Learning the static way

Learning the static way
Published The MEWS on Sunday Dec 2006
Third in the list of educational systems operating in Pakistan are madrassas -- once the original schools for Muslims

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

The education system in Pakistan caters to three different categories of students. One is for the English-speaking elite class comprising cadet colleges and well-known chains of schools and is almost entirely privately run. Then there are government schools in which charges are minimal but facilities and quality of teaching are poor. Third in the list are madrassas where stress is on religious education and schooling is more or less free.

It has been rightly said that Pakistan is producing three distinctpersonalities through its contrasting systems of education. There aren't many similarities among the graduates churned out by the public schools and cadet colleges, government educational institutions, and madrassas. Most of them would tend to have a different worldview after having studied in a particular environment. Those educated in government and religious schools would have more in common than those studying in the elitist educational institutions because they largely belong to the poor and lower middle classes. Though it is understandable to have different level of schools to cater to students belonging to various socio-economic groups, the implications for the future on account of such a non-uniform educational system are obvious.

Madrassas have been part of life in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, as well as in other Islamic countries. Indeed the madrassas were the original form of schooling for Muslims and were gradually replaced by the more secular and conventional schools over a period of time. While madrassas elsewhere in the Islamic world underwent a change in keeping with the trends of a modernising global environment, those in undivided India and in present-day Pakistan remained largely static. Efforts to effect changes in their curriculum and include modern sciences in the madrassa syllabus faltered because the Ulema running them were suspicious of those pushing for a change. Policy-makers and decision-takers were mostly from the secular establishment and, therefore, they were unable to create the right conditions to convince the clergy controlling the madrassa system that their intentions were sincere and well-meaning.

In the existing scenario, madrassas largely cater to two categories of people. Poor parents send their children to madrassas which offer free education, food and shelter because they cannot afford to educate their wards in conventional schools. Then there are the relatively wealthy families wishing to have one or two kids study religion full-time in a bid to seek Allah's blessings. Students receiving religious education part-time form a significant segment of the school-going children. Most Pakistani families make it a point to impart basic Quranic education to their children by sending them to mosques and homes or asking tutors to visit their residences.

Official figures show the number of madrassas, including both small and big, to be over 10,000. Among them are unregistered religious schools because government plans to register seminaries encountered opposition from the clergy. The seminaries mushroomed following the military takeover of the country by General Ziaul Haq primarily due to government backing and funding. Every clergyman worth his salt set up a madrassa and sustained it either with government funds or donations. Pakistanis are believed to be some of the biggest charity-givers in the Islamic world and most of their donations go to mosques and madrassas. In recent years, madrassas for girls have been set up rapidly and nowadays one often sees seminaries for male and female students existing close to each other under the same management.

Data collected by the security agencies in the NWFP sometime back showed that 1,761 madrassas, including 1,034 that were unregistered, with total enrolment of 223,900 were functioning in the province. The students included a large, unspecified number of Afghan refugees and another 64 from other countries. However, this was before the government banned foreigners from receiving madrassa education in Pakistan. The data gathered by the labour and industries department, NWFP, which is supposed to register madrassas, differed with that put together by the intelligence agencies. Its figures showed that the province had 1,823 madrassas, including 1,433 that were registered before registration of new seminaries was banned in 1994. When the ban was subsequently lifted, another 390 madrassas were registered. According to the security agencies' survey, 228,021 students had graduated from madrassas in the NWFP during the past 10 years. The number of madrassas graduates grew every year and it was 32,177 last year. The green and mountainous Swat district, the favourite destination of tourists, had more madrassas and students than other districts in the province.

Madrassa education has undergone little change over the years. With a few exceptions, most seminaries have stuck to the old syllabus and teaching methods. Government efforts to reform the system of education at the madrassas have been slow and ineffective. The Wifaqul Madaris, an independent, Ulema-run body that oversees madrassa education and conducts examinations, has resisted change suggested by outsiders. Maulana Hanif Jullundhari, one of its top functionaries, recently wrote a series of articles to show that madrassa students unlike their counterparts from conventional educational institutions never resorted to strikes and violence and refrained from teaching in examinations. He argued that the madrassas were performing a specific role by imparting quality religious education and should continue to do so in the same manner in which public schools and colleges were providing secular teaching.

Some clergymen are also fond of quoting Allama Iqbal, who while visiting Spain was saddened by the sight of the old Islamic cities and institutions that Muslim conquerors left behind after their defeat at the hands of Christians. The Allama is reported to have said that the madrassas should remain as they are so that children of poor Muslims continue to study there and become Mullas and Dervishes. "Otherwise, Indian Muslims would meet the same fate as the Muslims in Undulas (Spain) where the ruins of Grenada and Qurtaba and the relics of Al-Hamra are the only remaining signs of Islamic culture in a country ruled by Muslims for 800 long years," Allama Iqbal reportedly observed.

It is obvious that the clergymen see the madrassas as repositories of Islamic learning and fortresses of the religion. They believe the worldview the madrassas offer is aimed at defending the faith from onslaught by non-believers. Critics don't agree with this observation as they feel madrassa education doesn't fully equip the students to meet modern challenges. In their view, madrassas retard progress because there is no teaching of modern sciences or languages at the seminaries. There is also the feeling that madrassas promote religious sectarianism as the seminaries cater to particular schools of thought ranging from Deobandi to Barelvi and Ahle Hadith to Ahle Tashee (Shia). The religious divide inculcated in the minds of young and impressionable minds at the madrassas blocks integration and tolerance and causes strife.

There are bound to be problems in the education sector in Pakistan in future if we continue with the divergent educational systems. There would certainly be clash of ideas between those graduating from elitist educational institutions and the government and religious schools. One could only hope that it doesn't lead to violence.

QK Archives: Facts are sacred

Written by Dr Sher Zaman Taizi
Monday, 12 June 2006

There is a proverb in Pushto that "the lie destroys villages until the truth is revealed ". In the atomic era, this proverb also moved and expanded its sphere as "the lie destroys countries until the truth is revealed." Respectable Wali Khan dusted the truth when the lie first divided India, then bifurcated Pakistan, then put fire to Afghanistan and now working on destruction of Kashmir.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is painted as a preceptor of the two-nation theory. But Wali Khan mentions him to have said in a speech in Gurdaspur on January 27, 1884; "We (ie Hindus and Mohammadans) should try to become one heart and soul, and act in unison... Remember that the words Hindus and Mohammadans are only meant for religious distinctions - otherwise all persons whether Hindu or Mohammadan, even the Christians who reside in the country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation. (A nation is Born by Syed Hassan Mahmood; p.339)" (p.123). Addressing the Indian association in Lahore in 1884, he said; "I heartily wished to serve my country and my nation faithfully. In the word nation I include both Hindus and Mohammadans, because that is the only meaning I can attach to it." He does not stop here, but goes to the extent to say; "These are the different grounds upon which I call both those races which inhabit India by one word i.e. Hindu; meaning to say that they are the inhabitants of Hindustan." (p.124)

Since we have entered the age of discretion, we have been listening to rhetoric that Iqbal saw a dream and Pakistan came into being. Now Wali Khan brought out those references that Iqbal himself was not in favour of Pakistan. He had rather committed to say:

Saaray jehaan say achchha Hindustan hamaaraa,
Ham bulbulayn hayn iskee, yeh gulistaan hamaaraa. (p.124)
(Better than the entire world is our India,
We are its nightingales, its our rose-garden.)
Mazhab nahin sikhaataa aapas mayn berr rakhnaa,
Hindi hayn, ham-watan hayn, Hindustan hamaaraa. (p.125)
(Religion does not teach mutual-distrust,
We are Indian, compatriot, India is ours.)
Dana-e-tasbeeh ba zannar kasheedan aamoz,
Gar nigah-e-too do been ast, ne-deedan aamoz. (p.125)
(String the beads of rosary in the scared threat,
If you see the two (apart), better to be blind.

But who is to be told, and who would believe in this truth which has been buried under the heaps of lies. Here the perennial flow of lies for the last half a century has washed and polished the minds to such an extent that they can not accept any other hue.

This is not a lie or two to be discussed and clarified. After the creation of Pakistan, when the time of distribution of spoils arrived, and those on-the-ground and underground Pakistanis came out to fall out among themselves, a continual and endless series of accusation and counter-accusation started. There may not be such a leader or a party in Pakistan which might have not been accused of treason. It looks as if the government is also in the hand of the traitors, the opposition is also traitor and the subject is also traitor. But the common enemy of all these traitors is one and the same - and that is Bacha Khan, and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement.

Whether it is an official traitor, or traitor in opposition, political traitor or religious traitor, they all sing in chorus the same lilt that:

Bacha Khan is ally of Hindus;
Bacha Khan didn't accept Pakistan.


This lilt had been composed and publicised by the British through their well-wishers. So, why their pet Khans, Maliks, Mullahs, Pirs and Qazi should forget it?

Bacha Khan was awakening the Pukhtun nation to get freedom of the British government and shake off these parasite demons from their shoulders. It happened that when the Pukhtun attained the sense of discretion, those Khans and their Mullahs were stunned and worried. The British government found a ready-made stock of people to counter the threat. The government encouraged them, put turbans on their heads, awarded robes of honour to them and gave them awards and titles. They were given authoritative posts to beat and bleed their own people. And those people received Pakistan in heritage from their masters. They received the record of the British government. So the traitor of the state, traitor of the crown, traitor of the people, ally of Hindus, saboteur and subversionist on the record of the British offices remained as such. Because, these people preached awakening, brotherhood and self-determination of the Pukhtuns, which irritated the rulers.

The piles of lies made the history of Pakistan - a new volume of the romances of the Arabian Nights (Alif-Lyla). This is the story of seven dervish, like this; One dervish presented the two-nation theory, the second saw a dream, the third selected a name for it, the fourth presented a resolution, and the fifth created Pakistan; the sixth terrified India with a towering fist and the seventh cut Pakistan into two. During this period the devil of martial law appeared which disqualified all political leaders and banned all political parties. When another demon of martial law entered the scene, Pakistan staggered and split in two parts; one fell there and the other fell here. Then the imp of civil martial law jumped in the arena and threw out the elected members from the assemblies. Then appeared the white-robed dervish with a wand of martial law to Islamise the state and the people. How and in what a circumstances this dervish disappeared is still a mystery. But as the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan has become a mystery, the elimination of Zia-ul-Haq and his colleagues has also become a mystery. And when these mysteries are solved and the facts are known, the time would have elapsed.

In this Pakistan, many experiments have been conducted, such as one-party rule, democratic government, one-unit, basic democracy, roti-kapra-makan, Islamic socialism, Islamic government and so many others. These experiments are made at the cost of people. The ruling junta does not consider people and their welfare. The condition of people is going from bad to worst.

Let me mention one thing here. On March 30, 1940, a resolution was passed in the Minto Park, Lahore. Who presented this resolution, why it was done and how is matured? These questions have answered and discussed by Wali Khan in detail (p.217), which does not need repetition. The point is that the people came to know about that resolution when, as its consequence, Pakistan came into being. The distance between that resolution and Pakistan was seven years and a little less than five months, which was not known to any body within the limits of the existing area of Pakistan. And since the creation of Pakistan, there has never been a consensual interpretation of that resolution.

On the other hand, even before the creation of Pakistan, Pukhtuns had demanded the name of Pukhtunistan only for their identification. In 1948, Bacha Khan repeated that demand in the legislative assembly of Pakistan, as the representative of the Pukhtuns. Hundreds of meetings and demonstrations were held for the purpose, and hundreds of resolutions were passed. And then, how many resolutions were passed even by the provincial assembly for renaming of the province as Pukhtunkhwa? Every week, a resolution or two are passed for introduction of Pukhto as medium of education and official language of the province. But none of these resolutions has ever been given any heed!

There are too many things to be discussed. But every matter is so much complicated, that it could not be discussed separately. The time is fast. Those people who had followed Bacha Khan to sustain such hardship which would raise the hair on mere hearing, have almost left the world. The new generation would hardly believe in stories of their sufferings. These stories would also sound as stories of Alif Lyla. After all, why these people had sustained so much hardship, and what was the result? Because the youths of the new generation educated under the government policy have been indoctrinated that Pakistan has grown from the two-nation theory, it is interpretation of the dream of a poet, and has been made from one resolution.

There is everything in the textbooks of our schools and colleges but nothing of truth. There is no mention in these books of the heroic struggle and unbearable sufferings of the leaders and soldiers of the century-long movement of freedom. The text books of Pakistan do not teach history and geography of Pakistan. These books may introduce Ghalib and Sir Syed from India, Shakespeare from England and many other poets and writers from other countries but they don�t present the image of native poets and writers. The Pakhtun student may know any poet and writer in any corner of the world but has not information about Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba.

It is a charisma that this important aspect of the national history attracted attention of Khan Abdul Wali Khan who took all the trouble with sore eye and swollen heart and entered the horrifying darkness of papers to snatch some rays of truth out of them, and break the talisman built up by the 60-year long exercise of lies. Bacha Khan had stressed more on education along the struggle for freedom.

The title of the book shields its author from many-sided literary, academic and critical sallies. Wali Khan calls it an attempt in defence of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. So it is not a history, but analytical study of the events leading to the creation of Pakistan, and advocacy in the light of this process to defend the political career of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. On this account, it is strongly recommended that the new generation must read and understand it.

Discussion on events with personal approach and the original aim of the work ie defence of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement have resulted in repetition and literary hyperbole because the author himself has been a character of all these stories throughout his life. At some places, comments and footnotes are not relevant, and at some places sources of information are missing. After-all, it is not the work of a research scholar but of a political leader.

Bypassing the technical flaws and defects, the style shows that had Wali Khan not joined the politics he would have been a writer of high standard. But the Pukhtuns need leadership, too. So Wali Khan did not care for his own self and tried to serve the nation on both the fronts. At a very critical and sensitive juncture of history, he provided all-the-best leadership to his people, and then, with his three books, he was the only political writer among the Pukhtuns to rise and become a light-house for the Pukhtun historians.

Bacha Khan au Khudai Khidmatgar (in two volumes);
Khan Abdul Wali Khan;
Wali Bagh (Ashnaghar) Charsadda;
Vol-I; March, 1993; Pp. 566; Rs 200;
Vol-II; July, 1994; Pp. 622; Rs 200.
Vol-III; March 1998; PP: 744; Rs 250.

The writer is a research scholar and Pushto writer and poet, having 33 books of Pushto and English in credit.

Home: Dr. Sher Zaman Taizi, Usmanabad, Pabbi, District Nowshera, NWFP, PAKISTAN

Ashraf Maftoon: The father of romanticism in Pashto poetry

The father of romanticism in Pashto poetry
Written by Sher Alam Shinwari
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
Mohammed Ashraf Maftoon, the rebel poet, died in March 2004. I remember walking up to his residence on the airport road in Peshawar Cantonment when I found the poet in a vivacious mood. "It is by a stroke of good luck that today I feel so fresh and spirited that I am ready to answer your volley of questions," he remarked welcoming me.

Clean-shaven and well dressed, Ashraf Maftoon would most of the time remain at home and preferred not to attend any literary function or participate in any other literary activity for which he generally had a very good reason. He was one of those prolific university scholars who had brought about revolutionary changes in the form, diction, style and substance of Pushto literature. The other scholars with a similar role were Qalandar Moomand, Fazal Haq Shida, Ghani Khan, Samandar Khan Samandar, Syed Rasool Rasa, and Major Yunas Khalil. All were greatly influenced by western literature and philosophy. That was why they revolted against the traditional style of poetry in Pushto.

"I started composing poetry when I was admitted to the Islamia Collegiate School. In 1945, when I switched over to Islamia College, Peshawar, I had a collection of poetry prepared. The manuscript I handed over for publication to one of my friends. But he proved to be careless and lost it. In those days, I used to get my poems and write-ups published in Khyber, the literary magazine of the college. Sometimes I would recite my poetry to Syed Rasool Rasa, Samandar Khan and Yunas Khalil who very much appreciated it which was very encouraging for me."

Ashraf Maftoon's first poetry collection Da Shair Duniya was published in 1947. Due to its unconventional style, it created quite a stir among the budding Pakhtoon poets. Syed Rasool Rasa in his preface to Ashraf Maftoon's second poetry collection Da Zsuand Sandara (The Song of Life) wrote, "There is no doubt that Ashraf Maftoon is the father of romanticism in contemporary Pushto poetry. He has an indigenous way of thinking, a unique style of expression and never relies on borrowed ideas. He has blended his sublime imagination with his deep philosophic thoughts."

Ashraf Maftoon was born in 1922 in Rajjar Charsadda. He passed his matriculation from the Islamia Collegiate School and graduated from the Islamia College, Peshawar. He took admission in the University of Peshawar for a master's in philosophy but then left it half way due to some domestic problems.

"I served in Radio Pakistan Peshawar for 22 years but I resigned from there because of its slavish environment. For me it was a place where I could not revere my own national heroes in a befitting manner. I want freedom not only for the Pakhtoons but also for the Punjabis, Sindhis and Balochis.

"It is only poetry that consoles my restless soul and that is why I have secluded myself and taken refuge in perfect solitude," he said. The suicide of his only son Zarak in 1991 further made him live an isolated life. Maftoon criticized Iqbal and Faiz for using their poetic talent for the propagation of their own thoughts.

"It is not necessary for great poetry that it should take up only contemporary moral or social issues and should essentially follow the prevailing literary standards because great poetry stands the test of time and space. It transcends the geographical, racial and linguistic boundaries," Maftoon added. He preferred prose for teaching philosophy in fiction, which was a new technique he adopted in the twilight years of his life.

He published a collection of six radio dramas titled Haider in his lifetime. Being a humanist he believed strongly in human dignity and freedom of expression. He was a rebel to the core. Hedonism is a predominant factor in his poems. 'Zohra' is his ideal beloved who recurrently appears in his poetry. His love for wine and women, though, does not occupy the central place in his poetry. But he endows both of them with decency and decorum. His ghazals generally follow the traditional style in Pushto but his poems are distinct and unique in form and diction.

This makes Ashraf Maftoon distinct from his contemporaries. "The merit of poetic art is that it arouses the emotion of love, sharpens one's aesthetic sense, enriches one's ideal world, enlightens his thinking faculty through the power of reason," said Ashraf.

He wished somebody would translate into Pushto "The trial and death of Socrates". He drew great inspiration from Buddha and Abdul Ghafar (Bacha) Khan due to their humanistic feelings. His poetry collections Sreekey, Kawaakey, Lukharrey, Wagmey and Skundaarey have been well received by readers and critics of Pushto. The vacuum in Pushto literature created by Maftoon's death cannot be easily filled.

QK Archives: Riaz Tasneem

Riaz Tasneem: A poet of purpose, enlightened vision

Written by Sher Alam Shinwari
Saturday, 18 March 2006

PESHAWAR: A soft spoken and simple looking smart Karachi based Pashto poet with greenish eyes, Riaz Tasneem was a born on September 3, 1968 in Peshawar Riaz Tasneem did his SSC from Government High School Akhwarwaal in 1984 and qualified his Intermediate from Islamia College, Peshawar in 1986 and Graduation from Federal Urdu Arts College, Karachi in 1995. Riaz’s forefathers had moved from Mohmand Agency, village Zanawar Cheena to Peshawar while he made his way to Karachi to find a suitable job in 1989.
The inspiration for poetry came from Diwan-e- Abdur Rahman, which he used to pick up for his pleasure reading. When Riaz read was asked to contribute his poetic piece to the college’s celebrated literary Magazine ‘Khyber’, he too composed some verses, which were published later on. Khadim Hussian a close friend of Riaz further honed his talent and introduced him to the writings of great literary giants like Ahmed Faraz, Munir Niazi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Hamza Baba, Qalandar Momand, Ghani Khan, Ajmal Khattak and Rahmat Shah Sail. He served as Sub -editor with daily Wahdat for a year. Aasi Ashnaghari took him to Qalandar Momand‘s literary session in 1988. (I have benefited a lot from Qalandar Momand. On my occasional visit to Peshawar I would never miss his literary session. He gave us in fact a deep critical sense,” Riaz fondly remembers while talking to the Statesman. In Karachi, Riaz was one among the Pashto writers to have founded a literary organization Jaras Adabi Jarga in 1990, which would hold critical literary session on monthly basis at its office in Bolten Market. Fahim Sarhadi Late, Bacha Khan Late, Qaiser Afridi and Tahir Afridi were the prominent writers who immensely contributed to Pashto literature in Karachi. “ The Pashto literary bodies in Karachi, previously were limited only to Mushairas, Jaras Adabi Jarga introduced the tradition of critical literary session. Tahir Afridi a renowned short story writer and one of the founders of Jaras Adabi Jarga, launched Jaras-e- Pakhto a popular literary magazine in 1999, I have worked with it as Sub -editor for a long time and also contributed my articles and poetic pieces,” says Riaz.

QK Archives: Hayat is dead

Hayat is dead
Published by The News on Sunday 2006 circa
The insistence of Hayatullah to disprove the official claims about the US missiles attack in Esorhi village in December was the beginning of the end for him

By Behroz Khan

The cold-blooded murder of journalist Hayatullah Khan Dawar in the restive North Waziristan Agency in mysterious circumstances sends a clear-cut message to all journalists working in tribal as well as settled areas -- there are limits they must abide by.

Hayatullah Khan, 30 and a father of four, was found dead in the mountains of Khaisur village, south of Mirali town, on June 16. He was shot several times in the head from behind while handcuffed and the intention behind this, experts believe, was to give the impression as if the journalist was killed while attempting to escape from captivity. Hayatullah Khan was kidnapped from the main Mirali-Bannu road on December 5 last year by a group of bearded men armed with Ak-47 assault rifles when he was on his way to cover a students' demonstration against the US missile attack in Esorhi village on December 1.

Earlier, reporting by Hayatullah about the same air strike had belied official claims that the house owned by Muhammad Siddiq was destroyed when explosives present there exploded, killing three alleged wanted al-Qaeda operatives too. President Pervez Musharraf claimed he was 500 per cent sure that al-Qaeda No-3, Hamza Rabia was among the dead.

Hayatullah, like a few others, did not agree and came up with photographs and facts that suggested the house may have been targeted with missiles from an unmanned US drone. His reports were critical of the political administration and the military operating in the region to hunt down al-Qaeda men and their local supporters. Hayatullah remained missing for six months and 10 days and was finally eliminated. In the interim, no militant or criminal group contacted his family either for ransom nor one claimed responsibility of his kidnapping.

"This is not Taliban-style because they dispose off cases of suspected informers and pro-government agents in a few days," says Ihsanullah Khan Dawar, younger brother of Hayatullah. Hayatullah's family holds agencies responsible for his captivity. Fellow journalists draw a comparison between the assassination of US journalist Daniel Pearl and the murder of Hayatullah, although the circumstances may have varied.

Ihsanullah says officials had assured his family that Hayatullah was being questioned and detained in the interest of the country. "'The day his name is cleared, he will be released'," Ihsanullah quoted one military officer as telling him. It was a major in the secret services who called up Ihsanullah to inform him about Hayat's death and where to find his body.

Hayatullah, according to his brother, was first threatened on November 17, prompting him to rush to Islamabad on November 21 to inform fellow journalist and close friend, Hamid Mir. He was offered three choices: leave the agency; stop reporting while staying at Mirali; or accept the position of a naib muharer (head clerk) in the political administration.

Two other journalists, Amir Nawab Wazir and Allah Noor Wazir, were gunned down and a third Anwar Shakir was critically injured in February 2005 in neighbouring South Waziristan Agency. The vehicle carrying them from Sra Rogha after attending the agreement signing ceremony between the military and a local Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud, was ambushed in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan.

There was no probe and no one was brought to justice while journalists continued to be targeted. Their houses, offices and vehicles were hit, thus forcing the entire journalist fraternity to move out of the insecure tribal region and take refuge in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan. No journalist is based in South Waziristan today. While reporting about the situation in the tribal belt, a number of Peshawar-based journalists, including this reporter, have been threatened and subjected to the most abusive language on telephone by unidentified callers.

The mystery about Hayatullah's disappearance is compounded by statements and assurances made by officials to the family and journalists. Ihsanullah quotes Political Agent North Waziristan, Syed Zahirul Islam, as saying on May 15 that he was powerless to secure the release of Hayat.

Prior to that, the same official had informed Ihsanullah that his brother had been seen at Bagram Airbase and was in the custody of the US forces, a claim rejected by the Peshawar-based US Consul General, Michael Spangler during a luncheon hosted by him for the journalists on May 10 in Peshawar.

On December 24, in the presence of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at the Governor House, Peshawar, then governor Khalilur Rehman categorically said: "He (Hayat) has not been kidnapped." Secretary to the governor told journalists that the more you demonstrate, the more you delay his release.

Hayatullah was arrested in Birmal area of Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province by US forces in 2001 and was detained at the Machadad Kot military base for a week, but was later allowed to go. "He was arrested on suspicion of being a spokesman for Mullah Omar," Ihsanullah said, adding that his brother was neither close to the Taliban nor has he worked against them.

Ihsanullah, who wishes to follow his brother into journalism, has been demanding an impartial inquiry into the murder. The federal government has set up a judicial inquiry commission headed by a judge of the Peshawar High Court, Justice Muhammad Raza Khan, to probe into the case and bring the facts behind the murder to the fore. The commission will look into allegations and the circumstances in which Hayat went.

Article 247 deals with the administration of the Tribal Areas and says that (1) subject to the Constitution, the executive authority of the federation shall extend to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and the executive authority of a province shall extend to the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas therein. (2) The President may, from time to time, give directions to the Governor of a province relating to the whole or any part of a Tribal Area within the Province as he may deem necessary, And the Governor shall, in the exercise of function under this Article, comply with such directions.

QK Archives: Dr. Mohammed Najibullah: The Afghan Prometheus

Op-Ed On September 24, 2014 orginally Published by the Daily Times
Dr Mohammed Najibullah: the Afghan Prometheus



“

Strike harder, squeeze him, don’t leave any slack!

He’s very clever at finding ways out of impossible situations” — Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound.

Seeing the artist Dirck Van Baburen’s painting Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan on a recent visit to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum brought to mind the above lines from the Greek tragedy and then immediately the imagery of the September 26, 1996 assassination of former Afghan President Dr Mohammed Najibullah by the Taliban. In Aeschylus’ work, the ‘power’ is giving instructions to the Vulcan to pin the mythical revolutionary down. There also seem to have been instructions in the case of Dr Najibullah’s assassination from a menacing power to its quislings. Peter Tomsen, the former US special envoy to Afghanistan, notes in his book The Wars of Afghanistan, “Najib’s entrapment and execution carried the hallmarks of a classic intelligence operation. The Taliban, on their own, would not have taken such elaborate precautions to avoid violating the UN’s diplomatic premises (where Dr Najibullah had taken sanctuary since stepping down in 1992).”

Ambassador Tomsen has also noted, “Four Taliban, including, by one account, a Pakistani ISI officer disguised as Taliban, drove directly to the UN compound in a Japanese Datsun pickup. Their mission was to lure the former Afghan president out of the diplomatically protected UN premises.” Mullah Abdul Razzaq was the Taliban ringleader who carried out the torture, killing, mutilation and desecration of the corpses — a war crime by any definition — at the behest of his Pakistani minders. In her recent book The Wrong Enemy, the New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall has corroborated the US diplomat’s detailed account of murder most foul. The Pakistani security establishment did not want the Afghan Prometheus out alive. He had withstood the combined Pakistani-Arab-US onslaught through Afghan rebels and Arab mercenaries even after the Soviet withdrawal. In fact, Dr Najibullah inflicted the most humiliating defeat on the ISI-backed mujahideen in the March 1989 battle of Jalalabad after the Soviet pullout. But the Pakistani junta was perhaps more wary of Dr Najibullah’s Afghan nationalist credentials and a larger than life stature that he had attained on both sides of the Durand Line after the Soviet departure. His opponents knew that, if left alive, Dr Najibullah would continue to stand resolutely against Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan.

Dr Najibullah was born in Kabul in 1947 to Mr Muhammad Akhtar, an Ahmadzai Pashtun of the Ghilzai tribal confederacy. The family originally hailed from Paktia. Dr Najibullah spent a few years in Peshawar where his father was posted as a trade attaché with the Afghan consulate. Dr Najibullah went to the Habibia High School and then to the faculty of medicine at Kabul University. He was one of the leading lights of the student wing of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His Kabul background drew him to the rather Persianised Parcham (the flag) faction, named thus after its party organ, of the PDPA. He was imprisoned at least twice during King Zahir Shah’s era for political activities on campus. He, along with his schoolmate Mahmud Biryalay — a stepbrother of the Parcham leader Babrak Karmal — contributed prolifically to the party organ. He got his medical degree in 1975 but never did practice medicine. Dr Najibullah became a member of the unified PDPA’s central committee in 1977, member of the Revolutionary Council after the Saur Revolution in 1978 and was elevated as a full member of the politburo in 1981. When the Khalq (the people) faction of the PDPA purged the Parchamites, especially Babrak Karmal’s confidants, after the 1978 revolution, Dr Najibullah was exiled to Iran as an ambassador. He was drawn closer to Babrak Karmal perhaps due to similar backgrounds but had a diametrically opposite style of leadership.

While Karmal was rather standoffish, Dr Najibullah was a people’s man who could relate to the Afghans in Kabul and the countryside with equal ease. Dr Najibullah had the intellect of the Parcham ideologue ustad (teacher), Mir Akbar Khyber, finesse of a western democrat and craft of a tribal leader. His linguistic prowess in both Persian and Pashto was breathtaking and his oratory remains unmatched in contemporary Afghan history. Dr Najibullah had the voice and delivery command of a seasoned broadcaster. He was at equal ease talking in Marxist jargon at a PDPA plenum, to the Afghan troops in Jalalabad garrison and to the tribal assemblies (jirgas). The doctor sure knew how to take his audience and indeed his people’s political pulse. The Parcham faction was certainly a numeric minority in the PDPA when Dr Najibullah became the Afghan president in 1986 and the party’s general secretary. His knack for understanding the ethno-tribal complexities of Afghanistan was remarkable and was the primary reason for the support that he did manage to muster, especially after the Soviet exit.

From encouraging non-Marxist nationalist groups to eventually changing the PDPA’s name to the Hizb-e-Watan (National Party) with a clear national democratic charter rather than an overtly communist agenda, all contributed to Dr Najibullah’s longevity at the helm in Kabul. I would venture to say that the only modern Afghan leader, whether monarch, Marxist or republican, that comes close to Dr Najibullah’s leadership style and ability was Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan, whom the PDPA had toppled and replaced.

Like Daud Khan, Dr Najibullah was an Afghan first and foremost. His creed most certainly was Afghan nationalism and his ultimate agenda was national reconciliation that he pushed with utmost sincerity. He was prophetic in warning about the dangers of the Pak-Saudi-US backing of the jihadists and foretold its disastrous impact on Afghanistan and the region in speech after speech. His National Reconciliation Policy and the 1988 Geneva Peace Accords have even more relevance today to negotiate peace within Afghanistan and to keep the intruders out.

Dr Najibullah was immensely popular among the Pashtun nationalist rank and file in Pakistan. However, while many of the Pakistani Pashtun leaders stood by him, the top ones did not take up his languishing in the UN compound seriously. Not so much as a strike was called in the almost five years that Dr Najibullah remained confined in that ill-fated building. Those who routinely talked of greater Afghanistan and Pashtunistan were perhaps too vested in Islamabad’s politics to see how and why the Afghan Prometheus was being tied down. A full treatise is in order to discuss the orientation of Pashtun nationalism in Pakistan but suffice it to say that both major Pashtun parties, minus a few individual leaders, let Dr Najibullah down.
RIP Dr Najibullah.
To rephrase Aeschylus, you were too audacious and unyielding in the face of bitter pains, and you spoke too freely.



The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki

Fatehullah Gandapur Dams' advocate

Fatehullah Gandapur

Dams' advocate
Interview published by THE NEWS on Sunday circa 2006

I emphasise on the construction of Katzara Dam because it costs nearly as much as Kalabagh Dam does but it can store 35 million acre feet of water and generate 15,000 megawatts of power.

By Raza Rahman Khan

The News on Sunday: Why do you oppose the construction of Kalabagh Dam?

Fatehullah Gandapur: I am opposing Kalabagh Dam purely on technological grounds. Being a professional, I will only give professional reasons for my opposition.

The life of its reservoir will be very short, 20 years to be precise, and it will not add any acres to Pakistan's irrigated lands. Claims in this regard are wrong. It will only make up for the storage losses caused by the silting up Tarbela and Mangla dams. In this sense, it is a replacement dam. It will not generate 3,600 megawatts of electricity, as is wrongly claimed by the government. It will only produce 1,460 megawatts, which will be its dependable power-generation capacity. To generate the additional 2,000 megawatts of power, the government has a plan to install a thermal power plant near the dam site.

Moreover, the area earmarked for Kalabagh Dam falls in a high risk seismic zone. The dam's consultant agrees that its foundation will be unsafe for any structure 160 feet high. The height of Kalabagh Dam is 260 feet. So, I suggest to the government that if it still wants to utilise the site, it should instead construct a raised barrage there. This barrage will have a capacity to store 3.5 million acre feet of water. But unlike Kalabagh Dam it will last forever. Its power generation capacity will also be same -- 1,460 megawatts -- as that of Kalabagh Dam. Above all, the construction cost (of the barrage) will be relatively very low and it can be completed quickly.

On the other hand I emphasise on the construction of Katzara Dam because it costs nearly as much as Kalabagh Dam does but it can store 35 million acre feet of water and generate 15,000 megawatts of power. The life-span of Katzara Dam will be more than 1000 years because it is out of the monsoon range and, therefore, will not be flooded with silt. (The water flowing into it) is snow-fed. Katzara Dam can control floods and can be helpful in coping with calamities expected in future as a result of environmental degradation. Above all, if this dam is built, it will stop soil erosion in Skardu valley, the most susceptible place for soil erosion. This will, in turn, stop silt from flowing downstream the Indus river -- something which silts up Tarbela Dam. Had Katzara Dam been constructed before Tarbela Dam, the latter's life-span would have been 1000 years instead of the present 50 years.

The life-span of Bhasha Dam, according to its consultant, is 80 years. But if Bhasha Dam is built after Katzara Dam, then this period will stretch to almost 1000 years.

I may add that in Kalabagh Dam, silt will not come from the Indus river alone. It will also flow into the dam from the Kabul river. Priority should be given to building dams in the upper riparian areas of the Indus river in order to control silt.

TNS: When you say that Katzara Dam should have been built before the Tarbela Dam, are you suggesting that the danger of silting was not properly calculated?

FG: No, they were not. I did a pre-feasibility study on Katzara Dam in 1962 but nobody was interested.

TNS: Are dams good or bad?

FG: The argument put forward by Sindh against the construction of dams is completely illogical. Dams are good; they must be built. They do not consume water. They are like banks. You can withdraw whatever amount of water (after it is stored by a dam) whenever you need it. They also generate power at a low cost.

Pakistan should have constructed at least 20 dams by now. No (big) dam has been built after the commissioning of Tarbela Dam in 1974. The government should have put Kalabagh Dam aside as soon dispute arose over it. Another dam should have been built instead to overcome the scarcity of water.

Now, Pakistan is facing critical times ahead. If (big) dams are not built within a decade, famine will sway the country. Planning (for big dams) should immediately start because water projects are time consuming and costly.

TNS: So you are not concerned with the social impact of mega dams...

FG: In China, the construction of one mega dam displaced 1.5 million people. But they were given alternative places to live even before they were dislocated. People do everything they can for their countries. If some populated area comes under water as the result of a dam's construction, no one should raise hue and cry because (people living in these areas) can be shifted to other places.

TNS: You have worked as Irsa's chairman. What do you say about the authority's working? Is it sloppy? Does the authority lack mechanism to enforce its writ?

FG: Irsa simultaneously have too much powers and no powers at all. It is Irsa's mandate to implement the 1991 water accord but the authority does not have financial, administrative or judicial powers to get it implemented. Irsa is dependent on the finance department for its salaries and other running expenses. It was founded in good faith but due to the lack of these powers it has been rendered ineffective. Irsa should have powers to build dams and resolve water-related disputes.

TNS: If Irsa is that powerless, how can the provinces resolve the issue of water pilferage?

FG: Though the government has installed telemetry system at the cost of Rs 25 crores (to measure water levels at various dams and barrages) but this system has failed to end the allegations of water pilferage. There have been instances when 80,000 cusecs of water were pilfered out of 100,000 cusecs flowing through the Indus system but the equipment did not register it. Now if (the federal government) wants to stop water pilferage and distribute water among provinces honestly, it needs to thoroughly investigate who is stealing how much water, where and when. The mere setting up of a measuring system cannot deliver on its own.

TNS: What do you say about the observation that the 1991 Accord was unjust?

FG: The basic formula of the 1991 Accord was that the area already under cultivation will not be touched. Also, the accord did not change water schemes that were being executed and the water that was being historically used by different provinces. It meant a large amount of water given to Sindh and Punjab for irrigation without having to increase allocation of water to the Frontier and Balochistan, which do not have vast tracts of irrigated land and elaborate canal systems. I favour a first come, first serve formula. As water goes away from the source, losses increase both through seepage and evaporation. If the upper riparian lands are irrigated on priority basis, losses will will be little. It is not enough that we irrigate our lands only through gravity flow. We should also use lift irrigation techniques. Under the current situation, the Frontier province is at an extreme disadvantage because most of its land is located above the gravity level.

There is another gross mistake committed in the 1991 Water Accord. It divides 117 million acre feet of water while the actual available amount is 105 million acre feet. Thus 12 million acre feet of water have been distributed without their being present in the system. What was the purpose of this trick? Was it meant to create room for the construction of new dams or was it aimed at making every province feel happy?

TNS: You are the originator of a Grand Pakistan Canal idea. What's that?

FG: I suggested the construction of a barrage at Chashma in 1960. It was subsequently built. When Katzara Dam gets built, the water flowing through the Indus should be divided at Chashma or at some other place close to it. On the right side of the Indus, a mega-canal -- Pakistan Grand Canal, as I named it -- should be built to carry the divided waters to irrigate Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Kachhi area of Balochistan and even upper Sindh. This will be a lined canal which minimises water losses. The rest of the water in the river should be properly channellised, by reducing the width of the river from 14 miles and confining the flow in the old river bed. This would speed up the velocity of water. It will create the added benefit of four million acres of reclaimed land on both sides of the Indus. Moreover, due to channelised bed, no one will be able to steal the water.

Quaid’s visit to Staff College Quetta November 22, 2012

Quaid’s visit to Staff College Quetta
November 22, 2012

Every time General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Chief of Army Staff, speaks, and he generally speaks on sensitive political issues, he creates confusion all around and makes thing worse for himself. As I read his incredible address at the GHQ, I could only shake my head in disbelief. Exposing seniors army officers to highly controversial political issues and then issuing the statement to the press is bad enough, but denying it with a straight face is tantamount to insulting the intelligence of people. General Kayani’s statement published on November 5 is widely interpreted as a pointed attack on the Supreme Court. Without directly referring to the court, the General said that the country was passing through a “defining phase” and issued a veiled warning of “consequences if the state institutions did not work in harmony.” “No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest,” he said. “The fundamental principle,” he said, that no one is guilty until proven should not be forgotten, a pointed reference to the judiciary. It is backhanded support to the retired Generals, who are facing criminal charges in an election-rigging case dating from the 1990s. General Kayani is quite obviously seeking to establish red lines for the Supreme Court. Exactly 64 years ago, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan and Father of the Nation, visited Staff College Quetta and, with uncanny prescience, warned senior officers against involvement in politics and the affairs of government. He expressed his alarm at the casual attitude of “one or two very high-ranking officers”, and warned the assembled officers that some of them were not aware of the implications of their oath to Pakistan and promptly read it out to them. And he added: “I should like you to study the constitution, which is in force in Pakistan at present and understand its true constitutional and legal implications when you say that you will be faithful to the constitution of the Dominion.“ Earlier, on the day of Pakistan’s independence, August 14, 1947, Mr Jinnah, who had just become Governor General, scolded one young army officer. The officer had complained that “instead of giving us the opportunity to serve our country in positions where our natural talents and native genius could be used to the greatest advantage, important posts are being entrusted, as had been done in the past, to foreigners. British officers have been appointed to head the three fighting services, and a number of other foreigners are in key senior appointments. This was not our understanding of how Pakistan should be run.” Mr Jinnah, it appears, had a presentiment of sorts and was deliberate in his answer. He warned the officer concerned “not to forget that the armed forces were the servants of the people and you do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out these tasks with which you are entrusted.” The Pakistan Army is a people’s army, in the sense that it belongs to the people of Pakistan, who take a jealous and proprietary interest in it. It is not so much an arm of the executive branch as it is an arm of the people of Pakistan. It is the only shield we have against foreign aggression. Why politicise it? Why expose it to the rough and tumble of politics? Isn’t it ironical that 64 years after Mr Jinnah’s visit to the Staff College and the policy statement he made on the role of the army in the affairs of government, when a petitioner spoke of the army’s respect for judiciary, the Chief Justice quipped: “Yes, we witnessed it yesterday (Monday November 5).” The Chief Justice said that the Supreme Court had final authority in all legal and constitutional matters. This authority, he said, is enshrined in the constitution and is unassailable. In Pakistan, as in all federations, the Supreme Court plays a crucial role. It is the sole and unique tribunal of the nation. The peace, prosperity, and very existence of the federation rest continually in the hands of the Supreme Court judges. Without them, the constitution would be a dead letter; it is to them that the executive appeals to resist the encroachment of Parliament; Parliament to defend itself against the assaults of the executive; the federal government to make the provinces obey it; the provinces to rebuff the exaggerated pretensions of the federal government, public interest against private interest etc. They decide whether you and I shall live or die. Their power is immense. But they are all-powerful only so long as the people and the government consent to obey the laws and implement the decisions of the court. They can do nothing if they scorn it. It is now abundantly clear that the executive is determined to defy the apex court. Attempts are being made to subvert the people’s will and overturn the judicial revolution. It is the last desperate gamble of a corrupt fascist autocracy. Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry faces an uphill task. An awesome responsibility rests on his shoulders. The survival of the federation as a democratic, progressive state now depends on his court. The judicial revolution triggered by him is irreversible. Let there be no doubt about it. Any attempt to undo it will be resisted. The people have planted an independent judiciary in the path of our turbulent democracy. No longer would the executive be a law unto itself. Today, there are many now willing to spill their blood to defend their hard-earned independent judiciary. Try to destroy the independence of judiciary, and the moment is not far off when this beautiful country will be plunged into a civil war. The Supreme Court should be the barrier that protects the citizens from the winds of evil and tyranny. If we allow it to be stymied or sabotaged by corrupt rulers or permit it to be desecrated or demeaned and it crumbles, who will be able to stand in the winds that follow? Not many people know that a landmark judgment of an earlier Supreme Court, gives the rubber-stamp Parliament the ultimate power to emasculate the basic elements or fundamental features of our constitution. It would now be free, under the garb of amendment, to change a democratic government into a dictatorship or hereditary monarchy. It could do away with the Islamic provisions of the constitution and change the federal constitution of Pakistan into a unitary form. It could even subordinate the superior judiciary to the executive and make the Supreme Court the judicial arm of the government. In other words, it could mutilate the constitution and change it beyond all recognition. It is scary! The judges of the Supreme Court are bound by their oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. The constitution places that responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Supreme Court, which has the power, in fact the duty, to strike down any legislation enacted by Parliament that, in its view, is repugnant to the constitution. The Supreme Court is more than the usual law court. In its keeping lies the destiny of Pakistan. Its decrees mark the boundaries between the various branches of state. Upon its action, depends the proper functioning of the federation; in fact, its very survival. The power to determine constitutionality of amendments made by Parliament is of the very essence of judicial duty. In the midst of civil strife and war, as Burke pointed out in his reflections on the French revolution, “laws are commanded to hold their tongue amongst arms. But in peace time, the law is supreme and its interpretation is the exclusive prerogative of the civil courts.” Now that “democracy” has been restored and law is unfettered, and supreme once again, the court must exercise its power to restore the balance between “the one, the few and the many.” Is there any remedy for this state of things? None. Because a corrupt presidency and a corrupt executive are in league with a rubber-stamp Parliament. Ultimately, the true guardians of the constitution and the Supreme Court are the people of Pakistan. People power alone can protect the Supreme Court from corrupt rulers and corrupt power-hungry Generals. Our rulers know that the street is all they have to fear. Confronting them has now become a patriotic duty. Today, there is no other path for our country, but the one which led to the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other deposed judges. The writer is a retired civil servant and senior political analyst. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk Website: www.roedadkhan.com

QK Archives: Interview Qazi Faez Isa

Published 2007 the news on Sunday
"This is the Law of the Jungle"
- Qazi Faez Isa
Barrister and advocate of the Supreme Court




By Sairah Irshad Khan

Back

Qazi Faez Isa is the son of Qazi Mohammad Isa, the foremost freedom fighter from Balochistan and a close associate of the Quaid, whose efforts were chiefly responsible for Balochistan joining Pakistan.

Q: Would you say that the emergency is tantamount to martial law?
A: This emergency has no legal or constitutional basis. This is something hybrid, which the constitution does not allow or permit. You could call it martial law or any name you want to give it. In other words, it is no law at all; you may call it the law of the jungle.
Q: What are the legal ramifications of the new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO)?
A: The PCO states that the constitution is held in abeyance. The constitution does not provide for it, the constitution does not envisage a provisional constitutional order. It has zero legal or constitutional sanctity.
We must understand the special nature of the constitution. The constitution declares that each and every citizen of Pakistan, and every person within Pakistan, even if he is a foreigner, has to abide by the constitution of Pakistan. You cannot hold the constitution in abeyance. It defeats the purpose of a constitution. The constitution is not a simple law, it is the paramount law. Article 6 of the constitution says that anybody who tries to abrogate it by force of arms, or otherwise, or assists in its abrogation, commits high treason.
Q: What, in your view, are the legal or ethical limits, if any, of judicial activism?
A: The 1973 constitution is very crucial for the survival of the country. It is the only constitutional document ever to have been promulgated unanimously by each and every member of the National Assembly. Out of 200, 196 voted in favour of it. There were four abstentions, not a single vote of dissent against the passing of the constitution in 1973. In the document, the framers of the constitution provided Article 184, which also stipulated the boundaries of judicial activism. The boundaries are, firstly, that the court can take up only a matter of public importance, and secondly, one that pertains to fundamental rights. So if a wholescale infringement of fundamental rights is taking place, Article 184 enables the Supreme Court to act. This is, of course, in the larger interest of the people. For instance, if a dam that is providing water to say 10,000, or even 1,000 people, is being polluted, their fundamental rights are being violated. They may not have the resources to initiate a case against the violators, but the court can take up the matter. So it is a wonderful device. It's good for the poorer segments of society, it protects them and it supports them - and it is very much a matter of fundamental rights. Now if I have a personal dispute with somebody, this doesn't come into the picture at all. So, the test is fundamental rights and public importance. If the Supreme Court takes notice of a matter which does not fall within these two conditions then it can be said to be acting beyond its jurisdiction.
Q: The parameters of judicial activism set by the constitution notwithstanding, there has been a debate in certain quarters about some of the recent rulings of the Supreme Court under Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, namely the release of the Lal Masjid militants and the order to the authorities to pay blood money to the families of those killed in the operation on the masjid. In light of the extraordinary circumstances prevailing in the country, how wise were these decisions? Is there any provision for when the law can be modified in the larger public interest?
A: The chief justice did not pass any orders in the matter of Lal Masjid that you are referring to. Instead, orders were passed by Justice Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Javed Buttar, who, incidentally, were among the first to have been offered the oath under the PCO and who took the oath under the PCO. Furthermore, what I have been able to understand of the Lal Masjid scenario, it's the government itself which has made it into a large issue. The government claims it is committed against terrorism, but what does the federal minister for religious affairs say? He says in the media that the two brothers [Maulanas Ghazi and Aziz] had arms in their cars, but he intervened and got them off. Isn't he supporting terrorists?
There are many laws to arrest somebody, there are anti-terrorism laws, anti-subversion laws and others. What the courts say is to please proceed according to these laws. If people are terrorists, lodge an FIR, arrest them, there is a whole mechanism provided. You can't just pick up a person and keep him incommunicado for years. That becomes a missing persons case. The Supreme Court has never said to release people who are guilty of terrorism or even suspects in terrorism cases. The court says to process them according to law or make laws if the [existing ones] are deficient. To simply pick up people and detain them, however, is unconstitutional. The courts have no option but to release such persons - a person is, after all, innocent until proven guilty.
Everything the Supreme Court did was according to the law and constitution. It cannot be accused of doing something for its personal interest. On the other hand, on the very same day that the proclamation of emergency was issued, Major General Arshad Waheed announced that the military had released 25 militants in exchange for 213 army officers whom the militants had taken captive. So who is releasing these people? Had the court said to release them? Let's put matters in their true perspective.
Q: In his address to the nation following the proclamation of emergency, General Musharraf spoke about the arrests of various law enforcement personnel and of the collision course the judiciary had chosen to embark on vis à vis the executive, which had "paralysed the state machinery and demoralised the law enforcement agencies." How would you respond?
A: The Supreme Court has said a number of times that if the government does what it is required to do, there would be no need for it to take any action. The Supreme Court will be more than happy not to do anything. It is only when the government is so thoroughly incompetent that the Supreme Court has to initiate action in all matters, in environmental matters, in building matters - even in traffic matters in Karachi. There is so much corruption everywhere. The Supreme Court has only been intervening because its jurisdiction has been invoked, under Article 184, in matters of public importance affecting fundamental rights. They have never acted beyond this domain. And the general public has been very pleased whenever the Supreme Court has acted. The poorest of the poor support the actions of the Supreme Court.
You must also realise that in this parliament, there is no opposition. In fact, there is no parliament. These parliamentarians are a burden on the exchequer, and you and I are paying for them. We have the largest cabinet in the world. What it does, we don't know. There are no question and answer sessions, matters are not decided in the parliament, nothing is debated. I think the Supreme Court played a very valuable role because without it there would have been anarchy on the streets and probably much worse. So the Supreme Court offers people a ray of hope.
Q: Do you believe the emergency was entirely triggered by the judgement of the bench hearing the case for General Musharraf's election to the presidency?
A: A request was made from the lawyers side that a full court should hear the matter. You will recollect that before this judgment, there was another petition which was heard by a nine-member bench. Out of these, four of the judges said that the president could not file his nomination papers. The others dismissed the petition on a technicality saying that the person who had filed it was not an aggrieved person. In the second constitution of the bench, those gentlemen who had decided against Musharraf said that since they had already decided the matter, their conscience would not permit them to be part of this bench. So the new bench was probably the most sympathetic bench available that the president could get. You will recollect that it was headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, who, when the chief justice was removed, was made the acting chief justice by no less a person than General Musharraf himself. So where is there cause for grievance? If you're not happy even with those who are perceived to be supporting you, does that mean you should get your own court?
Q: Presidential aspirant Justice Wajihuddin made some observations recently. He said that those who were to benefit from the NRO - quite pointedly the PPP - were in collusion with President Musharraf. He also pointed out that the new chief justice of the Supreme Court, Abdul Hameed Dogar, had been elevated to the Sindh High Court by the PPP government, the implication being that his elevation was certainly not anathema to the PPP. Do you agree?
A: I don't know if Justice Wajihuddin has made these statements. I don't want to comment upon conjecture and surmises.
Q:Justice Javed Iqbal went on record to state that Aitzaz Ahsan, as counsel for Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed, the plaintiff in the case, had prolonged the proceedings unnecessarily. He maintained that considering Aitzaz's "political affiliations, he did not deploy what could have been a devastating argument against Musharraf's nomination papers." Do you concur with this allegation?
A: I would say that Aitzaz Ahsan is a reputable counsel. I think these comments are certainly not justified.
To say that Aitzaz, because he is affiliated with the Peoples Party, intentionally mishandled the case, is absolutely untrue. We all know that Benazir Bhutto is not happy with Aitzaz Ahsan, so the last person that she would be listening to or vice versa, would be Aitzaz Ahsan.
Q:What happens now to all the rulings that had been made by the Supreme Court prior to the proclamation of emergency? Can they be overturned?
A: Each and every judgment of the Supreme Court stands unless it is overruled.
Q:Can it be overruled by the current bench of the Supreme Court?
A: There is only one Supreme Court, there is no new Supreme Court. Anybody who takes oath under the PCO is violating the constitution and thus cannot be accepted or recognised as a judge.
Q:That notwithstanding, this is not the first PCO, and whatever their legitimate position, the courts have continued to function…
A: There is one big difference this time… this has never happened before. In all the earlier instances the Supreme Court found some fig leaf to justify military intervention by inventing the doctrine of necessity or by other means. The difference this time is that on the day of the proclamation of emergency and the issuance of the PCO, a seven-member bench of the Supreme Court struck down the PCO. The Supreme Court held, "The order states, no judge of the Supreme Court or the High Courts including chief justices shall take oath under PCOs or any other constitutional step. Any further appointment of the chief justice of Pakistan and the judges of the Supreme Court and chief justices of High Courts and judges of provinces under the new development shall be unlawful and without jurisdiction." So there is an order operating. And what are the consequences of violating this order? Article 190 of the constitution stipulates that all executive and judicial authorities in Pakistan shall act in aid of the Supreme Court. So it is a binding order on each and every one of us. There is no way out of this order now. The fundamental difference this time is that the Supreme Court immediately convened and seven judges, the chief justice and the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, including the second and the third, Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Justice Javed Iqbal, passed this order. So it carries a lot of weight. The judges went on to state, and this is very interesting, "The chief of army staff, corp commanders, staff officers, and all concerned of civil and military authorities are hereby restrained from acting on the PCO." I think this concludes the matter and there is no fig leaf this time.
Q:What happens to all the judges who refused to take oath? Do they just go home?
A: No, they continue to be judges under the constitution and law.
Q:The courts will function without them. So will it not be just in name - unless the PCO is rescinded?
A: The only courts in Pakistan that can function are under those judges who took an oath under the 1973 constitution. All those who were judges on November 3, continue to be judges. In the constitution of Pakistan, there are only three ways a High Court or Supreme Court judge can be removed. One, if he dies in office. Second, if he resigns his office. Third, if the supreme judicial council removes him. The framers of the constitution, and this happens everywhere in the world, knew that you must provide security to a judge of the Supreme Court because he would be deciding sensitive matters and at times when you have powerful parties arrayed against you, for example the government or the president, you want to ensure that the judge is not going to be worried about his job. So there is absolute security of tenure. A Supreme Court or High Court judge cannot be removed at all. The minute you do that you fall foul of Article 6 and you are guilty of high treason. So Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry remains chief justice, and there is no other. Sabihuddin Ahmed is chief justice of the Sindh High Court. It is as simple as that, it's black and white.
Q:How do you see the future of the judiciary?
A: The future couldn't be bleaker. You can't have democracy without an independent judiciary, you can't have democracy without an independent media. Each and every officer of the armed forces and the civil bureaucracy, each and every member of parliament, should be asked about the oath they took under the constitution. Schedule 3 prescribes an oath of office for every one of them, as it does for the president of Pakistan and the prime minister. Under this oath they all swear to preserve and protect the constitution. So now each member of parliament, each federal minister, each provincial minister, each member of provincial assembly, the chairman of the Senate, each one is violating their oath of office. So either they don't have the consciousness, or the conscience. Have they not read the oath that they took? Are they protecting the constitution when they go by this order which says that the constitution is held in abeyance?

Q:So is there going to be no fight-back by the legal fraternity?
A: The legal community is not entering the courts at this time.
Qoesn't that affect all those whose cases desperately need to be heard?
A: Would you want a case to be heard by a person who has now sworn - and this is very important - not to challenge or to entertain any challenge against the proclamation of emergency or the PCO. Both these devices have been used to take away your fundamental rights. So if they decide to close, for instance Newsline, for printing this interview, what is your recourse? None. Ordinarily you would have gone to the High Court and filed a petition under Article 199, because you could say your fundamental rights had been violated. What will you do today? Nothing. The courts have sworn to uphold the proclamation of the PCO, which says that fundamental rights are out of the window. I know people will suffer, but they will suffer far more, [if they become party to this]. You have to prevent the disease from spreading.
Q:So the fight-back is essentially by an act of omission…
A: I don't know where the constitution of Pakistan says that only the legal community is obligated to uphold the constitution. It is each and every one's duty - not just that of civil society, but of every individual, including those in the military.
As for the lawyers, in one day, 500 lawyers were arrested. This is a world record. Three hundred and forty-four FIRs were lodged in Lahore, in just one police station. And lawyers have been charged with all sorts of offences. They were in court, the police barged in, hit them with batons, tear-gassed them and then lodged FIRs against them.
So the entire leadership of the lawyers has been incarcerated, including the second, third and fourth tiers. Still they are brave souls, they are coming out, and are paying perhaps the biggest price. Apart from the assaults on them, if they don't appear in court, nobody is going to pay them. And it is not as though they will derive any personal benefit from their battle. This battle they are fighting is for Pakistan.
Qo you think the current status-quo will remain?
A: Our faith teaches us patience - one should never give up hope and must speak up against tyranny. But the reality is that a single phone call from Condoleezza Rice ensured that, earlier, no emergency was declared. I'm sure if President Bush, who pretends to want democracy in Pakistan, was to make a phone call, things could be immediately reversed. Unfortunately today, the people of Pakistan are not determining the events that are taking place in Pakistan, it is America who decides what happens in Pakistan.
And now the American nation has to, for once and for all, decide, do they stand by the people of Pakistan or do they stand by one individual?

KP 2018 a broken elite and Frontier myths

This unpublished piece was written shortly before the 2018 election

21 July 2018

PRIOR to the tragic attack on Haroon Bilour, the stronghold of Awami National Party (ANP) in Charsadda was packed with a sea of people waving the red flags of the ANP.

The peculiar nature of the upcoming  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) elections is best described by the story narrated by a young, Pashto broadcast journalist who was covering said ANP rally.

What is striking about his story is that the young worker attending the rally initially said he would be voting in favour of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and he was only at the rally to pacify his father who was an ardent ANP voter, however after the rally he had a change of heart.

Anecdotes like this remind us how this 2018 election is a time when a hand full of myths about KP and especially what has been described as the 'Imran Khan factor' ought to be challenged.

The myths given here are not that difficult to unpack when taking into account the evidence before us.

The first myth is that KP does not re-elect the same government twice.

The province voted against the PPP wave of 1970, in favour of the PNA and PML-N in 1977 and 1993 respectively and voted for the MMA over PML-Q and for ANP over PPP in 2008. It was this pattern that has created the conventional wisdom that no party can win re-election in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The reality is a bit more complicated, in face that the PML-N was re-elected in the 1993 elections but with a different Chief Minister namely, Pir Sabir Shah. Further, by virtue of coalition politics, parties like ANP were elected in 1997, initially working in coalition with other ruling party's.

The second prevalent myth is that KP incumbents are punished for not delivering on promises.

Just over a year ago the odds looked stacked against PTI. Its mandate in 2013 was, contrary to media spin quite fragile. It had only narrowly won a plurality vote share and had formed a weak coalition with the JI, independents and Aftab Sherpaos QWP. Unfortunately, the PTI was driven by factionalism with a Chief Minister of dubious work ethic, whilst being held hostage to the whims of party dissidents and their junior allies within JI. On the ground the province was devastated by TTP linked violence early on and in equal measure struggled with indifference by the Federal government on key projects like CPEC.

So while on the surface although it seems reasonable to assume these myths have a valid basis, when we look a bit deeper we find the key trends that have shifted the sands behind these two calculations.

The first myth is driven by simple demographics, KP has the second highest bloc of young voters in the 18 to 35 years age group, 48 pc against the national average of 43pc in the rest of the country. These are first or second time voters who do not necessarily share the voting preferences of the previous generation. This is further complicated by the high levels of competition amongst voters and candidates reflected in the province having the second highest number of candidates per seat after Balochistan.

This youth bulge has converged with technology and social media to create a voter who absorbs information very differently from the voter from ten years ago. Many following the global trend of taking in information from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. The numbers of Facebook users alone, is nationally now at 33 million from 8.6 million in 2012 with 35 million smart phone users - a whopping seven fold increase from the 5-6 million in 2012. PTI being an early adopter of these technologies has benefitted by being able bypass the traditional media according to it's needs, to get its message out. So one can presume that for a voter lost due to disillusionment in the government’s performance it offsets that loss with the addition of new voters and that too in areas they did not have support before.

The third myth was that KP's provincial governments were vulnerable to federal government pressure being elected to the province which worked against the winning party. This was proven in the past from 1972-1973 NAP governments toppling and by the challenges faced by the PML-N government in 1993 as well as the MMA from 2002-2007. This myth has been challenged directly as a consequence of the subsequent 18th amendment and the associated devolution of power, which led to an increase in the provincial budget from Rs 170.904 billion for the fiscal year 2008-2009 to Rs 603 billion in 2017-18. This increase provided crucial fiscal space for PTI to spend heavily on a variety of initiatives. An example of this can be seen in the health budget which went from

Rs. 30.3 billion

in 2012-13 to Rs. 66.49 billion in 2017-2018. In relative terms this has been a big change but in absolute terms this has been a modest increase.

For the public, this relative increase influences the perceptions of delivery by the government.

While  initiatives of the government do not stand up to scrutiny, in terms of perception they are enough to ensure the party’s support has broadened. The dark side to this is that the heavy increase in spending on big projects initiated and the increase in salary due to recruitment drives means the provinces finances will face a major economic crisis within the next two or three years. It also leads to disillusioned supporters of the party when the realities of acts of omission and commission by the party are later revealed.

It is pertinent to note here that despite the tragic recent attacks, overall the security situation has largely been improving. The contrast is stark, from a peak of 5497 casualties in 2009 to 29 being the highest number in 2017.

A fourth myth is that the opposition is far more organised this time compared to last time.

There is an element of truth in this as there is no smoke without a fire, especially in the case of the ANP which in the last election was devastated by relentless terrorist attacks, according to one estimate in 2016 they had lost over 500 workers and several legislators too. However, a lack of serious reflection within the party’s after the last election has meant that where workers were well organized, like in the ANP, or where electables have been brought in like with the JUI-F the party’s now lack the ability to attract new voters. Critically the opposition has decided for reasons best known to their leadership to go solo when their biggest anti pti successes have been together.

The ensuing instability created a vacuum that coincided with a generational leadership transition in the PPP towards Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, ANP towards Aimal Wali and Haider Hoti, JUI-F towards Maulana Lutfur Rehman and PML-N towards Maryam Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif. This has created a vacuum and by virtue of the dictum “nature abhors a vacuum” it has left PTI with a clear advantage.

Next, the 'Imran Khan factor' is probably the most contested myth, with many critics of Imran Khan arguing that one reason for his popularity is the political vacuum of the 2000s. From 2004 till 2013 he received unprecedented levels of media coverage at a time when his electoral support was negligible. This advantage packaged with his populist slogans as key reasons for his support. There is truth to this as his own celebrity status created a platform which helped him to reach out to future supporters. It is true that his populism has certain appeals. But it is also equally true that other politicians have received disproportionate coverage in comparison with Sheikh Rashid for example, and some other politicians also attempting to use populist rhetoric without being able to translate it into mass support. If however, media coverage was the main indicator to measure this, one would expect areas with the highest television penetration and those that spoke in the same language as the electorate like Karachi or Urban Punjab to be areas of highest support for PTI and not Pashto speaking areas with less media penetration, let alone coverage.

The answer to this then comes back to the understanding of populism and the socioeconomic changes KP went through compared to other provinces. Populisms inherently employing an 'us versus them' framing is most successful, when the other side is discredited or fragmented and when it converges with technological change. In case of KP the weakness and fragmentation of the opposition was combined by convergence of unregulated social media with PTI's support within the media, this combination has gave the party crucial advantages for the upcoming elections.

Finally, the myth of the role of the establishment with respect to KP. It’d be a gross untruth to suggest there is no state level interference in this election. However, within the context of KP on its own - for reasons explained earlier - there seems to be little need for large scale interference. Keeping that in mind, what is going on in Punjab or Balochistan is then relatively at a larger scale than what is currently occurring in KP. The only other threat to PTI's re-election is a sympathy wave for PML-N in KP. While that was truly a possibility under Maryam Nawaz - whose keen interest in KP was in contrast to that of her uncle - the ongoing case means no challenge from this party is likely to be seen from there.

In the final calculation PTI's KP victory looks comfortable. In a time of the 2018 elections - short of some major misstep. Demography, populism, technology circumstances and Imran Khan in a time of political vacuum. The misreading of what is to come is a consequence of a provincial political elite that does not as yet fully understand all factors which can potentially lead to this.

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