In the name of democracy

The interpretation of democracy is that when accountability is demanded simply dismiss it by making it legally impossible and politically improbable

When the prime minister is unwell, democracy is in danger of being derailed. Curing an illness has many remedies. In the middle of a grave personal and political crisis that has apparently impacted the prime minister’s health to the extent that he had to go overseas to get treatment, reportedly, retail therapy overtook allopathic therapy. Bentley, Savile Row and Rolex, it seems, are more effective cures for the ‘maladies’ the prime minister is ‘suffering’ from than injectable antibiotics. One could say that if he was in London and had time to kill a little bit of shopping is permissible. One could also say that shopping at a few branded stores is part and parcel in a family outing. And one could also say that all said and done the prime minister is but human. Having said that, the prime minister is also a leader; the prime minister is also under the scandal of having millions of pounds stowed away in London, the very place he was found shopping at billion-dollar brands; and the fact that the prime minister’s communiqué before leaving Pakistan had painted a health picture that did not match a robust selfie-posing touristic shopper at
the Bond Street.

These pictures may be just a minor reflection of what our leaders do with their time and our money, but it is a major reflection of why they fail to govern the country as per their commitments and manifesto. On most development fronts the country has been in a downslide. Economic, institutional and human development have all taken a beating in the last decade. Pakistan stands out as the least developed country in South Asia barring Afghanistan. Even if we consider India and China as exceptional cases, most other neighbours who were way behind Pakistan have overtaken our country on most indexes of development. The most embarrassing example for us has been that of Bangladesh. While Bangladesh was part of Pakistan it was growing at a rate of three percent, and in 2015, its growth rate has doubled to 6.5 percent. Pakistan, on the other hand, was growing at a rate of six percent in 2006, and has now come down to 4.2 percent according to the official figures, but some analysts say that figures given to the IMF place it at 3.3 percent. This is not just an economic comparison but also a comparison of governance, focus, priorities, performance and most of all of leadership.

The economic development model adopted by our finance managers led by Ishaq Dar is based on borrowing, which is a proven model of economic failure in the world. The established mantra is that it is never aid but trade that builds economies. Exports have made economies like China and India the emerging superpowers that they are today. On the other hand, we have faced declining exports in the last four years, as exports barely touched $24 billion in 2014-15. Bangladesh has surpassed us with exports of $34 billion and without being a cotton-economy has become the 11th major exporter of textiles in the world. Textile industry that was supposed to be the backbone of our economy is suffering from spinal dislocation.

Perhaps the biggest casualty of this abysmal governance is state institutions and public enterprises. From the PIA to Pakistan Steel Mills to PTV, all are in a state of disarray. They are either bankrupt or dysfunctional. On the other hand, institutions like the police, National Accountability Bureau, Election Commission of Pakistan and PEMRA have become national embarrassments. The reason is simple. They are treated as lavish dole outs for loyalists. This dole out is now considered normal. Rules of recruitment are bent; perks are amassed; performance is dismissed and subsidies are given to fill the pockets of greedy appointees, who knowing that their term may be limited, treat the position as loot sale. The annual cost to the taxpayer to keep these institutions running is Rs. 500 billion, more than the entire public sector development budget. Thus the tone set at the top by these professionally unfit people pervades right down the ranks to the point that these institutions are reduced to junk that nobody will buy except a few ‘friends’, who end up making billions out of the deals.

The third component of this style of leadership is to suppress human development. An aware, educated and healthy human mind is dangerous. Thus Pakistan, in the entire South Asia, spends the lowest on education, health, infant and maternal mortality. Pakistan is ranked 147 of 180 countries in the world on the Human Development Index, lower than China, India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Bangladesh has moved to the 142nd position, having reduced poverty by 10 percent last year, while poverty in Pakistan has increased by three percent, according to this index. Thus the formula is foolproof. Keep them uneducated, poor and unhealthy to the extent that they neither have the sense nor the time to question and break this vicious cycle of suppression. The recent banning of the movie Maalik is a clear example of how afraid the government is of making people aware of these injustices and how dictatorial is their behaviour under the guise of democracy.

Events that would cause uproar in parliaments, unrest in media and upheaval in the public go almost unnoticed in this country. Any other prime minister wearing a 4.6 million dollars Louis Monet watch, while 60 percent of Pakistanis cannot get a decent meal a day would be considered a hugely vulgar display of wealth. The daily expense allocated for prime minister’s secretariat and house is Rs. 2.306 million, which would be considered horrific in any developing country. The cost of protecting the prime minister’s family is Rs. 365.28 million per annum, which merely covers the expense of policing the family. Such extravagances would make Americans and British gather outside the White House and 10 Downing Street with placards, but when it comes to questioning the inhabitants of the ‘Raiwind Palace’, and daring to go anywhere near the ‘no-go’ areas of the Sharif family, it gives the yes-prime-minister ministers a chance to say how ‘indecent’ is this line of questioning.

Thus the interpretation of democracy is that an elected prime minister, no matter which electoral system he has come from, has to be preserved for five years, no matter what corruption and destruction of the institutions he commits. The interpretation of democracy is that national or provincial assembly is the best forum to delay, dodge and bulldoze bills of non-favour and bills for favour. The interpretation of democracy is that when accountability is demanded simply dismiss it by making it legally impossible and politically improbable. The interpretation of democracy is that make such an uproar about the ‘derailing of the system’ that your loyalists in the parliament and your appointed heads of key state institutions join you in this chorus of ‘save democracy’ until you acquire the status of a ‘holier-than-law’ leader. It is this very smearing of the spirit of democracy that needs to be cleared in the minds of the masses for them to make the leadership of this country truly accountable to the people of Pakistan.

Read more...

‘CHHOTU LEAKS’

The western border groups were facilitated by foreign hands and agencies, and south Punjab groups were facilitated by vote-seeking governments

While the whole world is engrossed in the Panama leaks, in Pakistan the ‘Chhotu leaks’ are finally spilling over the no-go domain. For decades terrorism in Pakistan is associated, mainly, with Waziristan and other tribal areas. While every area of the north has been dissected and debated to hunt down terrorists, terrorism originating from south Punjab has been a hush-hush topic. It has never truly caught political, media and international attention the way cross-border terrorism has. Thus the welcome breakthrough is that finally we are debating, writing and doing something about what is perhaps equally if not more dangerous in its depth and scale than many other terror hubs. While FATA has been a story of insurgency and terrorism, tales from south Punjab are much more horrific. When you know, accept and target a certain area for combat action, some progress will follow. The danger lies with the unknown evil that is protected to the extent that it becomes a Frankenstein’s monster for its own protectors. As per reports, the Chhotu gang is just the tip of the iceberg, as the real gangs entrenched in the south are far more lethal than terrorists in the north.

The stereotypical image of a terrorist is of a tall, bony, long-haired, Kalashnikov-toting man, appearing from and disappearing in mountains. The southern Punjab terrorist is disguised as a religious zealot, with a heavy beard and heavier belly, blending in as a local politician. We all lament the state of economy in FATA, but South Punjab is worse. The extent of poverty in south Punjab beats all provinces put together. Many villages in south Punjab make border areas look more civilised. The government writ is non-existent, and if you think Mullah Fazalullah taking over Swat was the ultimate lawlessness, there are some areas in Rajanpur that are completely out of the bounds of law. With some of the most notorious militant groups — Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Sunni Tehreek, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), Sipah-e-Muhammad, Tehreek-e-Jafaria, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) etc. — residing and operating from this part of Punjab, south Punjab could be labelled the ‘terrorist capital’ of Pakistan. Punjabi Taliban and the JeM with its headquarters in Bahawalpur are evidence of one of the real sources of unending terrorism in Pakistan going unchecked. Sargodha district is a famous recruitment centre that hires militants and then sends them to Waziristan for training.

The question is why then south Punjab operators have gone untargeted, while their counterparts in the west have been the focus of attention? The major reason is that these organisations have learned from political parties in Sindh. Political parties in Sindh have militant wings to carry out their nefarious activities, and terrorist organisations in Punjab have political wings to protect their militant offensives. These groups have made their own narrative to form a vote bank in the area. While in FATA and other areas the narrative was anti-American jihad, the narrative in south Punjab has been the sectarian jihad, which resulted in many massacres of Shia and other communities. Since both south Punjab and FATA have outdone each other on poverty and illiteracy, the ability of the self-made ‘religious’ narrative to pervade brains was relatively easy.

These groups co-existed with great collaboration between south Punjab and North Waziristan. The western border groups were, according to many reports, facilitated by foreign hands and agencies, and south Punjab groups were facilitated by vote-seeking governments. There have been many reports on the ‘close’ relationship of Punjab government with the heads of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and LeJ. The former interior minister, Rehman Malik, has been quoted as saying that Malik Ishaq was paid a stipend by the Punjab government while in jail. And who can forget the welcome Rana Sanaullah gave to Malik Ishaq when he was released. Seat adjustments and mutual cooperation deals have been reported many times in the media, but there has never been anybody to really question and prove this murderous alliance. The simple entry point from Punjab to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and vice versa is from Dera Ismail Khan into Dera Ghazi Khan, making to-and-fro movement of militants unimpeded.

This coexistence was all going fine until Mr Sharif had to face Mr Sharif. The Army Public School massacre created ultra shock waves, and brought all parties together on one page with a comprehensive National Action Plan to go to all lengths to remove terrorism from Pakistan. These plans have been made in the past too, and General Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have successfully dismissed them with ‘political acumen and sagacity’. Not so with Raheel Sharif. He has relentlessly pursued the activation of this plan despite huge resistance from the government.

Sindh operations have become a bone of contention between the MQM, PPP and the army firstly, and now between the PPP and PML-N. The PPP has been demanding a similar operation in Punjab for a long time, but the PML-N kept on denying the existence of terrorist nurseries in the area until the Lahore blast happened. The anger of the public, once again, forced Punjab government to retreat, but Punjab government still insisted that they have a trained CTD counter terrorism department that will trace, hunt, and finish terrorists. But then the Chhotu gang happened.

The Punjab government in competition with the Zarb-e-Azb operation of the army announced the Zarb-e-Ahan operation by the police and CTD. Despite the fact that in six previous operations, the Punjab police had failed to capture them, they went ahead to fight this gang. Unfortunately, many law enforcement personnel lost their lives, and 24 of them were captured by the gangsters they had gone after. Ghulam Rasool alias Chhotu’s story of being hand in glove with a local MNA, being booked on fake cases and remaining in police torture is a familiar tale of how our police has produced more hardened criminals than captured them. As in the past, when we have lost countless lives, an army operation becomes the last resort. The question is: why does the Punjab government incur huge losses of lives and image before seeking help from the Rangers or army? The answer may be that just as in Sindh where some captured target killers turned into whistle blowers there may be fear of the same happening in Punjab.

Who knows, as the Chhotu gang has surrendered to the army, the leakage will start. Capturing one gang may be not much of an achievement but the bigger achievement would be to have whistle-blowing, ‘Punjab leaks’ through them, identifying the people in government and state institutions of being facilitators of terrorism. That is why the time for a real National Action Plan to eradicate terrorism from Pakistan may be never more opportune than now.

Read more...