Category: Opinion

Diverse opinion by the best people from society, on politics, social issues, economy, sports and issues that directly affect Pakistan.

  • Is Sadequain really such a dangerous export?

    “We seem to still be struggling with our sense of identity. And this makes us prone to blocking all history and ethnicity that does not conform to a narrow conservative identity.”

    A friend in the UK recently had a bizarre experience involving Pakistan Customs.

    She had bought two volumes of a massive art book on the acclaimed and much decorated artist Sadequain. She assumed the whole process would be straightforward and that the books would arrive in two days so she could proceed to gift them to people who were interested in Pakistani art, but then the air shippers informed her that the Customs people at Karachi airport were refusing to allow the book through. Their reason? That it contained inappropriate/objectionable pictures or “na munasib tasweerain”.

    It is a little disturbing that Customs officials should think it’s okay for them to decide what is and is not appropriate content in a book, in this case a book documenting the work and life of one of Pakistan’s greatest artists. Especially when the artist in question is nationally well recognised and the recipient of such national awards as the Tamghae Imtiaz and the Pride of Performance.

    So, what does this incident tell us about modern day Pakistan? Does it indicate that everybody, at every level, considers themselves some sort of custodian of moral and social values? Or is this incident just an example of the absurdity of bureaucratic process and a red tape mentality?

    It’s probably a bit of both: it is not just religious and social prejudices and a mindset of morality policing that are driving factors in such behaviour, it is also a culture of that strange mix of megalomaniac tendencies and job insecurity that exists within the bureaucracy.

    Here the officials could have been playing it safe and working from precedent (the book had been stopped once before when it was being sent by DHL) or they could have simply been asserting their power to obstruct or approve – i.e. their ‘afsari’. Or perhaps in their personal role of moral custodians they were genuinely horrified by the content and the title (Sadequain ­– The Holy Sinner) and thought such “inappropriate” content should not be exported lest the pristine reputation of the country be sullied.

    This incident is unsettling because it shows not just the arbitrary nature of official “approvals” but also the national tendency towards moral policing, censoring and disapproving. It is also a reminder that the nation has still not been able to come to terms with, and appreciate, its own history and culture. Any other country would have made sure that not just the world but also the people of Pakistan knew about the genius of Sadequain. Any other country would have encouraged publicity, research and work about the artist, any other country would have capitalised on the association. But we seem to still be struggling with our sense of identity. And this makes us prone to blocking all history and ethnicity that does not conform to a narrow conservative identity, insisting instead, that the history of the land began only with some Arab conquest.

    This narrow definition of identity encourages people to be blind to the rich history of the country and to neglect and destroy monuments to early civilisations and peoples. It makes people close their minds to the work of those artists and writers who seek to explore ideas and question norms. It makes people ignorant of the art and culture around them and insensible to the fact that art and expression matter. Cultural censorship is a dangerous path to go down, but we are seeing a simultaneous resurgence and questioning of this all over the world. It is made worse by the rise of right-wing nationalist narratives and reactionary movements like the ones that portray the oppressors as the “victims”.

    These are big questions and by this point you might just be thinking ‘well, perhaps the customs officials were just trying to make a quick buck?’ But even if that were the case, the fact that an art book should be considered an opportunity to do so underlies the issue of what is and is not “appropriate” for the reputation of a country (surely jihadists were a more negative export than any art books).

    But this particular story might yet have a happy ending. The customs officials let the book through after my friend sent in as much information as she could about the artist and the book. She had asked them to put their objections in writing if they were going to stop the book, but this they had been reluctant to do. So perhaps to get rid of her noise, or perhaps because they were otherwise persuaded or perhaps because they had better things to spend their time screening and stopping (drugs, smuggled goods) they let the book through.

    It hasn’t been received yet but hopefully it should be soon. In the meantime, we can both laugh and cry at the absurdity of the matter. And we can reflect on what it tells us about Pakistani society today.

  • What’s wrong with CSS Exams?

    What’s wrong with CSS Exams?

    Do you know the meaning of the words ‘deracinated’, ‘bericloge’ and ‘hegiographic’? Probably not. I don’t either. And it doesn’t matter. (One of them perhaps is not even a word.)

    But it does matter to Federal Public Service Commission, as evident from a recently leaked question on social media, taken from the CSS 2021 English paper.

    CSS is the sought-after competitive exam, a gateway to the central superior services of Pakistan. A good result can potentially land you into a socially lucrative civil service job, while a bad result can waste years of hard work.

    Thousands appear for the exam every year and about 300 lucky individuals get through and get allocated across twelve service groups. These thousands of candidates often spend years preparing for the exam. While it is understandable that an exam of this level should be difficult, it doesn’t necessarily have to be unreasonable.

    I also appeared for CSS about 22 years ago and landed amongst top ten positions. Yet I’m not embarrassed to admit that had I been given this question, I would have failed. Probably many deserving candidates did this year.

    And for what? The answer to this question is by no means a measure to assess someone’s competence. But one unreasonable question can play havoc with years of hard work and it probably did.

    Why FPSC would do that is best known to them but one can speculate that it’s either the result of poor-quality control or manifestation of a decades-old mindset. The latter seems more plausible as indicated by many other leaked papers and questions.

    After seeing these baffling questions, I picked up the phone and called a retired federal secretary. I asked him about his own experience when he appeared for the competitive exam 53 years ago. What he told me was not very different from what I had experienced in my own exam. And when I looked at more recent CSS question papers, it dawned on me that they have hardly evolved.

    But these unreasonable question papers are only one of the things wrong with how CSS exams are conducted. There are many others.

    Firstly, they are inefficient. About 18,000 candidates appear for a total of 12 papers, out of which only 300-400 clear this written exam.

    Secondly, besides the outdated and complex structure, the pattern of exams is such that candidates can often game the system or get an undue advantage based on disparity in how different subjects are scored.

    Thirdly, these exams, even including a psychological test, do not sufficiently reveal the personalities of these candidates.

    With all the developments in technology and recruitment practices, why has the government failed to reform the CSS exams? And more importantly, how should these be reformed?

    Let’s first look across the border at Indian civil service, which like Pakistani civil service, was inherited from a British system. About 1.1 million candidates apply for superior services in India. They take about 500,000 to an initial screening test called ‘prelims’. Most of the candidates are left behind at this stage and approximately 1 out of every 50 candidates taking prelims is taken to the full-scale competitive exam called ‘mains’ comprising nine papers. The last stage is the interview, after which about 750 candidates are selected for various services.

    Although Indian system is better than us, since they have a much more efficient screening system, it is also not ideal. But for starters, it does indicate that Pakistan should also embrace screening to save costs and make the whole process much more efficient. Similar to a standardized test like SAT or GMAT, the results can remain valid for three to five years.

    But let’s also look for a better system. UK perhaps is a good example to see, since we have essentially inherited this system from them. But they did not remain frozen in the 1940’s and have moved on.

    The UK civil service follows a four-stage recruitment process. The first stage is the ‘application sift’ to screen the applicants. UK civil service requires writing a personal statement, a standard practice for international undergraduate and graduate admissions, unlike the CSS application that is limited to biographical and academic information.

    The second stage consists of standardized tests taken to narrow down the applicants’ pool to about 20 per cent of the candidates, through a simple, efficient, automated and low-cost process. The test includes questions on functional knowledge of contemporary issues or on standard IQ.

    The third and the most critical stage in the UK civil service recruitment is a two-day assessment center. The assessment center method has gained immense popularity in recent years and has been widely adopted by public and private sectors. The method includes a standardized evaluation of behavior based on simulations, interviews, group activities, etc. to help in revealing various aspects of a candidate’s personality. Since this is a resource-intensive method, very few candidates are taken to this stage.

    Pakistan’s CSS recruitment excludes this most important stage altogether and instead relies on a primitive psychological evaluation that leads to suitability restrictions on a handful of candidates.

    The fourth stage is the panel interview, which is very similar to the final CSS interview, but by then it can hardly compensate for the critical weaknesses in the first three stages of the CSS exam.

    Why are we living in the past? Why are we making it difficult for people to qualify for the competitive exams? And why are we employing arbitrary measures to narrow down the pool? It’s time to answer these questions and change the way CSS exams are conducted.

    Note: A shorter and partially different version of this article originally appeared in Express Tribune on 23rd February, 2021.

  • ‘!نہیں، عورت’

    ‘!نہیں، عورت’

    میری زندگی کا محدود تجربہ مجھے یہی بتاتا ہے کہ لفظ “نہیں” کہنا سب سے آسان کام ہے . دِل نہیں کر رہا ، میں نے نہیں جانا ، میں نے نہیں كھانا ، یہ نہیں ، وہ نہیں ، بس کہہ دیا نہ نہیں . بچہ جب بولنا سیکھتا ہے تو اماں ابا کے علاوہ “نو” فوراََ سیکھتا ہے . بچے پر تو پیار آتا ہی ہے لیکن یہی لفظ وقت گزرنے کے ساتھ اتنا تلخ ہوجائے گا اندازہ ہی نہیں ہو پاتا اور یہ تلخی صرف اِس سماج کی عورت ہی سمجھ سکتی ہے . عورت اپنی زندگی میں ہر رشتے سے اتنی بار نہیں سنتی ہے کہ اب مجھے لگتا ہے کہ اُردو لغت میں “نہیں” کی جگہ “عورت” کا لفظ بھی اِستعمال ہو سکتا ہے .

    یہ کپڑے نہیں پہننے سے لے کر ایسے نہیں بیٹھنے تک ، یہ نہیں کا لفظ مسلسل اک تلوار بن کر عورت پر لٹکا رہتا ہے . لیکن اصل فرق اِس “نہیں” کا تب نظر آیا جب گھر کے مرد حضرات بغیر اِجازَت کے گھر سے باہر نکل جاتے جبکہ مجھے اپنے دماغ میں اک پُورا مضمون باندھ کر اپنی سہیلیوں سے ملنے کی اِجازَت لینی پڑتی، اور جواب کیا ہوتا ؟ نہیں . یقین جانئے ہم عورتیں اِس نہیں پر صرف حیران نہیں بلکہ پریشان بھی ہوتی ہیں . کیونکہ یہ”نہیں” ایک سیکنڈ بھی ضائع کئے بغیر منہ سے نکلتا ہے . ایسے جیسے ہمارے والدین کے ڈی-این-اے میں بیٹیوں کے لیے “نہیں” شامل ہے اور وہ کچھ اور کہہ ہی نہیں سکتے . ہم عورتیں اکثر والداین سے اِس “نہیں” کی وجہ پوچھتی بھی ہیں . کبھی والدہ کہہ دیتی ہیں “بیٹا آپ کے ابو کو اچھا نہیں لگتا” ، کبھی وہ کہتی ہیں “یہ وقت نہیں ہے جانے کا” ، کبھی وہ کہتی ہیں “کیا کرنا ہے جا کر ؟ ” ، کبھی وہ کہتی ہیں “ابھی اس دن تو گئی تھیں” جو کہ زیادہ تر 2 مہینے پہلے کی ملاقات ہوتی ہے ، اور کبھی ان کے پاس کوئی جواب ہی نہیں ہوتا . کوئی وجہ نہیں ہوتی . اور سب سے زیادہ خوبصورت وجہ اِس “نہیں” کی ہوتی ہے “بیٹا شادی کے بعد خاوند کے ساتھ جانا” . اِس وجہ پر تو میں بالکل ہونقوں کی طرح گھورتی ہی رہ جاتی ہوں کہ زندگی کا کوئی بھروسہ نہیں ، کل ہے یا نہیں . اور آپ مجھے میرے خاوند کی اِجازَت کا انتظار کرنے کو کہہ رہی ہیں ؟

    اور اگر باخدا اِجازت مل جائے، تو عورت کو اپنی ہی دوست کا پُورا شجرہ نسب بتانا پڑتا ہے . دوست کہاں رہتی ہے ، کتنے بہن بھائی ہیں ، وہ کیوں نہیں آ سکتی ؟ ، تم ہی کیوں جاتی ہو ہر بار ؟ ، اور کون جا رہا ہے ، اور کوئی کیوں نہیں جا رہا وغیرہ . بس گھر کتنے رقبے پر بنا ہے اور کتنی گاڑیاں ہیں جیسے سوال ہی رہ جاتے ہیں . ان تفصیلات کے ساتھ ساتھ ، یہ بھی بتانا لازم ہے کہ دوست کے گھر کتنی دیر میں پہنچو گی ، کتنے گھنٹے بیٹھو گی ، اور واپس کتنے بجے آؤ گی . یہ تفصیلات فراہم کرتے کرتے وہ عورت اک عجیب احساس جرم کا شکار ہوجاتی ہے . ایسے لگنے لگتا ہے کہ جیسے دوست سے ملنے نہیں بلکہ بہت بڑا گناہ کرنے جا رہی ہو . ملنا سہیلی سے ہی ہوتا ہے لیکن لگتا ہے کہ شاید کسی نامناسب انسان سے ملاقات کرنے جارہی ہیں .

    جہاں مرد حضرات گھر میں محض اعلان کر کے روز ہی باہر نکل جاتے ہیں ، ہم خواتین ہفتے میں دوسری بار دوستوں سے ملنے کا ذکر کریں تو آگے سے جواب ملتا ہے “بیٹا آپ پِھر گھر سے باہر ہی رہیں . گھر کیوں آنا ہے ؟ ” . ہم لڑکیاں دِل ہی دِل میں دعا کرتی ہیں کے ملنے کا پروگرام ہی ختم ہوجائے . کوئی قدرتی آفت آ جائے یا ملک میں ایمرجنسی لگ جائے ، لیکن خدارا ! کوئی دوبارہ ملنے کا مت کہے !

    ٹویٹر پر اِس موضوع پر بات ہوئی تو ایک صاحب نے کہا “آپ اچھی طرح سے پوچھیں تو کیوں نہیں جانے دیں گے والدین ؟ ” اِس سے زیادہ اور اچھی طرح اِجازَت کیسے مانگیں جب ہم اپنی دوستوں کا پُورا شجرہ نسب ہی بتا رہی ہیں ؟ اور کس طرح اِجازَت مانگیں جب ہم اپنے آنے اور جانے کا وقت بھی بتا رہی ہیں ؟ اور کس طرح اِجازَت مانگیں کے ہم ہفتے میں صرف ایک ہی بار نکل رہی ہیں ؟ اور کس طرح اِجازَت مانگیں کہ ہم اپنی ملاقاتوں کو بھی کم کرتی جا رہی ہیں کے کہیں والدین کو یہ نہ لگے کہ لڑکی ہاتھ سے نکل گئی ہے

    ہنسی تو اس بات پر آتی ہے کہ اجازت کا طریقہ بتانے والے خود اجازت لیتے ہی نہیں۔ نہ وہ دنوں کی قید میں ہیں اور نہ ہی گھنٹوں کی قید میں۔ نہ ان کیلئے دن کی پابندی ہے نہ رات کی۔ نہ ان پر عزت کی قید ہے اور نہ ہی بے عزتی کی۔ اگر قید ہے تو وہ ہے سوچ کی، جو نہ بدلی ہے اور شاید نہ ہی بدلےگی۔ عورت کیلئے صرف ایک ہی چیز بدلتی ہے۔ اس کا گھر۔ لیکن اس گھر میں بھی “نہیں” کبھی نہیں بدلتا!

  • Small island

    “Britain, a small island, has chosen to opt out of being part of a large and influential bloc in order to be a small island with an insular outlook whose citizens have now been deprived of access to markets and countries across the continent.”

    Just a few days after the final terms of UK’s departure from the EU were agreed, it was revealed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson, was applying for French citizenship.

    Johnson senior said that his mother was French and that “he would always be a European”, but whatever his own particular reasons might be, he is just one of many thousands of Britons who have, in the countdown to the Britain’s exit from the Union, applied for and taken European residence.

    The reason so many Brits have opted to take residence and citizenship in Europe is simply because they are able to see the many benefits that being part of a geographical union gives them. These include not just visa-free, effectively borderless, travel within Europe, but also the ability to work in all of Europe and avail of the various grants and funding schemes available in  a wide variety of sectors.

    The Boris Johnson government agreed a trade deal with Europe just days before the actual exit date of December 31, 2020. The trade negotiations went right down to the wire and an agreement was reached only on Christmas Eve. The PM of course hailed it as a great triumph, displaying once again this government’s astonishing capacity for skewing reality and misrepresenting facts. Getting to this stage of agreement had actually proved to be a long drawn out and remarkably unpleasant process: the run-up to the 2016 referendum had been marked by xenophobia and vilification of the EU and what was depicted as ‘Brussel’s dictatorial policies,’ the Leave campaign was full of false claims (aka lies) and was built on a narrowly nationalist agenda expressed as a desire to ‘take back control and exist as a sovereign nation’ and this hostile tone has been maintained through the more than four years of negotiating the terms of the exit.

    Now that Britain has become, in the jargon of the Leave supporters, a ‘sovereign nation’, it is time to take stock of what has even been gained. Not that much, most people will say. Although trade has not been as hugely disrupted as once seemed likely when the fear of ‘no deal’ loomed large, the fact of the matter is that although most goods trade will remain as was, the difference will be that it will all cost more to Britain because, as The Observer pointed out, now “Goods will be subject to costly new customs and regulatory checks.” The paper also observes that the trade deal “is unique in erecting rather than eliminating barriers to trade” and is something that effectively makes Britain poorer, reduces its global influence and imperils the nation’s integrity.”

    I personally cannot see any positives in leaving the EU, it just means that Britain will not enjoy the benfits of being a member of a united bloc, benefits like citizens’ free movement and right to work within the bloc, benefits like having access to shared security information and crime data bases and Europol collaborations. Moreover, there has been a drain of Europena health professionals from Britain following the anti-European tone of the Leave campaign and the EU referendum, so now while the UK is in the midst of a pandemic, the National Health Service finds itself severely understaffed. And should the situaution in the Health Service decline even further, European doctors and nurses will now not be able to step in with ease they once did as professional qualifications will no longer be recognised automatically.

    Add to this collaborative EU ventures in technology, academia and research that Britain is no longer part of and you begin to understand that Britain has lost access and influence in return for merley having to tolerate fewer  ‘foreigners’ in its towns and workplaces. Truly, the UK seems to have cut off its nose to spite its face.

    But what is mind-boggling is that Britain, a small island, has chosen to opt out of being part of  a large and influential bloc in order to be a small island with an insular outlook whose citizens have now been deprived of access to markets and countries across the continent. The bigots within this former imperial and colonial power have used the narrative of ‘freedom’ to justify a divorce that will leave the EU ‘effectively poorer and more fractured than before. In all the rhetoric about ‘Brussels dictatorship and Europeans taking jobs away from Brits’ what was forgotten was the unique nature of this regional collaboration: the EU was not just a trade bloc but it was a peace project: a union of nations who had, as recently as the last century had fought two long and bloody wars, WW1 and WW2.

    And what of the strategic position? Well, neither Russia nor the US were ever really very happy about the influence of the EU and so both must be delighted that Britain has now made itself both vulnerable and exploitable. Will Britain be a pawn in moves to undermine the EU? There is a fascinating conjecture in the late John Le Carre’s last novel in which a covert project involves Britain and US intelligence working together to weaken the EU. In the novel, Agent Running in the Field, the aim of the project is described by one agent as “an Anglo-American covert operation… with the dual aim of undermining the social democratic institutions of the European Union and dismantling [its] international tariffs.” This fictional character goes on to explain that “in the post-Brexit era Britain will be desperate for increased trade with America. America will accomodate Britain’s needs but only on terms. One such term will be a joint covert operation by persuasion — bribery and blackmail not excluded — officials, parliamentarians and opinion makers of the European establishment. Also to disseminate fake news on a large scale in order to aggravate existing deifferences between member states of the Union.”

    This is a fictional scenario of course but Le Carre, a former spy, saw something in the political scenario that gullible voters crying out for sovereignty were perhaps unable to. And so it is no surprise that so many Britons have opted to move to Europe, taking up residence in places like Ireland, Portugal, France and the Netherlands in particular.

    After a trade deal was finally agreed between the UK and the EU on Christmas Eve, the British PM, Boris Johnson, in his typical bombastic and self congratulatory fashion, told the nation what a fabulous deal his team had managed to secure and how in effect the UK ‘would both have its cake and eat it too’.

    Alas what the UK will actually sup on is probably humble pie — and the poisonous effects of isolation.

  • Dividing the divided

    “The ruling party’s most recent act of issuing a list of news media talk-show anchors, dubbing them pro-corruption, drives a deeper wedge into a polarised nation.”

    It is no secret that the truth of national integration of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is not just bitter but severely inconvenient. The fine line that separates diversity and differences among this nation has blurred so many times that it has almost permanently been reduced to a smudge. From the barracks to the parliament, sermons and edicts from atop the mosque minarets, political jargons from atop the containers and trucks, to the unending layers of multiple identities — divisions are the Achilles’ heel of this society.

    Issuing a list of journalists, dubbing them against the interests of the state, vilifying them publicly was like shooting a nuke at this Achilles heel. Driving a wedge at the very source of information of the nation, the media, is creating the deepest division imaginable so far. In the history of deleted tweets in this country, these two might have very long lasting effects.

    A ruling political party being unaware of this landmine or apathetic to the consequences of triggering it can potentially prove to be catastrophic.

    73 years of age, sick, weak and drained it stood on shaky feet, running out of natural body resources, vitals dimming, surviving on one shot of steroids after another, scars of surgical interventions spread across the map of its skin and a plethora of side-effects from past treatments racking its existence. It had almost forgotten the number of doctors that had taken a shot at it, sometimes even without its total consent. Almost every one of those taxing prognosis left it more vulnerable and feeble. All of them focused on treating the symptoms and not the disease, worsening the illness.

    It was almost as if they knew, but never disclosed that it was plagued by the uncanny Autoimmune Disease – an ailment in which the organs of its own body were at constant war with each other. It was almost as if they were intentionally not treating the disease because ending its ailment would end years of profiteering from its misery, and yet they all claimed they did everything to serve its interest. Or maybe decades of varying drugs had blurred its ability to separate those who sought to save it from those who added to its agony.

    The story of Pakistan is difficult to pen down because it is hard to indisputably identify the heroes and the villains. Pakistanis to this day are even conflicted over autocratic dictatorships being good or bad. This is a country where coups were celebrated, even if by a significant minority. Its very inception on the basis of a presumed uniformity of a religion so deeply divided across sectarian lines was unsteady. The ethnic, cultural, political and ideological differences at its core, though dormant at the time, were highly flammable. While these divisions stayed buried under the unanimous rejected of Hindu subjugation, the fault lines under the surface started growing into visible cracks once liberated from the common enemy. This is why, ever since, the integration and unity of this nation has always been a function of hatred, fear and anger against a common enemy, rather than collective growth, pride and prosperity.

    However, in times when an aggravated threat of a common enemy does not exist, Pakistan’s autoimmune disease starts tearing her apart and eating the core of the country hollow. For all these reasons, and more, the worst thing that can happen to this already fragmented and disunited country is fuelling more divisions.

    From its campaign leading to the 2018 elections, PTI and its patron in chief Imran Khan has been extremely careless, if not intentionally exploitative, of this ability of the Pakistani polity. He went further than the usual practice of demonising and defiling his political rivals and berated their voters and supporters as dumb donkeys following their leaders mindlessly like zombies. At his massive public meetings he openly vilified news organisations that disagreed with him. The rants inadvertently led to mob attacks on news media offices and at times on journalists.

    The ruling party’s most recent act of issuing a list of news media talk-show anchors, dubbing them pro-corruption, incites targeted and aggravated hatred against these journalists. But more importantly still, it drives a deeper wedge into a polarised nation. It impacts not just PTI supporters but the supporters of its political rivals as well. With the history of Pakistan and its behavior in view, this action will have consequences far more long-lasting than being perceived.

    This list discourages openness to differing views and perspectives. It freezes the ability to question and challenge one’s hardened positions and clan-vote mentality. It encourages the dangerous practice of sticking to narratives that only feed people’s confirmation biases. It magnifies and glorifies selective perception. But more than anything else, it breeds generations of an ill-informed polity, with an ‘us-versus-them’ mindset for its own countrymen, incapacitated to vote a credible person into power, adding to the long list of bad doctors that would worsen this ailing country’s autoimmune disease and feed off its ailing semi-conscious body.

  • May the force be with you

    “Are elected governments regarded as inconvenient guests?”

    Thirty years ago, troops rolled into Islamabad and took up positions around ‘key installations’ and buildings in the Capital. Just over an hour later, around 5 pm, the elected government had been dismissed and the National Assembly dissolved. Benazir Bhutto, who had been prime minister for just twenty months, was sent packing. 

    Two years before that particular dismissal, another prime minister, Mohammad Khan Junejo, had been dismissed in a similarly humiliating manner: while he was addressing a press conference on his return from a foreign tour, the journalists there started leaving and hurrying over to the presidency where they had been told they would hear some big news. There the president, General Ziaul Haq had announced dismissing the government. Junejo was also sent packing without completing his term.

    By the time Bhutto was dismissed on August 6, 1990, General Zia was dead but the idea that elected civilian leaders could be unceremoniously dismissed had become something of a conviction in the minds of General Zia’s army leadership. In the eleven years between 1988 and 1999, five governments were toppled in this manner: Junejo, Bhutto, Sharif, Bhutto, Sharif. Of these PMs, Sharif and Bhutto were popularly elected, Junejo was elected in Zia’s non-party based polls but even though he had been handpicked by the general, he refused to be a puppet PM and once in office, began making all sorts of decisions to try to establish civil supremacy. Bhutto would later be assassinated while campaigning in a bid to be elected a third time while Sharif, though later able to be PM yet again, was forced to step down in a haze of allegations regarding his wealth and offshore accounts. He was charged, convicted and incarcerated. 

    Talking to various people about the 1990 dismissal brought to the fore just how difficult a time this was for civilian politicians to function in government. The main problem was, of course, a hostile establishment — a military and bureaucracy steeped in the Zia era thinking who regarded these elected politicians as troublesome outsiders, to be allowed into government for as long as they could be tolerated — and booted out as soon as they started trying to assert themselves or do anything at all that was not in line with what the forces wanted. The way in which elected leaders were treated as intruders and interlopers — almost as enemies — is instructive. Kamran Shafi, who was Butto’s press secretary at the time, recalls how her speechwriter Farhatullah Babar had to go out and get her speech printed from elsewhere because obstructive bureaucrats refused to sanction ink for a printer. It was such a hostile environment that everything was a struggle and there was a feeling that half of the administration and the staff were actually working against the PM and the government. 

    Benazir Bhutto came to power after a long period of incarceration and exile following the overthrow and execution of her father by General Zia, and she was always regarded with distrust by the military establishment but what is very interesting is that any PM (of any political hue) who tries to be a PM and implement any policy that challenges defence interests in any way is similarly despised and disposed of.

    Here, the example of Nawaz Sharif is very interesting: groomed politically and elevated during the martial law years, Sharif was the generals’ man in Punjab, extremely useful to the ‘powers that be’ as a cunning and aggressive opponent to Bhutto. However, once he came to power and tried to assert his own authority, Sharif suffered the same fate as Bhutto and he was sacked unceremoniously.

    His ‘mein dicatation nahin loonga’ (I refuse to take dictation) speech from April 1993 is a classic expression of this tussle between elected and martial forces in Pakistan. Unfortunately, that speech has disappeared from the archives and everywhere else. In his second stint as PM, Sharif actually fired the chief of army staff, one General Musharraf, and he replaced him with General Ziauddin Butt. The footage of the relevant ceremony was shown on only one PTV news bulletin because then Sharif’s government was overthrown and Pakistan Television Centre, taken over. While the video footage of the installation of the new army chief also disappeared, this process of enforced disappearances was actually quite useful in controlling the narrative.

    But what is important now is to try to prevent key chapters of the country’s political history from being disappeared from the records and erased from public memory. What happened in the 90s in Pakistan is, to some extent, still happening now.

    Because the idea that elected prime ministers are just short term visitors or inconvenient guests still prevails as does the process of constantly destabilising and smearing political governments. To fill in the gaps, we need to speak to people who were witnesses to key events, we need to question official histories and we need to search try to understand — through people’s experiences — how certain systems actually work.

  • An ordinary budget in extraordinary times

    An ordinary budget in extraordinary times

    The federal budget for 2020-21 has been approved amid protests by the opposition and criticism by economic analysts. Is it really that bad a budget? Not at all. In fact, if anything, it might be incrementally better than the previous years’ budgets in many ways.

    For instance, budget 2020-21 can be termed as pro-business as it did not introduce any new taxation measures and instead included a reduction in custom and regulatory duties in a number of areas. In addition, there is no provision for any foreign loan repayment on the account of debt moratorium granted to us by our international lenders. Power and petroleum subsidies have been reduced by more than Rs100 billion, which, if reflected in energy pricing, can very well reduce the financial pressure on the government.

    “Despite all the talk of ‘corona budget’, ‘structural reforms’ and an ‘expansionary fiscal policy’, this was truly an ordinary budget but in extraordinary times, falling short of people’s expectations and exhibiting a meek response to the enormous challenge at hand.”

    Most importantly, for the very first time, the budget included statements on contingent liabilities, fiscal risks and tax expenditure, setting a new standard of information disclosure and budget transparency. These statements might not be perfect and may need substantial improvements, but nevertheless it is the first time any government has opted for such measures in Pakistan.

    The government also restrained from financing its deficit from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), albeit under IMF pressure. The development budget does not exhibit the kind of cuts that one would have expected, and last but not the least, the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) did not include any unapproved projects, setting a good practice for public investment management.

    If all this is true, then what is the fuss really about? Why are people not appreciating government’s efforts?

    First and foremost, despite all the talk of ‘corona budget’, ‘structural reforms’ and an ‘expansionary fiscal policy’, this was truly an ordinary budget but in extraordinary times, falling short of people’s expectations and exhibiting a meek response to the enormous challenge at hand.

    At a time when the country truly needed a fiscal push through ambitious development spending, the budget ended up sticking to fiscal discipline that is usually required under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes. Perhaps the government could not communicate its domestic priorities to the IMF well. But it is quite clear that in the contest of balancing the preferences, appeasing the IMF won by a wide margin over the goal of stimulating the economy.

    “When history would be written, budget 2020-21 would not be criticised for any excesses but for not doing enough to revive the economy in the wake of COVID-19.”

    Secondly, and even more importantly, it is an unrealistic budget. The Rs4.9 trillion revenue target for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) can never be achieved without new taxation measures and is likely to fall short by at least Rs500-600 billion. The Rs242 billion provincial surplus is also quite unrealistic, especially considering that both Sindh and Balochistan have posted a cumulative deficit of more than Rs100 billion. Notwithstanding the windfall gains on the account of interest rate cut leading to reduced markup payments and an increase in fuel prices resulting in an increase in petroleum levy, the overall revenue receipts will fall short of targets, and when that happens, it will happen at the cost of development expenditure.

    READ:Twitter loses it over Rs1.29 trillion budget for defence, Rs83.63 billion for education

    Lastly, a crisis generally brings in the appetite for bold and difficult decisions and a crisis of this unprecedented proportion should have led to a paradigm in our priorities. The next few years are going to be tough, leaving little room for fiscal leakages. If there was ever a time to fix the state-owned enterprises and to privatise them, to take decisions on circular debt and power sector reforms, to put a stop on the relentless expansion in government size, to manage the ballooning pension liabilities, or to create a balance between civil and military spending, that time was now. But unfortunately, none of this could be traced in the budget documents.

    When history would be written, budget 2020-21 would not be criticised for any excesses but for not doing enough to revive the economy in the wake of COVID-19.

  • The Sher I knew

    The Sher I knew

    “Rest in peace Khalid Sherdil. You are loved beyond measure, and we will miss you terribly.”

    They say things happen for a reason. There wasn’t a reason why on Friday, May 22, I felt the need to check if Khalid had reached Karachi. Strange that my phone buzzed in my hand the exact moment I wanted to check his whereabouts. I had received a text message from a friend that something was not quite right; Khalid’s plane had bumped on the runaway a few times and taken off again. In those few moments, I knew something was wrong.

    Moments later, flight PK-8303 crashed. My first thought: this is not happening. The plane was too close to the runway. Khalid will be okay. He had to be okay. You can’t joke with a person the night before their flight and not have them be alright. It didn’t work that way.

    Khalid at Altit Fort in Hunza in October 2019.

    The day worked its way, getting ready to deliver the knockout punch that Khalid was gone. People gathered, wept and stayed with us. I remember the quiet, the horrid gut-wrenching silence when people run out of words.

    Strangely no one from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) ever came. Everyone who was anyone in the bureaucratic machinery reached out to help us, to somehow get Khalid’s body back to us. For days we didn’t even know if there was a body. Would we get one back? If we did, would it be Khalid’s? Worst still, what if someone had mistakenly claimed his body? These questions, nauseatingly real and unimaginable, simultaneously ate through my family.

    “Khalid was all around us and yet I knew that the Almighty had played His final hand and he was gone. We were awash with grief, the kind that gnaws inside bones and never leaves.”

    For days we didn’t have Khalid’s body and yet we had so much of him around us. I sat every day in his room, looking at the feature stone wall which he had put up with so much love. He had sent photos of the tiles to everyone in the family to see if we approved. Outside his giant, floor to ceiling window lay the sprawling lawn where he played endless hours of soccer with my children. If it wasn’t soccer, it would be chess or games that Khalid invented with their own hilarious rules. Even the house cat had some role to play in his playtime with the children. I was waiting for the moment that Khalid would walk in, chapstick in hand and start some silly game.

    Khalid was in a hurry to get someplace all the time. He had boundless energy and the soul of an adventurer. He loved his bold and beautiful belts, his colourful sunglasses and chocolate. I’ve never met a kinder soul than his, his smile always saying more than his words. Khalid was kind, magnanimous, spirited and gentle beyond belief. He helped others without ever thinking about it. Khalid even helped me find a new home for my dog because he knew I just couldn’t give it away to anybody. You’d never think a man in that dark suit would know how to love so much.

    Khalid at Khunjerab National Park in October 2019.

    Khalid was all around us and yet I knew that the Almighty had played His final hand and he was gone. We were awash with grief, the kind that gnaws inside bones and never leaves.

    Grief, as it so happens, at least according to the Kubler-Ross Cycle, has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Thanks to PIA, which incidentally offered no assistance to locate Khalid’s body or help in the least in any humane way, my husband’s grief cycle jumped straight to acceptance. There was no room for denial or anger as he got down to the business of getting his brother home.

    “I can only hope for the best but somehow I’m reminded of a famous quote at the conclusion of The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne says to his friend, ‘Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.’”

    It wasn’t easy. Four days later, Khalid’s DNA matched and he was on his way home. PIA was still absent, behaving like a child who throws away a toy after it’s broken.

    As an on-again-off-again writer, I like to get to the bottom of things. I wanted to distill all the information in my wrecked brain and re-create what happened that day. PIA didn’t even bother to have a press briefing as to what may have happened to flight PK-8303. A grieving mind will settle for any information that provides closure. I watched video after video on YouTube to make sense of what might have happened. And still, silence from the airline that could make sense of it all.

    Adventurous, determined and committed to helping humanity.

    They say the smallest coffins are the heaviest. After receiving Khalid’s coffin draped in our national flag, it could not have been heavier. Khalid loved wearing the Pakistani national flag lapel pin on his suit collar, and as fate would have it, he was buried with our flag. Khalid was a true patriot and he loved his country. His friends, fellow Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) officers and family helped bring him home. An airline bearing our national flag perished with 97 souls on board and all the PIA could offer was a compensation cheque after everything was done. Keep your money PIA; don’t use it as a means to absolve yourself of guilt.

    As days pass by, my friends and family offer words of comfort. I can only hope for the best but somehow I’m reminded of a famous quote at the conclusion of The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne says to his friend, “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Something pure and good died on flight PK-8303.

    Rest in peace Khalid Sherdil. You are loved beyond measure, and we will miss you terribly.

  • انصار بھائی کے نام

    انصار بھائی کے نام

    LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE:

    5 اپریل 2003کی بات ہے، جیو میں میرا پہلا دن تھا۔ ایچ آر ڈپارٹمنٹ سے ابو طالب بھٹو مجھے نیوز روم لے کر گئے اور تھوڑا بہت بتایا کہ کہاں کون سا ڈپارٹمنٹ بیٹھا ہے۔ اور پھر طالب نے مجھے ایک صاحب سے ملوایا اور کہا کہ اب آپ انصار صاحب کے حوالے۔ وہ میری سید انصار علی نقوی سے پہلی ملاقات تھی ۔ 
    میں بہت خوش قسمت رہی کہ مجھے خبروں کی دنیا میں اظہر عباس، ناصر بیگ چغتائی، زاہد حسین، مجدد شیخ، ایم کے عباس جیسے استاد ملے لیکن انگلی پکڑ کر چلنا مجھے انصار بھائی نے سکھایا۔ 
    انصار بھائی نے پہلے تعرف پر مجھے مسکرا کر دیکھا اور کہا “کیسی ہو لڑکی، تیار ہو کام کے لئیے؟” 
    عام طور سے ہم پہلی مرتبہ ملتے وقت تھوڑا تکلف رکھتے ہیں لیکن ان کے لہجے کی اپنائیت اور نظروں کا خلوص اتنا گہرا تھا کہ میری زبان سے یہی الفاظ ادا ہوئے “میں کام کے لئیے تیار ہوں، آپ سکھانے کے لئیے تیار ہو جائیں، اور میں آپ کو انصار بھائی بلاؤں گی”. وہ اپنے مخصوص انداز سے مسکرائے ، سر اثابت میں ہلایا اور اخبار دے کر کہا کہ پڑھنا شروع کرو۔
    بس پھر میں نے پڑھنا شروع کیا اور انھوں نے اسی اخبار کی دوسری کاپی پر مارک کرنا۔ تھوڑی دیر کے بعد انھوں نےاپنا والا اخبار مجھے دیا تو وہ مجھے شرمندہ کرنے کے لئیے کافی تھا۔ لیکن انھوں نے میری غلطیوں کی صرف نشاندہی نہیں کی بلکہ اس کی تصیح بھی کرتے گئے۔ 
    میرا ان کا سترہ سال کا ساتھ تھا ، اتنی یادیں اور باتیں ہیں جنھیں قلم بند کروں تو دیوان ہو جائے۔ تو بس بے ربط جو واقعات یاد آتے جا رہے ہیں، لکھتی جارہی ہوں ۔ 
    انھوں نے مجھے بینا سرور کے پاس بھیجا اور کہا کہ” تمہیں ہم دس پندرہ دنوں میں ہی دبئی بھیجنے والے ہیں، دنیا دیکھی گی تمہیں، ہماری اور اپنے گھر والوں کی عزت رکھنا، اپنے کام اور کردار دونوں سے” وہ ہمیشہ کہتے تھے کہ اچھا اینکر بننے کے لئیے theory بہت ضروری ہے۔
    بینا سرور نے مجھے فائلوں کا ایک پلندہ دیا کہ اگلے دن اس میں سے ٹیسٹ ہو گا۔ میں نے انصار بھائی کی جانب ایسے دیکھا کہ پہلے ہی دن دھوبی پٹخا!!!! اور انھوں نے انتہائی صفائی سے نظریں دوسری جانب پھیر لیں، جیسے وہ مجھے جانتے ہی نہیں۔
    Typical Ansar Bhai!
    واضح کر دوں کہ اس وقت واحد نیوز چینل صرف جیو ہی تھا، خبریں دبئی میڈیا سٹی میں موجود جیو کے اسٹوڈیو سے ہوتی تھیں۔ ندا سمیر (اس وقت ندا فاطمہ) خبریں پڑھتی تھیں اور ندا کا شروع کے دنوں میں کچھ ذاتی وجوہات کی بناپر پر پاکستان میں رہنا ضروری تھا۔ اس وقت کوئی بھی خاتون اینکر اسکرین پر نہیں تھی۔ اس لیے جیو کی کوشش تھی کہ مجھے جلد از جلد آن ائر کر دیا جائے۔ اب اتنے کم عرصے میں ایک گھر سے آئی housewife کو سبق گھول کر ہی پلایا جا سکتا تھا۔ تو یہ مشکل کام انصار بھائی کو سونپا گیا اور انھوں نے بھی رات کے تین تین بجے تک دفتر میں بٹھا کر میرا “ر” “ڑ” ٹھیک کرایا (شکر ہے “ش” “ق” درست تھا میرا)۔ 
    اور یہی نہیں بلکہ رات کے اس پہر جب میں گھر جاتی تو میرے شوہر نامدار کو فون کرکے میری ساری غلطیاں نوٹ کروا چکے ہوتے کہ اب امی بننے کی تمہاری باری ۔ 
    گو کہ جیو میں سب نے مجھے اپنے گھر کا فرد سمجھ کر میری صلاحیتیوں میں اضافے کی کوشش کی، بتایا، سکھایا لیکن مجھے یہ کہنے میں کوئی ہچکچاہٹ نہیں کہ اگر انصار بھائی نے اتنی محنت نا کی ہوتی تو شاید میں شہرت تو کما لیتی لیکن وہ نام اور عزت نہیں حاصل کرپاتی جو آج مجھے حاصل ہے۔۔
    میں کراچی چھٹیوں پر آئی ہوئی تھی اور میرا miscarriage ہو گیا تھا۔ الکریم نے ان کو تلاش کر کے صرف انھی کو اطلاع دینا مناسب سمجھا۔ اس سے بڑھ کر ان پر اعتماد اور قربت کی کیا مثال دی جا سکتی ہے؟
    جیو کی ابتدا کی ٹیم ایک خاندان کی طرح تھی۔ ہم اب چاہے کسی بھی ادارے میں ہوں، ہمارے دل ایک دوسرے سے اسی خلوص اور محبت سے بندھے ہوئے ہیں۔ 
    مجھے جیو جوائن کئے ڈیڑھ سال ہو چکا تھا، میں دبئی میں ہیbased تھی۔ اور وہاں موجود سب لوگ ایک ہی ہوٹل میں مقیم تھے جسے ہم جیو محلہ کہتے تھے۔ انصار بھائی دبئی کے دفتر کام سے آئے ہوئے تھے۔ لیکن اس عرصے میں، میں اپنے اس نئے خاندان سے خاصی گھل مل گئی تھی۔ تو ہنسی مزاق اور گفتگو بھی بغیر سنسر کے ہوتی تھی۔ کسی کی بات کا جواب دیتے ہوئے میں نے کہہ دیا کہ “پونکا کروں گی”. میری شامت آ ئی کہ انصار بھائی آفس میں پیچھے بیٹھے تھے اور انھوں نے سن لیا۔ اتنی ڈانٹ پڑی مجھے کہ آج تک یہ لفظ دوبارہ نہیں کہا ۔ ان کے غصہ کی وجہ یہ فکر تھی کہ الکریم کیا سوچیں گے کہ کیسا ماحول ہے جیو کا ؟ اس طرح کی زبان استعمال ہوتی ہے ؟اور میرا بیٹا, جو کہ اس وقت دو سال کا تھا, اس کی تربیت پر کیا اثر پڑے گا؟
    بتانا یہ چاہ رہی ہوں کہ وہ کام کے ساتھ ساتھ ادارے کے ماحول پر بھی کنٹرول اور نظر رکھتے تھے اور بچوں کی تربیت کو بھی اہمیت دیتے تھے۔ صرف اپنی ذات تک نہیں بلکہ اپنے اطراف کے لوگوں کو بھی balance and ethics in life کی تلقین، ہمیں دل سے اپنا سمجھ کر کرتے تھے۔ وہ ذاتی طور سے ایک family person تھے ۔ ان کے نزدیک فیملی سب سے بڑھ کر تھی اور ہم سب ان کی فیملی ہیں۔ 
    میرے والد کو اس دنیا سے رخصت ہوئے دس سال ہو گئے ہیں۔ انصار بھائی کے جانے پر اتنی ہی تکلیف ہورہی ہے جتنی ابو کے جانے پر ہوئی تھی۔
    کہتے ہیں وقت بہترین مرہم ہے، آہستہ آہستہ شاہد یہ درد کم ہوجوئے، آنسو بھی خشک ہو جائیں لیکن انصار بھائی میرے دل اور سوچوں کے اس حصے میں ہمیشہ رہیں گے جہاں میرے ابو رہتے ہیں۔

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  • COVID-19: Should we worry about Pakistan’s economy?

    The world has come to a screeching halt.

    The coronavirus pandemic has affected lives in so many different ways that no one could have imagined only a few months ago. Large metropolitan cities like New York and London seem like ghost towns right out of a Hollywood movie. Restaurants, cinemas and airlines have stopped operating and malls are deserted. People, no matter where they are, are just afraid to get out of their houses and carry on with normal life. It is no more a health crisis, and is instead, taking the shape of an unprecedented economic catastrophe.

    No one knows the exact scale of this catastrophe, but everyone knows that a major recession is in the offing.

    Pakistan is no exception and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected a 1.5 per cent contraction in the country’s GDP this year, the first in over seven decades, whereas the World Bank (WB) estimates that it can be as much as 2.2 per cent. Next year would be no different and the economy is expected to post negligible growth, that too if we are lucky. However, even this guesstimate can very easily turn into further contraction, if the crisis continues to deepen.

    HOW TO UNDERSTAND COVID-19’s IMPACT ON PAKISTAN’S ECONOMY?

    In layman’s terms, there are two major ways in which the pandemic can affect the economy. The first is what’s happening outside the country, while the second is what’s happening inside. In other words, the effects on the economy can be driven by both global factors and domestic developments.

    If you remember the 2008 global financial crisis, which turned the world’s financial markets upside down, you would also remember that it did not have a major impact on Pakistan’s economy. That can be explained by our poor integration with the world’s financial markets, which has been a blessing in disguise. Therefore, one thing is certain that the impact of a global economic meltdown is going to have a much more diluted effect on Pakistan than other countries that are fully integrated into the global economy.

    There is no doubt that the country would sail through this storm, but not without a well-thought-out action plan to stimulate the economy and bring it back to life, once the crisis is over.

    Let’s look at the global travel and tourism industry, for instance, that is taking a major hit. But Pakistan hardly had any share in this market and therefore is not likely to get impacted much. Nevertheless, disruptions in economies of Pakistan’s export destinations like the United States (US) and Europe are having a major bearing on Pakistan’s exports. Export orders are being cancelled, leading to a serious dip in the country’s already flailing exports. Fall in workers’ remittances is another area that is going to adversely impact the country, as Pakistani workers in the Middle East and elsewhere suffer job losses.

    Now we come to the in-country crisis, the impact of which is going to be driven by the severity and duration of the disease outbreak and the state’s response to it i.e. the nature and duration of the lockdown and the restrictions imposed. The already imposed lockdown, though enforced unevenly, has affected the economy in a big way. Millions of jobs are at stake and daily wage workers, who in most cases already belong to a vulnerable segment, are likely to be the major sufferers of the crisis.

    The lockdown has also suppressed demand in a number of industries such as automotive, consumer goods and construction among others. But more significantly, services sectors like domestic travel and transport, retail and wholesale trade, and hospitality are the worst casualties with their business activities coming to a standstill.

    Suppressed economic activity is resulting in a significant revenue loss for the government, whereas massive emergency response and relief activities are driving the expenditures high. The fiscal deficit is likely to touch 10 per cent of the GDP, leaving hardly any money for development, while the debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to hit the roof on the back of substantially increased debt burden. And if the country has to impose a blanket lockdown again at some stage, owing to the worsening health situation, all these indicators could quickly go from bad to worse.

    It is time for us to start thinking about some difficult fiscal and economic reform sore points that we have been avoiding for years.

    However, there is also a silver lining. Looking at Pakistan’s GDP composition, there are quite a few sectors like agriculture, electricity generation and distribution, gas distribution, communication, government services etc that are going to be much more resilient to this crisis. Moreover, there could also be some windfall earnings from the global economic downturn. The unprecedented fall in global oil prices is likely to bring in some relief for the country through the reduction in import bill. Additionally, as the world gears up for providing relief to developing countries to fight the economic shock, Pakistan is likely to be one of the beneficiaries of debt relief measures and aid inflows. In fact, the country has already received $1.4 billion in rapid financing from the IMF.

    Nevertheless, we must realise that Pakistan was already facing a tough economic situation and COVID-19 hit the country just when macroeconomic indicators were beginning to stabilise. There is no doubt that the country would sail through this storm, but not without a well-thought-out action plan to stimulate the economy and bring it back to life, once the crisis is over. And this would need much more than what’s being offered in the recently introduced fiscal stimulus package. Moreover, we would need years of fiscal discipline and economic prudence before we are fully able to recover from this shock.

    Now is the time to start thinking about some of the difficult fiscal and economic reform sore points like bleeding state-owned enterprises, ballooning wage and pension bill, swelling circular debt and inefficient government machinery, that we have been avoiding for years.