the economy that has suffered damage implies that scarce resources that could have been used to develop the economy further will now be devoted to rebuilding what has been destroyed. There is, as such, no efficiency gain and net growth cannot be expected to be necessarily higher as a result.

Furthermore, it is certainly likely that cement manufacturers in Punjab will profit from enhanced cement sales as a result of the losses suffered by home owners in Muzaffarabad or that FWO or NLC will profit from the NWFP government’s road rebuilding expenditures. For the economy as a whole, however, the respective profits and losses cancel each other out. Benefiting one part of the country or one sector out of the costs suffered by another part or sector is not what defines growth and development.

While some sections are likely to profit in various ways from the plight of the earthquake victims, the economic aftershocks will have to be managed. The economic impact will occur over three levels: household, regional and national. The impact on the economy of households in the affected areas has been direct and immediate. Most households have lost earning members of the family and assets that provided them with their livelihood. Landslides have obliterated or eroded agricultural land on mountain and hill slopes, and the owners of these lands have been rendered landless.

Orchards have been uprooted, requiring land to be levelled and new trees planted; however the trees will take a number of years to bear fruit. There is a low likelihood of income from tourism resuming in the immediate future until hotels and other power, transport and communications infrastructure are rebuilt. Individual shops can be constructed by private means relatively quickly, but sales are likely to be low on account of weak overall purchasing power.

The regional economy has suffered extensive damage in terms of physical infrastructure. The cities of Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, Bagh, Balakot and other towns and villages have been razed to the ground. Roads, bridges, local hydropower units, power and telephone lines, urban water supply and sewerage facilities, etc., have been destroyed. The same holds true for public buildings housing government offices, university facilities, schools, hospitals and medical centres as well as defence installations. If the reconstruction effort is uncoordinated, it will lead to the ‘slumification’ of the entire region.

There is thus an urgent need to prepare a five-year Redevelopment Plan, with four overarching objectives: one, to attempt to erase the physical traces of the earthquake in five years; two, to rebuild the main cities and towns in a planned manner, keeping in view earthquake-resistant parameters; three, to develop the regional infrastructure for a tourist economy; and four, to ensure that the entire population is economically rehabilitated at least to the point where they were before the earthquake struck.

The national economy is not likely to be affected significantly by the earthquake in terms of loss of output; given that the area is not a major producer of either agricultural or manufactured products. Localized shortages of fruits and vegetables, and the consequential price rises of these items, are likely to occur and affect areas up to Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. However, the fiscal and macroeconomic impact on the economy will certainly be adverse and substantially so and bear heavily on inflation. Given that international oil price rises and the ill-advised excessively liberal credit policy of the past three years have already generated an inflationary spiral, a third source of inflation will be detrimental to macroeconomic stability as well as to household economies.

The rescue and relief operation that has been undertaken so far has cost the public exchequer a significant sum. This expenditure is continuing and relief expenditures are likely to continue for several months. These expenditures will disrupt the budgetary allocations as determined in June 2005. Furthermore, the reconstruction work as outlined above will demand several hundred million rupees each year for the next five years at least. Necessary costs will also have to be borne to repair the damage to defence installations along the Line of Control.

The sum of the above expenditures will increase the budget deficit. There are four means of financing this deficit: printing money, borrowing, enhanced taxation, and reallocation of existing expenditures. Printing money, or deficit financing, will increase money supply and directly impact on the price level. Borrowing will increase interest rates and, consequently, the cost of capital, as well as raise the national debt. Enhanced indirect taxation will raise production costs and contribute to inflation. Re-allocation of development expenditure will hurt areas from where development funds are being diverted.

However, there are two non-inflationary options: one, raising direct taxation through a surcharge on non-salary incomes and the reintroduction of wealth tax and capital gains tax, and two, reducing non-development expenditures. There are several possibilities on the non-development expenditure front. The federal ministries and related divisions and departments related to the concurrent list subjects can be abolished or at least substantially downsized. There are two agencies dealing with coastal security — Coast Guards and Maritime Security Agency — one of them can be abolished.

The ministry of defence is building a new GHQ in Islamabad, the cost of which has not been made public nor the amount sanctioned by parliament. Questions of legality apart, the construction can stop and the designated funds transferred to reconstruction in the quake-affected areas. After all, the people of Pakistan and the people and governments of foreign countries cannot be asked to contribute when resources available with the government continuing to indulge in unnecessary and wasteful expenditures.

A restructuring of public finances is also important for economic as well as political reasons as well. The failure of General Yahya Khan’s regime to respond adequately to the East Pakistan cyclone in 1970 played a significant role in driving the final nail in the coffin of the erstwhile province’s relations with Islamabad. The lessons of history are stark and painful and cannot be ignored.

Religion and court

RELIGION has reared its head in the choice of a Supreme Court justice. President Bush, in order the pacify his conservative supporters, says the selection of Harriet Miers was based on many things, including the fact that “her life is her religion.”

Karl Rove followed up by assuring any minister who called in that she is a good evangelical who goes to church every Sunday and believes in the right to life.

Not everyone on the right was satisfied.

Some talk-show hosts said that, despite her deep-seated convictions, she would never overturn Roe vs. Wade — the real litmus test for a right-thinking justice.

But others said that because of her evangelical beliefs, she is the perfect candidate for the job and would do what God wanted her to do.

Not everyone is an Evangelical Christian. Someone could also be a born-again Christian, a member the Christian right, a Republican Christian, a Bush-born-again Christian, etc., etc.

In all cases, I say anyone who wants to be one is welcome — as long he keeps church out of the schools.

The question of whether her religious beliefs make her an excellent candidate for the Supreme Court is still up in the air — as is everything else in this great country of ours.

The Fathers of the Constitution made sure church and state would be separated. So when the president forgets to separate them, he has committed a mortal sin.

It is not necessarily the left, but the right, that is fighting Harriet Miers’ appointment. Its members feel that when she puts on her black robe, she won’t be far enough to the right. That is to say, she won’t interpret the Constitution as they perceive it.

But they don’t use the born-again attack. They claim she is lacking in court experience and can’t do the “right” job.

The Democrats are enjoying the attacks. They are also enjoying the fact that playing the “religion card” has helped push Bush’s ratings in the polls to a new low.

The liberals have another argument. They say that since Harriet Miers has been the president ‘s lawyer for so many years, she knows his agenda and will still be under his influence when ruling on ideological cases.

Known in legal circles as the “stealth lawyer” because no one understands where she stands on any issue, Ms. Miers cannot use her religious qualifications in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There is a good chance she will be confirmed, but it is not the slam-dunk the White House thought it would be. There will be blood on the floor, but that is what Washington politics is all about.

The cry in many circles is, “Where are you, Sandra Day O’Connor, when we need you?”

The president said he wanted to choose justices in the mould of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Some people think Scalia and Thomas are the worst justices on the Court.

As soon as the president said “Scalia and Thomas,” the other members of the Court said, “God forgive us.”—Dawn/ Tribune Media Services

Iraq’s miracle constitution

EVEN before Iraq’s constitution was ratified, dire predictions were being made that it would pave the way for the creation of an Islamic theocracy. But whatever problems the new constitution poses for the future of Iraq, the role of Islam in the state is not likely to be one of them.

The truth is that despite grumblings from those who wanted a secular, liberal democracy to arise fully formed in the midst of a bloody and chaotic occupation, the constitution of Iraq is nothing short of a miracle.

This is an enlightened charter of laws written in a lawless country embroiled in a civil war, some of whose framers were literally dragged into the streets and beaten to death between meetings. It succeeds at reflecting the values, interests and concerns of an overwhelming majority of a fractious population in a fabricated country that has never known anything resembling genuine democracy.

The most remarkable aspect of Iraq’s constitution is the way it balances the religious identity of the people (96 per cent of whom are Muslim) with the requirements of democratic pluralism. Article 2 establishes Islam as “the official religion of the state” and “a basic source of legislation”; no law can be passed that contradicts “the fixed principles of Islam.”

But the constitution deliberately leaves those fixed principles to be defined by the natural democratic process in accordance with the changing will of the Iraqi people, and it unequivocally states that no law can be passed that contradicts the basic rights and freedoms outlined by the constitution. Among the first of these is that all individuals have a right to freedom of creed, worship, practice, thought and conscience.

Putting such notions in writing does not a democracy make. Still, as the template for a stable, viable, pluralistic and distinctly Islamic democracy, Iraq could not have hoped for a better founding charter.

Of course, there are those for whom the very term “Islamic democracy” is a frightening oxymoron. But an Islamic democracy means neither a theocracy in which the Koran is the sole source of law (as in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan), nor a “theo-democracy” in which the state is run by religious authorities (as in Iran). An Islamic democracy denotes a political system dedicated to pluralism, human rights, constitutionalism, popular sovereignty, the rule of law, the separation of powers - all of the principles that make a society democratic - yet founded upon a distinctly religious moral framework.

This is by no means a new paradigm. Britain maintains an official church whose spiritual head is also the country’s sovereign and whose bishops serve in the upper house of Parliament. Israel is founded on an exclusivist Jewish identity and offers all the world’s Jews, regardless of nationality, immediate citizenship as well as a host of benefits and privileges not enjoyed by its non-Jewish citizens. And although the United States does not have an established religion, the language with which issues such as abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia are debated in Congress surely indicates that, at the very least, the unapologetically Christian values of the U.S. form a “basic source of legislation,” to quote the Iraqi constitution.

All of the above countries are considered democracies not because they are secular but because they are, at least in theory, dedicated to pluralism — that is, the peaceful coexistence and legal equality of different ethnicities, religions and political ideologies. Indeed, a democratic state can be established on any religious framework as long as it is founded on an inviolable respect for pluralism, as we can only hope the new Iraq will be.

Certainly, problems can arise when religion plays a role in the state, and there may be instances in which the rights of individuals will be curtailed by the majority moral values of the state, but that is true of all democracies. Moreover, there will always be groups that will try to use religion to promote their own social and political agendas - for instance in Iraq, those who seek to curtail the rights of women. (The framers have tried to preempt this by allotting at least 25 per cent of the legislative assembly seats to women.)—Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service

The writer is a scholar of religions and author of “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam”

Democracy in Saarc states

INDIA does not seem to be conscious of the role it has to play in South Asia in the coming years. It is not about thwarting the Chinese influence against which Jawaharlal Nehru warned the region after the Sino-India war in 1962. India’s predicament is going to be how to help the neighbouring countries that are afflicted with one problem or the other.

The biggest challenge is the lack of democracy in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives which, along with Sri Lanka and Bhutan, comprise the Saarc. Whatever name the nations may give to their polity, it is deficient in freedom and restricts the people’s say. The system is authoritarian in tone and tenor and caters to fundamentalism or other lesser instincts of man to justify itself.

It is not that one was not aware of such distortions, but the half-yearly bureau meeting of the South Asian Human Rights (SAHR) in Delhi a few days ago brought home the truth once again. The bureau members from different countries made no secret of the fear and the sense of insecurity in which they lived. They admitted that their government was all time lessening space for people and imposing ever-new draconian measures to suppress freedom.

In SAHR they have a forum transcending borders and religions to voice their grievances collectively and help one another recover their dignity and liberty. The organization is roughly five years old.

Nobel Prize winner Amritya Sen talks about it in glowing terms in his latest book, The Argumentative India. He says, “these citizens’ meetings, whenever organized, tend to attract extensive participation. Just as India and Pakistan seemed to be heading for a violent military confrontation.”

At the two-day meeting of SAHR last week, one could feel the participants’ intensity of pain as they told their tales of woe. It was the same story in every country — the story of the nexus between anti-social elements and the rulers, between the corrupt and the political bosses.

Still all eyes were fixed on India which they considered an oasis in the desert of their blighted hopes. A Pakistani delegate said: “Good relations with India may bring us back democracy.” India’s open society, despite the welter of confusion and conflict in which its people lived, made them believe that they could also one day move away from the military or monarch-guided democracy to real democracy. What was heartening about their anguish was the note of optimism in their observations.

The delegate from Bangladesh, who initiated the discussion, singled out two developments for the deterioration of the situation in her country. One, she said, was the rise of terrorism and religious extremism and, two, the incidence of extra-judicial killings. This was over and above traditional political intolerance, repression of the opposition and the politicization of government servants within the overall environment of widespread corruption.

The Bangladesh delegate said that according to intelligence, police and media reports, there were some 30 religious militant organizations in the country operating since 1989 with the central objective of establishing an Islamic state. Many of their activists were Afghan and Palestine veterans. Libya reportedly trained about 7,000 of them in the late seventies and the early eighties. After stints in Afghanistan, Palestine and Libya, they returned to Bangladesh and enlarged their network. Of the 30 leading religious extremist groups, seven operating extensively were: Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Harkatul Jihad, Shahadat Al Hikma, Hizbul Touhid, Hizb-ul-Tahrir and Islami Biplobi Parishad.

The government of Khalida Zia was showing some signs of awakening to the situation, the Bangladesh delegate said. But it was too early to say how seriously the government would actually pursue the extremists because they were the coalition partners of the ruling party.

The biggest question facing the government was how to give shape to the relationship with the Jamaat-i-Islami, the major partner. More and more evidence is indicating the Jamaat’s links with extremists. To root out extremism, Khalida Zia would have to strike against the Jamaat. She could not afford to do so when elections were just a year away. Asked if Bangladesh could go Pakistan’s way, the delegate said that a Pervez Musharraf could emerge and rule, keeping parliament as a showpiece.

The Pakistan delegate felt that governance by Musharraf would become rather difficult since people felt that the army had failed to provide aid to the quake victims when it was needed most. Musharraf was giving more and more space to the mullahs in order to retain his uniform. The delegate said that people enjoyed no freedom and lately even the press had been under pressure.

The delegation from Nepal quoted extensively from the report of the office of the high commission for human rights. The country had been experiencing “a grave human rights crisis” for a long time. There were extra-judicial executions, indiscriminate shooting or bombing leading to the deaths of civilians, threats to members of the local population accused of providing the Maoists with food or shelter and the use of civilians under duress as informers, thereby placing them at risk of facing reprisals by the Maoists. “Arbitrary arrest and detention, closely linked to cases of disappearance, were among the most common violations,” said the three-member delegation.

The king was seen as a problem, not a solution. New Delhi was accused of playing a double game, giving military assistance to Kathmandu on the one hand and offering assurances to political parties for democratic structure on the other. The delegation conceded that the political parties in Nepal had yet to iron out their differences.

Sri Lanka’s representative said that the democracy was dying in his country because extremist elements, among Buddhist monks, were joining politics. It was conceded that the distance between the Sinhalese and the Tamils had not been spanned, although both increasingly felt that they had to live together. India could do a lot and “put pressure on Tamils” said the Sri Lankan delegation while underlining the “indifference of New Delhi. If ever there was any settlement, it would have to be through India.”

The Indian delegation admitted that the problem of fundamentalism, terrorism and political opportunism beleaguered them as much as it tormented other countries in the region. It had a free society but it was becoming increasingly lawless because of power politics. The economic growth of 8.1 per cent had not licked poverty, although a new legislation for full employment assured half of rural India 150 days of jobs in a year.

Discussions at the SAHR bureau conclave did not throw up any collective idea to check the violation of the rule of law or human rights in South Asia. Nor was there any confidence that democracy could be restored in all the countries in the region. Yet, there was a resolve to deepen democracy in South Asia, SAHR’s priority till the end of November 2006 when its general body meets in New Delhi.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Caucasian violence

CHECHNYA, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and now Kabardino-Balkariya: Once again, one of the republics of Russia’s North Caucasus region — places whose names were once almost unknown in the West — has become the scene of excruciating terrorist violence.

Following a pattern that has become familiar in the region, Islamic militants simultaneously attacked a group of targets last week in the city of Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkariya, including three police stations, the city airport and the regional headquarters of Russia’s interior ministry police. More than 100 people were killed, a previously peaceful city was turned into a war zone and Russian troops were forced to set up a blockade around its periphery.

Just like the horrific attack on a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, last year, the incident proves that the “stability” that the Russian government claims to have imposed on the Caucasus is a mirage. The insurgents seem, if anything, to be growing better organized, more numerous and more bloodthirsty. Their goals, once limited to the independence of Chechnya, have apparently expanded to include the destabilization of the entire region.

Local leaders — mini-strongmen, backed by the Kremlin — have cracked down on all forms of dissent, religious and political, thereby increasing the recruiting pool for the terrorist groups. Because more moderate Chechen separatist leaders are either in exile or dead, there is no obvious political solution to what is, despite Russian efforts to claim otherwise, a true crisis in the region.

The Russians still pick and choose whom they will recognize as an “authentic” political leader.

—The Washington Post