MQM on board

ELECTED prime minister last evening with an overwhelming majority, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani takes the oath of office today to begin a new democratic era that is both a challenge and an opportunity. In his Pakistan Day speech, President Pervez Musharraf pledged cooperation with the new government and hoped that it would combat terrorism and ensure “sustained economic development”. There is no doubt the agenda for the Gilani government is cut out, for there are no two opinions about the priorities it should have. There are challenges ahead, and it will take sincerity and commitment to the values on which Pakistan was founded to consolidate democracy and work for the people’s welfare. The 264-42 vote in his favour goes to show the numerical strength of the parliamentary coalition he is heading, though the sudden swelling of its ranks is not without pitfalls.

The MQM stunned the PML-Q by withdrawing its candidate for the prime minister’s slot and choosing to vote with the PPP-led coalition. Apparently, this role reversal followed a telephonic talk between Asif Ali Zardari and Altaf Hussain. While the MQM chief said he had taken the decision in the national interest, obviously there is a deal, centring possibly on power-sharing in Sindh. Nevertheless, accommodating the MQM in the Sindh government will mean a healthy combination of the two parties that between them represent the province’s urban and rural areas. This could ensure political stability and give a chance — once again — to the two sides enjoying a popular mandate to work for the good of Sindh’s polyglot population.

One here has to take note of the Sharifs’ reservations about the MQM’s place in the grand coalition. Their attitude is in sharp contrast to Asfandyar Wali’s ANP which, in spite of being the aggrieved party in the May 12 violence, sees the issue in a positive perspective and believes the MQM should be welcomed by the coalition. Unfortunately, the MQM’s track record does not inspire much confidence in the party’s ability to be a faithful coalition partner. In the post-Zia democratic era (1988-1999) the MQM’s relations with its coalition partners were a major factor in destabilising the political system and creating a law and order situation, especially in Sindh. The MQM supported both the PPP and the PML-N in Sindh and at the Centre, but both coalition governments ended in disasters. In the eighties, the PPP had to have a partner to form a government in Sindh; today it has an absolute majority in the provincial assembly. Therefore its decision to take the MQM on board is not out of any compulsion, but is politically an astute move. The MQM, which also has an image problem, should seize this as an opportunity to come clean and prove those of its critics wrong who identify it with gung-ho politics and extortion rackets. Let the memory of the split in its ranks, the formation of the Haqiqi and the shoot-outs, torture and deaths be a thing of the past.

Casualties of delayed justice

WHERE police stations are a citizen’s first connection with justice, a court should ideally be the last refuge. But many tragic tales prove that it is here that individual dignity and security are often flouted most. According to a report in this newspaper, an enmity that began in 1995 has claimed all seven male members of a family in Gujranwala. The hostility was sparked by the head of the victim family who alerted the police about the rival clan’s unlicensed weapons. News of the complaint led to a vicious argument where the accused, Daura, killed two members of the said family. Charged with double murder, he went underground and pressurised the aggrieved parties in a bid to get them to withdraw their case. When all coercion failed, he killed another son in 1997 and yet another in 1999. Although Daura was arrested in 2001 his brothers allegedly had another member killed by a hired assassin. Today the family is without its male breadwinners and the bitter feud has created 30 orphans. Unsurprisingly, prolonged litigation is the main culprit in this tragedy of virtual annihilation.

This is a tale we are quite familiar with — only the protagonists vary. Despite repeated threats and acts of murder spanning over a decade, the aggrieved relatives remained defenceless as they ran from pillar to post in their pursuit of justice. This is neither the first nor the last instance where the police and the courts have failed to act promptly, creating immense sorrow and destruction. The poor state of our medico-legal structures and the virtual absence of a forensics department are primary causes of the hazard of delayed justice. Secondly, the impoverished state of our police force compels it to cave in at the slightest temptation and, given the rabid ferocity of Daura’s clan, a ‘paid delay’ in conducting required investigations was, perhaps, a powerful bait. Issues such as the lack of incentives, pay raises and rewards for our indigent police force must be treated with urgency if it is to be mobilised to perform with alacrity, compassion and commitment. Effective monitoring systems to ensure that protection and justice are rapid and reliable are the crying need of our times before many more perish in criminal delays.

Are those children so special?

THAT children should be free of all deadly diseases — in particular those that have become preventable through vaccination — is one of the noblest aspirations the health authorities can have. Yet the cooperation of parents is not always forthcoming. This was the case in a number of areas in the Frontier province some time ago when, convinced by local clerics, many refused to have polio drops administered to their young ones suspecting the vaccine would induce infertility and sterility. But that happened in areas and circumstances heavily influenced by a so-called war for the hearts and minds of men between a secular western civilisation and a ‘Muslim’ way of life resigned to God’s will in matters of life and death.

But when health authorities in Lahore launched an anti-measles campaign in local schools, they learnt that a favourable political and social environment was not the only prerequisite for a smooth vaccination campaign. Some private schools in the city — including the largest and most well known — are denying access to vaccination teams because they first want parents to give them the go-ahead. Why parents should be reluctant to grant permission is not clear. Their behaviour, however, is neither exceptional nor extraordinary. In a socially stratified and hierarchical society like ours it is not strange for people to behave as if they are above all others and, most importantly, above all laws and other societal obligations. What is good for the goose cannot be good for the gander, especially if the latter has a distinctive pedigree. A mass vaccination campaign is a good social leveller because it seeks to save everyone — the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the mighty and the weak — and it is shunned precisely for this reason. But treating some people and places as exceptional amounts to conferring a special status on them and placing them above the rest of society. If those resisting vaccination under religious pretexts were flouting government policy, so are those doing it because of their privileged status. And this is not a matter to be taken lightly. Recently the Belgian government even sent two parents to jail for refusing to have polio drops administered to their children.

Whither fisheries policy?

OVER five million people in Pakistan derive sustenance from fisheries, mostly in coastal Sindh and Balochistan but also riverine Punjab and the NWFP.

The current situation promises a horrendous future for fisherfolk. There are several indicators of declining subsistence incomes — expanding exclusion, dwindling catch, increasing costs, low and insecure fish prices.

Consider GDP from fisheries: Rs15bn in 1999-2000, but lower thereafter until a sparse increase in 2005-06. Throughout, production remained well below 654,000 tons, the quantum of the catch in 1999-2000. Market GDP is around Rs20bn in fisheries. Even if all of it went to fisherfolk, the average monthly income would work out to be less than Rs400 per capita which is substantially lower than a conservative need of Rs1,000. An insignificant number have adequate supplementary income.

Bleakly, unequal income distribution worsens with fisherfolk’s lopsided shares in losses and gains. Should they make up by perversely consuming stocks? Use ‘trash fish’ as cheap chicken feed? Let’s ask Uncle Sam for soya bean instead of instruments of terror.

Sanitising exports to the EU is a milder issue of (mis)management. A structural diagnosis is essential for a commitment to development for men and women. Central policy goals must embrace ecology and economy, requiring changes in community and polity. An alternative is to encourage innovative self-employment.

Upstream mega dams (Tarbela), barrages (Sukkur) and major canals have devastated Indus fisheries. Tens of thousands of fisherfolk have been displaced by the agricultural pollution of Manchhar lake under governments in ‘civvies’. The fisherfolk of Ghazi-Barotha/Tarbela suffer because Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi ‘need’ air conditioners. Badin slowly vanishes under sea water intrusion.

There is need to make a beginning by halting the widespread ecological degradation of natural fishery systems. This is not possible without eliminating exploitation. If fisheries stocks are to be regenerated and conserved, several restrictions will have to be imposed on harvesting. A (vessel) licence plus (species catch) quota system may reduce excessive and destructive fishing.

Regeneration requires reduced catch, especially in fragile zones. Hence we need subsistence funds for fisherfolk — not as charity but as a citizen’s right to universal socio-economic security. Otherwise debt bondage will worsen, leading to eventual exclusion from richer fisheries.

Maintenance, let alone expansion, of fisheries requires substantial monthly fresh water flows throughout the Indus river, especially via the delta to the sea. Floods are part of the solution. But building more dams, barrages or canals will not help since they vastly diminish fertile silt flows.

Publicly subsidised canal-fed agriculture needs rational water use, thus reducing direct wastage as well as losses incurred via ecologically damaging cropping patterns. This will also reduce waterlogging and salinity which will in turn raise productivity and expand cultivable land.

However much fresh water is available, it cannot offset the enormous load of untreated, hazardous effluent dumped into the Indus by agriculture and industry, depleting and degrading fisheries. When will the government faithfully ensure that private and public polluters fulfil their obligations? Reducing water to agriculture may decrease pollution but residual drainage still requires treatment before it is released into rivers and the sea. The LBOD is a disaster, the RBOD will be another. Why must the Ravi remain a sewer?

Public or private aquaculture is not a substitute. It excludes the landless, and drainage is environmentally damaging to nearby land and water, as seen in Bangladesh and Kerala.

Fisherfolk gain from expanded stocks according to access. The contract system for inland water bodies must yield to a licence-quota system managed by local fisherfolk. Marine fisheries require a complete ban on deep-sea trawlers, perhaps all trawling. SME subsidies to encourage deep-sea fishing will be perverse — ecologically and socially — even as income and exports rise temporarily. Fairness demands uniform entitlement to licence-catch quotas across all men, women and children among boat owners as well as non-owners — i.e. crew members and other labour employed in fisheries.

A natural priority to fisherfolk will retire many vessels except when they ‘purchase’ quotas from other fisherfolk. Cooperatives could replace private ownership of large vessels. Residence in fishing locales can be an effective bar to hijacking by capital. Actual labour in fishing would promote female rights to work. Less waste requires better and larger storage facilities on vessels. Destructive nets and other equipment need replacement while public funds will need to be reallocated.

Even if there is much expansion and greater inclusiveness in fisheries, all fisherfolk are unlikely to escape poverty. Hence public funds must be earmarked for alternative sources of income, education and skill enhancement. Working capital could be set aside for self-employment and physical infrastructure improved.

To provide economic security to offset seasonal variability in catch, it is necessary to enforce the national minimum wage and ensure decent and stable prices for catch. Islamabad should remove irrational exclusion in coastal fisheries. It is unjustified that the failure of two neighbours to sort out their differences on maritime boundaries should cause hundreds of fishermen to be incarcerated, leading to the ruin of thousands of their folk year after year. Why should the UN Law of the Sea be violated in this way?

Islamabad will have to develop local natural resource management by abolishing the concurrent legislative list that allows predatory claims. Action is required at all levels of government and Islamabad can lead the way by reverting authority to provincial governments who should cede power to local governments without which security of livelihood is not possible.

Devolution must go below the district or city government level. This need is amply illustrated by the cases of poverty-ridden Rehri Goth, Mubarak Goth or Bhit Island. Accountable only to international capital, our economic managers consistently demonstrate their inability to facilitate development. Hence any agenda for socio-economic security must be universal: based on larger citizen autonomy and lesser bureaucratic discretion.

This favours redistribution of assets rather than of income. In fisheries this is a relatively easy task, because water is largely in the public domain. Of course, the flour crisis demonstrated the paucity of private resources confronted by gross abuse of power.

Public policy would ban expropriation of islands and beaches, as exclusive residences and playgrounds or to safeguard naval security. Sugarland for yuppies is a poison pill for Abdur Rehman Goth in Hawkesbay. The navy should retreat from encroachment on Mubarak Goth.

No tsunami is needed after the coastal development nightmares of Washington, Manila and Tokyo. Enhancing electoral legitimacy requires a rapid shift in economic policy which reverses market terrorism as pine nuts for a few but peanuts for most.

Citizens across the world need safety nets against predatory state-donor actions. May a constitutional court be more effective than the Council of Common Interests? Or should South Asia emulate the EU in placing citizen rights above state interests?

pakistanfisherfolk@yahoo.com

OTHER VOICES: Sindhi Press

New government’s plan

Kawish

THERE are reports that the [incoming coalition government] has prepared a 100-day working plan for the … welfare of the masses, a strategy which might contain a number of measures for economic relief and good governance.

In the case of Sindh, it would be pertinent to note that any such package will bear fruit only if it is free from the tentacles of feudalism and its remnants. These forces are responsible for hindering progress in Sindh.

The good health of Sindhi society depends on good governance, and only under good governance can relief packages yield positive results. The prevailing law and order situation in Sindh exposes the claims of the former rulers and the caretakers who followed them. There are a number of no-go areas and no hint of 21st-century scientific and technological advancement is to be found in this province.

Schools and hospitals remain closed in areas that are in the grip of tribal feuds and the kidnapping industry. People are confined to their homes while fields lie deserted. Driven by fear, they are being forced to sell their assets and buy arms. Sindh has been divided into smaller administrative units where these vested interests have set up their personal fiefdoms. If the new rulers really wanted to work for a united Sindh, they will have to literally stand with the people.

The latest weapons being used in tribal feuds are a constant worry but the government has so far failed to expose the people behind this [bloodshed]. Nor has it been able to track down the source of the arms being smuggled into Sindh. — (March 23)

The 1940 resolution

Awami Awaz

YEARS ago on March 23, parties representing the Muslims of the subcontinent resolved to establish a separate state and this resolution also included an outline of the political system under which the new country was to be run. The tragedy is that the resolution was never really implemented. In 1955, with the enactment of one-unit, this resolution was violated and it was said that Jinnah’s Pakistan had ceased to exist.

The country remained without a constitution for a long time. The 1956 constitution, though controversial, was not implemented. Later we lost the eastern wing and Bhutto gave us the 1973 Constitution but this too proved burdensome for the country…. It is our bad luck that this country has been run under martial law and PCOs since 1955.

The federating units have been demanding rights under this resolution and they should be included in decision-making. These units had voluntarily come into being. As the PPP and its allies have a two-thirds majority in the Assembly, they should review the relationship between the federation and its units.

If the 1940 resolution had been implemented, we would have neither lost East Pakistan nor the identity of the country as envisaged by Jinnah. Even if this resolution were implemented today in letter and spirit, the country could be easily pulled out of the political, constitutional, legal and economic crises it faces. When we commemorate this day on a national level, why not implement this resolution? — (March 23)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi.