Thousands of small investors in the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) are having endless nightmares for the last couple of months, because they fear losing their savings due to someone else's fault. They complain that some 'unscrupulous' brokers at the KSE had wrongfully pledged the shares owned by them with banks to get financing for themselves.

Under the rules of trade, small investors have to open sub-accounts with brokers to do trading and deposit their shares with them as security. According to the aggrieved investors, the brokers pledged these shares without taking them into confidence. Now the financiers, including banks, have started liquidating these shares to settle outstanding loans given to the brokers, in an act that may cost the investors their entire life's savings.

The small investors claim that the amount secured by the brokers is in the range of Rs100 billion, a figure refuted by the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance. Interestingly, the same committee had recently directed the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to probe the alleged misuse of Rs100 billion of investors' security deposits with the brokers. However, now the committee is claiming that the amount is much smaller. Nevertheless, the aggrieved investors have welcomed the fact that the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance has acknowledged the existence of irregularities in KSE affairs.

Talking to The News on Sunday, Kosar Kaimkhani, chairman of the Pakistan Association of Small and Medium Investors, says he had raised the issue back in November, but at that time the brokers blamed him for misguiding the people. Now, after the illegal acts of the brokers have been exposed, everybody is condemning them. Explaining the situation, Kaimkhani says every investor is required to open an account with a member broker in order to buy and sell listed securities. These sub-accounts are managed and controlled by the brokers in a fiduciary capacity and they have no right to use them for their personal gains.

This is clearly mentioned in the broker's undertaking to a client, which says: "The amount deposited as security margin by the account holder with the broker shall only be used for the purpose for dealing in securities, such as trading and settlement of deliveries of securities on behalf of the account holder. The broker shall not use such account for his [or her] own use."

The brokers used client securities in sub-accounts as collateral to borrow from banks for personal gains, in blatant breach of trust, Kaimkhani says. "The brokers also used client funds to purchase securities that were transferred to their accounts." He claims that this practice was going on for long, but went unnoticed because the brokers were making big money and had sufficient liquidity to cover margin calls. "This issue has surfaced now, because the market has dropped sharply and liquidity has dried up. The small investors demand of the government to stop the banks from selling their pledged shares," Kaimkhani says.

The problem for the banks is that they cannot recover money from the brokers who have defaulted on big loans. The sale of their membership, which costs about Rs50-60 million each, cannot cover their losses. "However, the brokers may have pledged small investors' shares worth Rs500 million to get loans. The sale of these shares is more feasible for the banks to recover huge amount of money," he views.

Kaimkhani says neither the SECP nor the Central depository Committee (CDC) have taken any step to help out the small investors. "It seems that these entities are only meant to protect the brokers and the big fish," he remarks. Kaimkhani also requested members of the lawyers' committee to take up their case free of cost. "We don't have money to pay lawyers' fees, while the brokers can hire the services of the best ones in the field."

The excessive selling of pledged shares by the banks has dealt a severe blow to the stock market, as stated by Saquib Hussain of Noman Abid & Company. He says the brokers had to pay back about Rs37 billion owed to the banks, which they had borrowed and injected in the market. "Because they had failed to return the amount due to the liquidity crunch, the banks had to indulge in force-selling."

The KSE has also sought the intervention of the SECP in the matter and a break in the selling of pledged shares by the banks, which triggered massive forceful selling in the last few sessions. Imran Ghaznavi, head of Internal and External Communications at the SECP, tells TNS that the commission is well aware of the issue and it is looking into it. He says the SECP will definitely take action against the culprits according to the law. The CDC has also issued directives to the brokers in this regard, Ghaznavi informs.

However, another official of the commission, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells TNS that the issue falls under the purview of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and not the SECP. To support his claim, he refers to an SBP circular issued on June 24 – 'BPRD Circular Letter No 15 of 2008'. The circular – addressed to "The Presidents / Chief Executives" of "All Banks/DFIs" – carries the sentence "Pledge of Third Party Shares against Financing to Brokers" as subject matter and states that "Banks / DFIs are advised that while accepting shares as security, they must ensure that the beneficiary of the facility is absolute owner of the shares so pledged or has the necessary mandate to pledge the shares as security for availing financing facility from the bank/DFI." What has happened instead is that the brokers have pledged other people's shares without taking them into confidence, the official adds.

On the other hand, Syed Wasimuddin, chief spokesperson of the SBP, tells TNS that there have been clear instructions from the central bank to financial institutions on the procedures to follow while extending loans against shares. "The SBP can intervene only where banks are wrong and cannot probe matters pertaining to stock brokers," he says. The SBP circular on directions to banks that he refers to follows below:

"The banks/DFIs will obtain legal opinions to ensure that the manner in which they are accepting shares (especially those of the clients / customers of the broker) as collateral is legally sound, the documentation (including the authority / consent of the clients / customers of the broker in case their shares are being pledged) is sufficient to create an effective pledge over the collateral and they are fulfilling all the legal requirements appropriately. In this context, Pakistan Banks Association may encourage banks/DFIs to prepare uniform legal documents for the purposes of extending margin financing to brokers."

The aggrieved investors have given some recommendations and appealed to the concerned authorities to: 1) cease liquidation of client securities by banks immediately; 2) set aside liquidations carried out to date and stop banks from having a priority claim; 3) formulate a special committee to carry out a detailed investigation of all instances where investor sub-accounts and client funds have been compromised; 4) direct the CDC to immediately suspend all third-party operations in sub-accounts, because this has been misused by the brokers; and 5) allow custody of and trading in direct client accounts with the CDC.

As a general use, Pakistanis deeply resent America's so-called 'war on terror'. However, it is remarkable that this indignation translates into a relatively selective response to the intense human suffering that has been caused by this war. While the much-hyped 'civil society' – by which can be taken to mean relatively privileged groups of social activists motivated by classical liberal values – has been vociferous in its condemnation of so-called 'Talibanisation', there has been much less polemic directed against the escalation in state violence that is said to represent an attempt to eliminate the 'Taliban'.

This is despite the fact that it is now more or less common knowledge that the increasing use of heavy firepower has resulted in massive loss of civilian life and property, and has forced hundreds of thousands of people – if not more than a million – to flee from their homes. It is factually incorrect to attribute this enormous disruption in Pakhtun social life to 'Talibanisation'. In fact, it has been after the initiation of the so-called 'war on terror' by the American and Pakistani militaries that death and destruction have become commonplace in FATA and the NWFP. The vicious cycle of violence that was set in motion by the protagonists of the 'war on terror' has simply become more acute with time. This is not to downplay 'Talibanisation', but only to place it in its right context.

Corporate media depictions and the high-profile brutality of the 'Taliban' explain why there is such a disproportionate focus on 'Talibanisation'. The narrative has become such a self-fulfilling prophecy that the 'Taliban' is now actually thought of as a coherent and uniform entity. In fact, things are much more complex in reality; and a much more meaningful understanding would be afforded by recognising the anarchic Hobbesian world that has been created by the 'war on terror' in which state functionaries, organised criminals and millenarian ideologues are battling for strategic control.

It is, of course, important to think about why 'civil society' has not raised a hue and cry about the fate of (rather crudely categorised) 'internally displaced people'. The conditions in which the hundreds of thousands languishing in camps around the country are living are nothing short of horrifying. Unfortunately, there has been no meaningful response by either the government or international aid agencies, which are legally constrained to assist until asked to do so by the government. Moreover, the aid agencies are so bureaucratic that it takes them a long time to respond in any case.

It appears that 'Talibanisation' strikes much more of a personal chord with 'civil society' than does the suffering of those who have been forced away from their homes by unending 'military operations'. There is little chance of a 'military operation' in Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi, though a suicide bomber can strike anywhere, including in Gulberg, Jinnah Supermarket or Clifton. I do not mean to belittle the threat of millenarian violence or the fact that, since Zia-ul-Haq's 'Islamisation', public space has been captured by retrogressive forces. However, I cannot help but question the inconsistencies in the response of 'civil society' to the so-called 'war on terror'.

It is telling that the response of progressive forces in the imperialist countries to the imposition of imperialist war on Muslim countries is much more holistic. Anti-war movements all over Europe and North America have made clear that 'terrorism' – a selective term that seems to apply only to non-state actors – will only increase as long as American bombs continue to rain down on Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. They have also recognised that insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine (presumably they would argue in FATA and the NWFP too) necessarily garner some moral legitimacy, because they are seen to be resisting the indiscriminate violence of the Empire and/or its client states.

As I have already hinted, the situation in FATA and the NWFP is undoubtedly highly complex. Even the media now is being forced to go beyond the standard ISPR press releases, with reports of protest demonstrations against the 'military operation' by common people in Swat and other war-ravaged areas. It is true there are less overt indicators that many people are just as opposed to the 'Taliban' (even while there may be constituencies of support for the insurgents), but the point is that the use of military force by the state is by no means a popular measure.

In light of the accumulated evidence of the last seven years, it is disingenuous to continue demanding the use of force. What 'civil society' should recognise is that 'Talibanisation' is a product of a systematic process of militarisation of the state and society that can only be undone in the long-run. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to reiterate that the establishment itself sponsored 'Talibanisation'; this means more than simply funding armed renegades, but extends to the doctoring of educational curricula, propagating certain symbols in the popular media, etc.

So, even if one were to assume that the ties between the 'Taliban' and the military establishment have been definitively cut – a very big assumption, of course – and that the 'military operations' represent a genuine attempt to eliminate the 'Taliban', the supply line that churns out the 'Taliban' is very much intact. It is here that the state's lack of seriousness in reversing its decades-old policies is most obvious. And it is here that most pressure should be applied on the elected government to make a break with status quo.

As concerns the so-called 'war on terror', there can be no question that the first and foremost demand must be for American troops to leave the region. Only then will the conditions for insurgency give rise to an environment in which peace is at least a possibility. Perhaps more importantly, only when the nexus of Pentagon-GHQ is not determining the fate of the wider region can it be expected that some kind of civilian authority can establish control over FATA and the NWFP, and then evolve strategies to deal with 'Talibanisation'. In the final analysis, it is important to remember that only when civilian authority wins the trust of common people can the threat of millenarian violence subside.

Dr Maqsoodul Hassan Noori is currently working as Senior Research fellow at Islamabad Policy Research Institute. Before this, he was associated with Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad, as senior research officer. He is also a visiting faculty member at Area Study Centre, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi. Dr Noori did his PhD in International Relations from University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA, in 1990, while he did his MA in International Relations from Australian National University, Canberra.

Dr Maqsoodul Hassan Noori is considered as an expert on Afghanistan, the Gulf and Central Asia, as well as on conflict resolution and management. His expertise on security and strategic issues of South Asia is also well recognised. During his research career, he has won a number of awards and fellowships, such as from the International Security and Global Institute, Stockholm; German Academic Exchange Service; South Asia Centre, University of Heidelberg; and Henry L Stimson Centre, Washington, DC.

Dr Maqsoodul Hassan Noori has also been a research consultant for the Emirate Centre for Strategic Studies, Abu Dhabi, and research contributor to the Gulf Research Centre, Dubai. In addition, He has hundreds of research publications and newspaper articles to his credit, published both nationally and internationally. The News on Sunday interviewed Dr Noori recently. Excerpts follow:

The News on Sunday: What went wrong with our policies that we are currently facing an insurgency-like situation in many parts of the country?

Dr Maqsoodul Hassan Noori: This, we can say, has been the result of omissions and commissions. There are many issues that successive governments have neglected for the last so many years; for example, the condition of the people living in the tribal areas. They were looked down upon after the creation of Pakistan and policies of the British were continued. The tribal areas were part of Pakistan and they should have been brought into the mainstream immediately after the country's independence. Many other important issues – such as land reforms, provincial autonomy, and the role of religion in state and private affairs – were also put on the backburner. As a result, these issues became complicated. When Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union, Pakistan became an ally of the United States along with other countries like China and Saudi Arabia. Later, the Afghan civil war, takeover of the Taliban, America invasion of Afghanistan and U-turn in our Afghan policy made matters worse. When a country takes a U-turn, the rulers ought to explain its reasons to the people. After taking the U-turn, Musharraf said he had "saved" Pakistan. I don't know what he meant by this. The decision of joining the US-led so-called 'war on terror' should have been made after thorough consultation. This would have put Pakistan in a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the US. Moreover, 'mujahideen' became terrorists overnight. They were loyal to Pakistan, but the U-turn in Pakistan's Afghan policy isolated them. Pakistan could have dealt with the situation in a much better way and what we are facing today could have been avoided. Had a representative government made these decisions after thorough consultation, things would have been different today.

TNS: Isn't religious extremism a problem of the whole country, of not just FATA and the NWFP?

MHN: Yes, but it may not be of the scale of FATA and the NWFP, whose inhabitants are directly affected by the situation in Afghanistan due to proximity. Thus, in other parts of the country, we may not be facing that kind of situation. However, things are fast changing; religious extremism has started manifesting in southern Punjab, though it is known as the land of Sufis. The reasons for this are the establishment of 'madrassas', and economic backwardness and deprivation.

TNS: Do you mean to say that the neglected areas provide a conducive environment for extremism?

MHN: Yes, extremism in Pakistan is mainly an outcome of lopsided, uneven development. Many areas have been neglected, as a result of which they have failed to become part of the mainstream. This is also true for FATA, though it is rich in both natural and human resources. In fact, bad governance by maliks and corrupt political administration has hindered the development of the tribal areas. However, the ultimate responsibility lies with the government.

TNS: Is it true that some elements within the Pakistani establishment, especially in the ISI, continue to support the extremists considering them strategic assets?

MHN: Some elements in the Pakistani establishment used to support the extremists, perhaps for strategic depth in Afghanistan or to counter the supposed Indian hegemonic designs, but this help has now surely dwindled. However, though Pakistan has denied this time and again, the international community still thinks that the Pakistani establishment provides some kind of support to the extremists.

TNS: On the one hand, there is complete lack of development in FATA, Balochistan and the NWFP; while, on the other, complete freedom to extremists to implement their agenda in these areas. Isn't this the core of the problem?

MHN: Exactly. If there is lack of development and the government also gives a free hand to the 'madrassas' that produce militants, the problem only aggravates. Thus, economic underdevelopment, 'madrassas' preaching hatred and extremism, and the country's flawed education system, which needs to be completely revamped, are at the core of the problem. We have to build a progressive state, as envisioned by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. However, so far, we have only strayed from his ideals; as a nation, we encourage both extremism and obscurantism. I can confidently say that if the Musharraf regime and the MMA government in the NWFP did not support the extremists, they also did not act against them.

TNS: Does the US want to carve out new countries

in the region at the

cost of Pakistan?

MHN: This is what we call a conspiracy theory. When you are unable to understand things, you start subscribing to conspiracy theories at their face value. Americans, in my opinion, don't have a long-term vision; they go by stages with a very narrow vision. If things don't work, they just change the policy. I think the American interest is best served if Pakistan remains stable and improves its relations with India. If there is a nuclear war between the two countries, American interests in South Asia will suffer the most. It will affect many countries where US forces are currently stationed. Moreover, Americans are looking for new business avenues. India is a big market and so is Pakistan. In short, the US wants to engage Pakistan and does not want to disintegrate or break up the country. However, if terrorism goes unabated, the government fails to check law and order, the economy goes down further and relations with India do not improve, then the US might change its perception about Pakistan.

TNS: What would be the policies of the Obama administration regarding Pakistan and Afghanistan?

MHN: You may have noted that Obama only talked about Afghanistan in his inaugural address. That shows his priority. His polices are going to be little different from that of Bush. Americans will not pack up and go, at least in the near future. However, they would shift the focus to economic and political development in the region. Obama does not have a quick-fix solution for Afghanistan. Of course, he will follow slightly different policies than Bush. However, for the time being, he wants a surge in Afghanistan, as evident from the deployment of 30,000 more US troops. The aim of having more troops is to give relieve to Afghan forces, so that they can get sufficient training. The Americans want Afghan troops to be somewhere around 140,000, in order to shift the onus on the Afghans. When more troops are on the ground, there is lesser need for aerial bombing that creates more enemies and is profoundly counterproductive. Thus, Obama's policy would be first surge and then phased withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, phased withdrawal should not be construed as Americans will leave Afghanistan altogether: they would limit themselves to certain areas of Afghanistan and leave the rest to Afghan forces.

TNS: If Afghanistan gets a full-fledged army, will this help in stabilising the region?

MHN: All sovereign countries should have their own police, prisons and army. However, they do not exist in Afghanistan. Americans disbanded the whole Taliban army; they should have retained some part of it, so that they did not have to start from the scratch. Nevertheless, if Afghanistan gets a full-fledged army, this will help improve the overall situation in South Asia.

Although sugar is widely used as a sweetener in most parts of Pakistan, people in the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP), the tribal areas and Afghanistan prefer gur for the purpose. The health hazards of sugar are well known. Gur, on the other hand, is considered good for health. Because sugar is mixed with a number of chemicals, gur is purer and better in taste than it. Moreover, gur is also cheaper than sugar.

Gur-making plants – called ganees – are small plants prepared by local artisans and run by villagers. The plant consists of an underground furnace on which sugarcane juice is boiled in large pans. The juice is produced after crushing the sugarcane. The bagasse left over is used as a furnace fuel after being dried. When the juice is ripe for making gur, it is thrown into another pan. After some time, the gur is moulded into small lumps by hands. The exhaust gases are released outside the ganee through a vertical chimney. This practice of gur-making is centuries old.

Gur can be and is used in various ways. Its syrup is refreshing and has a cool effect in summers. The syrup, when mixed with milk, produces quality milkshake. Gur lumps are also added with peanuts, black pepper, coconuts and almonds to make a delicious combination – a good gift to be presented to friends and relatives. Locally, gur is used in pateesa. Hakims also use it in various medicines.

Pakistan follows only Brazil, China, Cuba, India and Thailand in sugarcane production. Sugarcane is grown in the country on an estimated one million hectares each year. Almost one third of the crop is used in gur-making. According to an informed assessment, about 1.5 million tonnes of gur is produced annually in the country. However, farmers believe the annual gur production in the country is about two million tonnes.

Gur, especially the one prepared in Mardan, is in high demand in the region. Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics (CARs) are believed to be the biggest consumers of the commodity. The gur trade and consumption is difficult to track, because there is a large amount of local and unrecorded trade both within and without the country – especially along the borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

There was a ban on the export of gur before 1987, but now it can be traded freely. According to a rough estimate, 5,000-7,000 tonnes of gur is traded each day in the NWFP, while much more than this is exported daily. In particular, people of the violence-hit Swat region consume gur in huge quantities. With the people fleeing from the area because of violence, the price of gur in the country should have come down, but it has not.

Various qualities of gur are sold at different prices. Depending on various factors, the wholesale prices of the commodity experience ups and downs throughout the year. In 1996, the average retail price of gur was 14 rupees per kilogram. Since then, the commodity's price has risen significantly and gur is currently being sold at Rs50-55 per kilogram. Sugarcane growers, however, have not been able to benefit from this hike, while middlemen and mass purchasers who control the business have made huge profits.

"The mass purchasers buy sugarcane crops in advance by exploiting the poverty and ignorance of the farmers. They purchase two purs (weighing about 160 kilograms each) of gur made from the crops they have purchased for only Rs4,500-6,000. The price is less than the market price of gur, but because the process is easy and the farmers get cash in advance, the deal is made. As a result, the major profit is earned by this mafia that now has the power to decide whether to make gur or to delay the process to create artificial shortage in the market," says Haji Naimat Shah, vice president of the NWFP Anjuman-e-Kashtkaran (tillers' association) and president of Kashtkar Development Foundation, Mardan.

The NWFP Northern Irrigation Circle has three divisions: Mardan, Swabi and Malakand. The circle has a total of 553,500 acres of cultivable land and, according to an estimate, half of it is used for sugarcane cultivation. Dera Ismail Khan, in particular, is known for high production of sugarcane. However, of late, there is a growing trend among farmers to switch to other crops.

Though prices of sugarcane vary throughout Pakistan, the official purchase rate for 50 kilograms is Rs100. Despite this, there is limited supply to sugar mills for crushing, because the farmers prefer to make gur from their produce. That is why many sugar mills have closed down, while Asia's biggest sugar mill – Premier Sugar Mill in Mardan – has stopped crushing due to shortage of sugarcane and it is expected to permanently close down in the near future.

Normally, gur-making starts in October and continues until April-May. According to a farmer, good quality sugarcane gives as much as 40 purs from one acre. The gur made from January to March is of best quality. Moreover, he tells, gur is best for human consumption in its natural colour, while that mixed with rungcot is not, though people living in remote areas prefer it because of the bright colour. Moreover, the gur made from the roots of the last year's crop is better in quality than that made from fresh cane. Similarly, the gur made from good quality sugarcane fetches higher price and vice-versa.

Peshawar is the regional hub of the gur trade. A big gur market operates in Pipal Mandi in the city. In Mardan, there are 10 gur commission agents – seven big and three small – who dominate the commodity's business. Ziarat Khan, one of them, tells The News on Sunday that they work like property dealers or motor vehicle bargainers, who are only concerned about their commission. He says they charge Rs50 per sack containing 1.6 maunds (64 kilograms) of gur. "Last year, 4,000-5,000 purs of gur were traded daily in Mardan, but this year the business has come down to only hundreds of purs daily," he informs.

Ziarat Gul, however, says the slump in the gur business this year is due to the fact that last year the sugarcane crop was hit hard by severe cold and diseases. The farmers had limited produce and seeds. On a positive note, he adds a bumper crop is expected this year. Ziarat also opines that against general perception, mass purchasers of sugarcane or gur have little impact on the business, because the commodity cannot be kept for long and has to be disposed of quickly.

Farmers, on the other hand, tell a different story. Sardar Ali, a farmer from Katlang, tells TNS that these commission agents take five kilograms of gur from each sack. He says they also have to pay the labourers in the gur market. "The maximum productivity for an acre of sugarcane is 600 maunds. If taken to mills, it can fetch Rs60,000. After deductions by the mill and other expenses, the actual income of the farmer for the year-long hardships and labour comes to only Rs33,000 per acre. The income further shrinks if the cost of seeds for the next crop is also deducted from this amount. On the other hand, the same amount of sugarcane can produce 40 purs of gur. At its current rate, this can fetch around Rs120,000, provided the gur is of high quality. The average expenses for this quantity of crop come to about Rs24,000.

In addition, Rs20,000 are spent on gur-making. Transportation and other expenses cost another Rs7,000. So, the gur-maker earns about Rs60,000. This explains the ever-increasing inclination of farmers to switch to gur-making or to other cash crops like wheat and maize that are in high demand these days and can fetch even double that amount.

Sugarcane growers face a number of problems. There is no tax on the sector at present and neither there should be one. Farmers say they already pay various taxes like abiana (water tax). In short, costly labour, expensive fertilisers, lack of quality seeds for increasing production, shortage of irrigation water, lack of research at the official level, outdated gur ganees, and exploitation by the mass purchasers and middlemen are some of the problems faced by them.

The 'central' question

The Sindh Assembly, in a unanimous resolution passed on Feb 3, has demanded of the federal government to immediately stop collecting sales tax on services, because this right exclusively vests with the provinces. It has also rightfully asked for the refund of Rs213 billion, collected by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as sales tax on gas, power and telephone services from the province during fiscal years 2001-02 to 2005-06. The actual share of the provinces in the taxes collected by the FBR is much higher; 70 percent collection in Pakistan is on account of indirect taxes, which only provinces can levy in a truly federal structure.

The provinces are not aware of the fact that how the Centre has been cheating them since 1973, when the country's constitution was passed. In terms of Fourth Schedule [Legislative Lists] to the Constitution of Pakistan, the provinces have the exclusive right to levy sales tax on services. However, the FBR in recent years imposed a number of taxes on services under the federal statutes – Sales Tax Act, 1990; Federal Excise Act, 2005; and Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 – in utter violation of unambiguous constitutional position on the subject.

Successive governments – both civilian and military – have not bothered to end this injustice in distribution of taxes between the federation and the federating units. Assignment of taxes is a vital constitutional issue that has been blatantly ignored in the past, resulting in economic disparities. Lack of judicious distribution of taxes under the federal scheme and perpetual abuse of constitutional provisions to this effect by Islamabad is further deepening disharmony between the Centre and the provinces.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in his maiden speech after winning the vote of confidence, pledged that the Concurrent List in the Constitution would be abolished within one year. This could have been done immediately, because there was consensus on the issue in both the National Assembly and Senate. However, the issue of fair and equitable distribution of taxing powers between the Centre and the provinces has been put on the backburner, and nothing is in the offing in this regard.

In major federations – such as the United States, Canada and India – the federating units have the exclusive right to levy indirect taxes on goods and services transacted within their territories. In Pakistan, however, the federal government has denied this right to the provinces. To add insult to injury, the federal government is collecting a huge amount of taxes that constitutionally belong to the provinces. The FBR, through provincial government departments, collects billion of rupees at source without paying any service charges as envisaged in Article 149 of the Constitution. On the other hand, it charges two percent fee from provinces on collections under provincial sales tax laws! This dichotomy has never been pointed out by the provinces; even the Sindh Assembly's resolution of Feb 3 does not mention it.

The federal highhandedness in tax matters – of using both the federal and concurrent lists – has played havoc with economic rights of the provinces, who should have the exclusive right to levy indirect taxes on goods and services transacted within their territories. The federal government has been blatantly encroaching upon this undisputed right by levying taxes on goods and services under the garb of presumptive taxes in the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. These taxes cannot be termed taxes on income (which the federal government is empowered to levy under item 47 of the Federal List) in any way, because they are levied on goods and services.

The Sindh Assembly has missed this point in its resolution. Our tragedy is that, on the one hand, we have too many taxes in the country (federal, provincial and local, though the last two generate negligible revenue); while, on the other, the benefits of revenues collected are not reaching the masses of the less-privileged provinces. In short, the rich and the powerful – controlling the state and its resources – are the real beneficiaries of taxes collected from the common people.

Despite the federal highhandedness in levying unjust taxes and denying the provinces their legitimate share, the Centre has miserably failed to reduce the burgeoning fiscal gap. The major reason that hinders reduction in ever-increasing fiscal deficit is non-empowerment of provinces to generate their own resources. The FBR may claim that the provinces lack the infrastructure to collect taxes efficiently. However, who has given authority to the FBR to issue such statements violating constitutional provisions? Are high-ups of the FBR above the Constitution and can they openly defy resolutions passed by the provincial assemblies?

It is shameful that the provinces have been denied the autonomy to levy indirect taxes on goods and services transacted within their territories. Since 1947, the Centre has been maltreating the provinces and their plight is even worse than under the colonial rule. The denial of taxation rights to the provinces has made them fully dependent on the federal government. They are not getting their due share even under the revised National Finance Commission (NFC) or through direct federal grants.

In fiscal year 2007-2008, total tax revenue collected by the FBR was Rs1.040 trillion. The federal government's total receipts (both tax and non-tax) were Rs1.546 trillion, of which the provinces received only Rs416 billion. Interestingly, the federal expenditure under two heads alone, defence and debt-servicing, was Rs780 billion, while the overall fiscal deficit of the federal government was Rs777.7 billion. On the one hand, the provinces have not been allowed to levy indirect taxes on goods and services transacted within their territories; while, on the other, the federal government has utterly failed to tap the real revenue potential, which is in no way not less that Rs3-4 trillion. The failure of the FBR adversely affects the provinces, because they are wholly dependent on what the Centre collects and transfers to them from the federal divisible pool.

Because the FBR is not going to collect even Rs1.5 trillion as tax revenue during fiscal year 2008-09, the provinces will get even less than Rs500 billion as their share. Pakistan is, thus, caught in a dilemma: The Centre is unwilling to grant the provinces their legitimate taxation rights and, in turn, the provinces are unable to generate their own resources to reduce the ever-increasing burden of inflation on the poor – the real sufferers in this conflict of interests between the Centre and provinces.

The FBR's track-record shows remote possibility of achieving the revenue target of Rs3-4 trillion in the next four years, to give a fiscal space both to the Centre and provinces to come out of the present economic mess, thus extending some relief to the poor. In the given scenario, this taxing impediment will continue; the country will remain in debt enslavement and more and more people will be pushed below the poverty line.

If we want to come out of this crisis, there is an urgent need to reconsider equitable distribution of fiscal and taxing powers between the federation and provinces. Provincial autonomy without fiscal rights and equitable redistribution of income and wealth among all the federating units is meaningless. We cannot come out of perpetual economic and political crises unless the provinces are given due taxation rights to generate their own resources, and then having exclusive right to spend them for the welfare of their people.

Within public policy, a lot of attention is given to the concept of policy process. How policy agenda is formulated and what role do the policy actors play in the process has received a special focus as a result. The policy process consists of five stages: agenda setting, policy formulation, decision making, implementation, and evaluation and feedback. Though all stages in the policy process are equally important, the agenda setting in the policy process has received considerable attention in the literature, simply because it is the first stepping stone to the formulation of policy.

Agenda setting is understood to be "a set of issues which elites and publics think need public attention." The process of agenda setting fluctuates and is likely to change over time, through shifts in public opinion, fashions in the media and debates among policy-making elites. The agenda setting process sheds interesting light on how issues rise to, and falls from, public policy radar. The best way to explain agenda setting is perhaps by way of discussing as to how a problem becomes an issue of public concern. As each public policy is a response to a perceived problem that agitates the majority of population and policy elites, rise to public policy agenda owes a lot to how a given problem is defined.

Understanding how agenda is set also requires an understanding that there is no fixed way to understand a problem. Problems are defined differently by different actors in the policy process. It is often said a problem correctly defined is half solved. For example, defining the problem of suicide bombings in Pakistan as a reaction to US drone attack is likely to lead to a radically different solution than from defining it as a purely law and order problem. This brings us to the issue of who sets the agenda. In public policy literature, there are two theories in this regard: the elitist and pluralist models.

In the elitist model, agenda is defined by a small group of elites who decide among themselves how a problem is defined and a solution is reached. In this model, elites participate in the policy through bureaucracy or political class. Pakistan furnishes the best example of this model where agenda is always set by elites without reference to groups or diversity of interests in the policy process. After Pakistan's independence, a small elite represented in the civilian-military complex initially set the policy agenda. Later, feudal-oriented political class also contributed its bit. In a nutshell, elite systems of agenda setting are always skewered towards powerful institutional and class interests, as has been the case in Pakistan.

In the pluralist model, on the other hand, groups get fair shot at participating in agenda setting. This model affords many entry points to marginal groups to enter the political system. This model of agenda setting is prevalent among advanced industrial democracies where policy process is open to competition of different political groups. Democracy is essential to the functioning of the pluralist model, though it is not masses but organised groups that exercise stakes in the process.

As to how issues rise to, and fall from, public policy agenda, considerable theoretical attention has originated from the work of Anthony Downs, who, in 1972, tracked the trajectory of how an issue becomes a public policy issue and the role of the media in the rise and fall of an issue. Basing his model on a detailed analysis of environmental movement in the US, Downs postulated that an issue rises and falls off policy agenda in five cyclical stages. He contends that for an issue to be on policy agenda it has to go through the pre-problem stage where a problem lies dormant for a long time, with public vaguely aware of its existence.

We apply this to the issue of racial discrimination in the US. The problem of racism and discriminatory laws was a known and lived reality of the life for a long time until the 1960s when civil rights movement brought it to the fore. Similarly, the problem of militancy in Pakistan has remained in pre-problem phase since at least the 1980s. In this stage, the problem lies unaddressed but surfaces from time to time to policy agenda when an associated event triggers it.

The second stage concerns the stage of alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm for action where a problem suddenly bursts upon public consciousness. In this stage, the media plays a major role in pushing the issue onto agenda through its sensational and alarmist reporting. For example, the issue of climate change, after having remained in the pre-problem phase, suddenly rose to policy agenda when NASA scientist Jim Henson testified to the US congress of the scale of problem of global warming and its dire consequences.

The third stage involves shirking from action after realising the cost of making a significant progress on the issue. The costs involved could range form financial to lifestyle change costs. For example, when the realisation dawned that action on global warming was going to involve changes in lifestyle and significant costs to the oil industry, the issue was pushed onto the backburner.

The fourth stage, as postulated by Downs, involves gradual decline in the interest in the issue. Again climate change furnishes an excellent example. The issue moved into fourth stage after its initial burst in 1989. Since that time, the issue has passed through second and third stages until major action on climate change began to be pushed by scientists who proved once for all that climate change is here to stay as a permanent feature of our lives. The fifth stage is what Downs called post-problem stage where the issue goes into hibernation for a period of time – short and long – depending upon how events spur it back into the public limelight.

According to Downs, the issues that go into post-problem phase are likely to get quick and increased attention the next time they are kicked into life by an incident or event. The issue of climate change remained in this hibernated phase for long time until irrefutable evidence paved the way for policy action on the issue. Similarly, in Pakistan, the problem of militancy has again risen to policy agenda despite efforts to keep it in cold storage.

The issue of agenda setting in public policy is as complex and abstract as the subject itself. Further research into how agenda setting models would fare in Pakistan, where the policy process is insular and elite-dominated, is urgently needed to build up a strong knowledge base of policy process. How issues in Pakistan graduate onto public policy agenda would also throw light on the quality of democracy, changing class formation of the Pakistani establishment and vibrancy of civil society.

Akbar S Ahmed's scholarly career begins with sociological and anthropological essays which deal with various topics in Western and non-Western social spheres. A collection of essays titled Pieces of Green: Sociological Change in Pakistan: 1964-1974 offers Ahmed's earliest interpretation of Islam in South Asia. In the first essay titled Weberian Concepts of Authority in Pakistan, Ahmed employs Weberian terms such as 'charisma' and 'authority' for a sociological analysis of Islam and Pakistan. Ahmed's text does not examine why Weber's concepts are being chosen to perform this analysis; hence, the politics of the terms of analysis being employed remain unexamined. The question why Weber's terms are being applied to Islam is not broached. The political and material conditions through which Weber's terms become globally relevant are not discussed. The terms employed are assumed to be self-explanatory, transparent and operative without any ideological content.

Ahmed's choice of analytical terms betrays its politics when his text constructs Islam as identical to the Pakistani state's official construction of Islam, which is found in state-sponsored textbooks. According to Ahmed, South Asian Muslims demanded a "separate homeland" in order to construct the public sphere according to Islamic teachings and, to support this argument, Ahmed cites Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister of Pakistan. His scholarship substantiates the officially sanctioned interpretation of the world instead of challenging it. Safe scholarship operates as an instrument for maintaining the epistemic status quo. Ahmed does not question the validity of the official interpretive grid that is imposed on the social text. Thus, his scholarship provides an example of the complicity between safe scholarship and authorised knowledge.

Ahmed assigns an immutable and omnipresent Islamicness to the state through statements which betray the uses of Islam: the "Pakistani mind, steeped in Islamic lore, welcomes a strong charismatic leader, accepts traditional authority and is indifferent to legal democracy or rational bureaucracy." Through this essentialised reading of an amorphous category, "the Pakistani mind," which is "steeped," a verb denoting saturation, in another imagined category called "Islamic lore," Ahmed seeks to reduce the multiplicity of the people to the officially constructed narrative of the state, betraying his complicity with the ideological uses of Islam by the elite. Moreover, he, in a double manoeuvre, substantiates the Orientalist view of the despotic Muslim as a figure indisposed to democracy as well as justifications of indigenous dictatorial figures who assign similar essences to the populations they are anxious to govern. Ahmed, while analysing 'charisma' and 'authority', corroborates oppressive interpretations and contributes to further marginalisation of emancipatory or liberatory politics.

The intellectual complicity of safe scholarship with authoritarian discourses, especially in officially Islamised postcolonial formations, operates as a homogenising tool that produces governable essences. Because of its complicity with official structures and governmental practices, safe scholarship not only contributes to appropriation and assimilation of Otherness, but also becomes an extension of legalised authority. In this way, one can argue that safe scholarship participates in political and legal power because of its apparent neutrality. Safe scholarship, thus, becomes a normative discourse because it makes statements that are already legitimised, which, in turn, legitimise the prevalent condition of knowledge production. In other words, safe scholarship is not interrogative, in the sense that it does not question the condition of knowledge production that makes certain statements valid and legitimate.

In another essay titled Social Symmetry and Asymmetry, Ahmed attempts to construct a liberal interpretation of Islamic authority by selecting lenient verses from the Holy Quran: for example, "There shall be no compulsion in religion." He, therefore, eschews critical inquiry of the uses of Islam as the official discourse and of the Quranic content that seeks to punish the un-Islamic Other: "We will put terror in the heart of unbelievers." Ahmed attempts to demonstrate that fanaticism is not the essence of Islam without discussing the discursive conditions that generate fanaticism. The type of Islam that is constructed in Pieces of Green is synecdochical Islam, represented through stereotypical images, with lacunaes and anxieties that demonstrate that the author is constructing an empire of selective interpretation. It is possible to counter this observation by arguing that all interpretations are selective, but still an intellectual's silences are as politically important as his or her vociferations. In Ahmed's scholarship, the non-Islamic Other serves its comparative and differentiating purpose only to be relegated to the hierarchical order constructed by the Islamic Self. Safe scholarship privileges the security of the similitude offered by the Islamic Self over the religious and civilisational Other.

From Pieces of Green onwards, sociological analyses of Sufism appear in Ahmed's work which construct a particular essence of Islam. The Sufic essence of Islam, according to Ahmed, originates from the idea of sulh-e-kul (peace with all), but this idea becomes another strategy of accommodating religious difference: the "spiritual policy of 'peace with all' genuinely encouraged proselytising." 'Peace with all' is an invention for assimilating the Other and for undermining the arguments of the opponents of Islamic imperialism in non-Islamic societies. Moreover, the choice of Sufism as an ideal type of Islam appears to be compatible with the production of safe scholarship: Sufism, despite its proselytising potential, does not offer a radical critique of the text of the world. Ahmed's choice of Sufism is another aspect of safe scholarship. In the absence of a radical interpretation of the text of the world, Sufism is a device for the production of safe scholarship in postcolonial spaces. With its insistence on the esoteric, Sufism has thus far not produced an exoteric politics.

In his book Millennium and Charisma Among Pathans: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology, Akbar S Ahmed discusses Sufism in ambivalent terms. While Sufism is "inner-directed," "non-political" and "non-material," it can indirectly function as a tool for Islamic revival. His analysis of the politics of Sufism is marked with ambivalences, slippages and discursive anxieties. In fact, Ahmed's work seeks to depoliticise Islam in order to construct "non-political" safe scholarship in the name of Sufism. Moreover, the type of Sufism that is being constructed by him is not the Sufism of Al-Hallaj, who challenged the legalism of Islam, but of sulh-e-kul, a doctrine constructed by Mughal Emperor Akbar circa 1562 as part of an attempt to syncretise Islam and Hinduism. Ahmed does not mention this specific history of the concept of sulh-e-kul because it contains diachronic semantic contaminations, especially for the state-authorised constructions of Islam in Pakistan.

Ahmed's construction of Sufism is also selective in its analysis of the hierarchical interaction between the sheikh or pir (saint or spiritual leader) and the murids (disciples or followers). According to him, the "socio-religious organisation" of Sufism constitutes a "dyadic" interaction between the sheikh and "his followers." The use of the word "dyadic" to denote an interaction that is hierarchical, as suggested by the word "followers," is an example of how sociological jargon can be employed as a gloss over undemocratic social processes. In addition, after choosing sociological descriptors, Ahmed assigns a metaphysical essence to Sufism that does not acknowledge its material and worldly consequences. He does not interrogate the political ramifications of the Sufic retreat from the arena of the world, but instead valorises the metaphysics of transcendental escape. The neutrality of the Sufi has political consequences which remain unspoken and unanalysed. Instead, the reader is supplied with encomiums for apolitical Sufic transcendence. We are not informed how the Ahmedian Sufi attempts to reconfigure the social sphere or introduce ideas of social justice, personal freedoms, human rights, etc.

Without engaging with the political ramifications of Sufism, Ahmed's selective sociological analysis performs three strategic functions: 1) it attempts to depoliticise Islam and assign it the status of an apolitical and homogenised religion; 2) it avoids an analysis of the hierarchies of inclusion and exclusion established within Islamic societies; and 3) through its valorisation of an amorphous "peace with all" type of Islamic mysticism, it remains unchallenging to the existing social formations and state ideologies. By celebrating the "neutrality" of analysis, by assuming that the terms of analysis are self-explanatory, safe scholarship neutralises its own potentialities of critique and, thus, reifies the effects of governmentality. Thus, Ahmed's project is not critical but governmental, because it does not seek to introduce the process of religious de-subjugation of the Muslim subject; instead, it seeks to extend the official regimes of truth against the alterity of the un-Islamic Other.

In his book titled Pakistan Society: Islam, Ethnicity, and Leadership in South Asia, Akbar S Ahmed performs an Islamocentric sociological analysis of the Kalash people, a non-Islamic tribal formation within Pakistan. In its encounter with alterity, the logic of the Islamic Self seeks to replace the practice of violent erasure with "peaceful" assimilation, so that it can celebrate its own leniency. This Self problematises the Other, turns the Other into a "problem," and seeks to "solve" the problem by constructing discourses of kindness and compassion. The construction of the non-Islamic Other as a "problem" displays discursive homologies to the ways in which Orientalism attempts to construct the "problem" of the "non-civilised" Other. Similar to Eurocentric Orientalism, Islamocentric knowledge extends the domain of the power of Islam and produces its own marginalia.

Ahmed's project becomes an extension of the governmental technologies of management when he adjudges: in "its commitment to Islamisation, the Government of Pakistan has not neglected its minorities. A Kalash Foundation has been set up to assist the Kalash. This is a step in the right direction." The religious Other within the postcolonial state of Islam is not the autonomous subject, because the state defines itself as the Islamic state. Ahmed's safe scholarship celebrates when the state takes "a step in the right direction"; however, when the state begins the jackbooted marathon towards unfreedom by militarising itself, he does not produce any critique of the martial law administration.

Moreover, instead of examining the Islamic discursive constructions of the non-Islamic Other, Ahmed reads an effect of certain Islamic discourses as an autotelic category and contributes to a greater entrenchment of the orthodox Islamic construction of the Other while supporting the intervention of the state. The religious Other is not always seen as a subject in need of proselytisation or conversion. The Quran itself acknowledges the religious alterity of the non-Muslim as a valid ontology: "Had God pleased, they, [the idolaters], would not have worshipped idols. We have not made you their keeper, nor are you their guardian." This verse from the Holy Quran demonstrates that it is possible for the Muslim intellectual to construct a discourse about the non-Muslim Other by selecting those verses from the Islamic scriptures which acknowledge the alterity of the non-Muslim subject in this world.

Akbar S Ahmed's celebration of the Islamic Self in relation to the non-Islamic Other is also operative in his book Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society. The self-referentiality at work in the construction of the Islamic Self makes Ahmed's enterprise safe and celebratory, but does not contribute to critical knowledge production within Islamic spaces. For example, the fourth chapter seeks to inform the reader about the great Muslim empires. The text is celebratory about the grandeur of the Ottoman empire. According to Ahmed, the sixteenth century was "probably the greatest time of expansion. The North African conquests date from this period – all of North Africa, save Morocco, formed part of empire. It stretched from Budapest to Yemen, from Baghdad to Algeria." However, the erasure of difference of the pre-Islamic subjectivities situated in the Islamic imperialist expansion is not broached.

"All of Africa" is subsumed under the grand narrative of the Islamic empire with one self-congratulatory phrase. But when it comes to European imperialism, Ahmed declares colonial rule for Muslims was "an unmitigated disaster" and no "arguments about Europe providing railways and the telegraph, or maintaining law and order, can conceal or assuage this fact." If Western colonialism cannot be justified despite the promises of modernity, industrialisation and progress, Islamic imperialism cannot be justified either, regardless of its contribution to Islamic grandeur. This celebration of the Self at the expense of the Other is perhaps the first step towards an imperialist position. Ahmed's celebration of Islamic "greatness" and expansionism is unsustainable on two accounts: first, his idea of sulh-e-kul does not seem compatible with the imperialist conquests; and second, it is difficult to celebrate Islamic imperialism while condemning Western imperialism.

Ahmed's text glosses over these lacunaes in the argument by employing various strategies, and the slippage of imperialistic vocabulary betrays the anxieties and repressions at the heart of his safe scholarship. For example, in order to dispel the stereotype of Muslim warriors from Central Asia as the main source of the spread of Islam in India, Ahmed attempts to replace the figure of the warrior with that of the Sufi, but the anxious slippages in his text betray a narcissistic celebration of conversion as the ideal outcome. According to Ahmed, the image of the Muslim warrior does not represent "the whole picture" and the figure of the Sufi needs to be included in the picture as well. But, at the same time, to describe the project of the Sufis, he employs the phrase "their modes of attack were contrary" to the Muslim warrior and consisted of "absorbent and pragmatic" strategies.

It is difficult to ascertain whether the project of Sufism was conversions of the non-Muslims, but it is possible to ascertain the contradictions introduced by the use of the word "attack." The textual desire to combat and contain the non-Islamic Other as suggested by the word "attack" makes Ahmed's deployment of the term sulh-e-kul a duplicitous enterprise. The non-Islamic Other, in Ahmed's work, appears in need of control or being brought into the realm of the Same with persuasion. The Otherness of the non-Islamic in his work appears as a disciplinary problem, in need of correction either through punishment or leniency. Though Ahmed appears to favour leniency or "peace," the alterity of the non-Islamic is constructed as a "problem" and, therefore, the possibility of structural or discursive violence is never remote.

Furthermore, Ahmed's construction of Islam deploys ideas of Sufism, Islam's imperial / imperious greatness and later decline due to Western colonialism as devices to remain silent on critical debates in Islamic societies. After assigning a particular essence to the figure of the Sufi, that of "peace with all," Ahmed valorises the Sufi and, at the same time, employs the Sufic figure as a strategic device to collapse the difference between the Sufi and the intellectual. The opposition between the "master of the age" and the "recalcitrant Islamic scholar" is broached without any discussion of various material conditions that have contributed to the marginalisation of critique within post-colonial Islamic spaces.

Ahmed's amorphous descriptor "the excesses of the rulers" does not specify the conditions that produce multiple forms of unfreedom within Islamic social configurations. Though the scholars are recognised as producers of opposition against "the excesses," Ahmed does not discuss the specificities of the oppressive excesses within any particular historical or cultural context and, thereby, divests the figure of the scholar, especially in contemporary Islam, of his or her critical and subversive potential. The readers of Ahmed's text are not informed whether the phrase "the excesses of the rulers" signifies military regimes or whether it hides an engagement with certain specific conditions of unfreedom. Ahmed's selective, amorphous and historically non-specific construction of the interaction between the "excessive ruler" and "the recalcitrant scholar" enables him to valorise the scholar without analysing the effects of recalcitrance on many intellectuals' life trajectories.

Akbar S Ahmed's amorphous construction of radicality in Islam seeks to essentialise the religion into a non-critical system of social organisation by its construction, because of its emphasis on dominant narratives and evasive production of "recalcitrance." Without specifying the issues that produced the conflict between the ruler and recalcitrant scholars, Ahmed's knowledge production is uncritical, neutral and safe, and contributes to the stasis of Muslim societies. Some of the reviewers of his book Discovering Islam have pointed out the absence of critique and the problematics generated by what can be identified as safe scholarship.

Ahmed's safe construction of Islam is a symptom of Islamic scholarship in postcolonial spaces: it displays a parochial Islamocentrism which eschews internal critique because of the global dominance of the West. For example, in Discovering Islam, Ahmed, while examining the impact of Western colonialism on Muslim societies, makes categorical anti-colonial statements. Colonialism, he argues, corrupted "the Islamic ideal" by "contorting" it. "The Islamic ideal," which was contorted by Western colonialism, however, remains an un-examined but contested invocation of an idealised past. Ahmed imagines the past as unproblematic and the invocation of the Islamic ideal operates in an ambivalent fashion and more often than not undermines his own arguments. His critique of the "unmitigated disaster" of European colonialism turns upon itself because of his apologism for Islamic conquests.

For Ahmed, "Muslim history and society are not free of ignorance and tyranny [but these] are Muslim lapses, not Islamic qualities." To fix the essence of Islam in his discourse, he uses the same verses of the Holy Quran which he cited in Pieces of Green: "There shall be no compulsion in religion." Ahmed's Islam transcends history and becomes an eternal text, possessing one immutable essence of peace, compassion, generosity and leniency. But implicit in the avowal of these benign attributes is the idea of the power of leniency and the subject of compassion. It is the Muslim subject who remains the subject capable of extending leniency. The non-Muslim Other has to function as the receptacle of Muslim leniency and this relationship of power cannot be imagined in an inverse order in the domain of safe scholarship.

The idea of a lenient and peaceful Sufi Islam, as used by Ahmed, is not a critical intervention against the oppressive interpretations of Islam; rather, it operates as an ancillary discourse to the punitive logic of religious essence. His safe scholarship mobilises itself by excluding ambivalences, textual constructions and contestations within Islam, and the way in which dominant constructions of Islam have produced oppressive consequences. By marginalising the multiple contestations that take place within Islam at each discursive nexus, his project contributes to further entrenchment of the conditions of unfreedom that prevail in Islamic spaces. In short, Ahmed's work revalidates the dominant and orthodox constructions of Islam through sociological, apparently "neutral" and descriptive terms which, without interrogating the politics of their neutrality, speak in the name of Islam.

In his book Toward Islamic Anthropology: Definitions, Dogma and Directions, Ahmed propounds the argument in favour of Islamising anthropology, because the discipline of anthropology in its present configuration is inextricably linked with Western imperialism. Islamic anthropology, according to him, is "the study of Muslim groups by scholars committed to the universalistic principles of Islam" and these Islamic principles are "humanity, knowledge, tolerance." It is not discussed whether and how these categories can exist in non-Islamic social formations, and if non-Islamic social formations can display these humanistic categories, how Islam can claim these categories as its differentiating privilege. Ahmed's argument in favour of Islamising anthropology does not produce a new configuration of Islam and assumes the Islamic order of things as already given and definitive: for "the Muslim, the rules of marriage, inheritance and the entire code – covering the most intimate details of human behaviour – are laid down explicitly." By regarding the categories of analysis as autotelic and eternally valid, he ossifies Islam as the Other of the West and, as a result, reproduces the effects of Orientalism while constructing Islamic concepts as eternally fixed.

In Ahmed's construction of Islam, the "organisation of society and behaviour of its members are predetermined." This blessing of predetermination, he argues, reduces "the dilemmas of this world" and renders debates among different Islamic schools of thought "merely academic exercises." Ahmed's homogenisation of Islam as a source of differentiation from the West produces ambivalent effects. His Islam is an Islam of eternal stasis where intellectual debate is relegated to the margins of society. Paradoxically, this argument is posited while an academic discipline is being proven in need of Islamisation. After its Islamisation, if we extend Ahmed's argument to its logical limit, anthropology would enter the realm of silence because it would become a "merely academic" enterprise inscribed by the eternal validity of Islamic prescriptive discourses.

In Ahmed's schema, the task of the intellectual, then, is to describe the effects of the divine text of Islam, and to remain circumscribed and contained by its prescribed limits. The divine text possesses a unified voice that can produce difference, but is not subject to difference: there is "only one Islam," Ahmed argues, "and there can be only one Islam, but there are many Muslim societies." If there were only one Islam, there would not be any sectarian division, any linguistic and racial discrimination among Muslim subjects belonging to different postcolonial sates. By declaring the numerical plurality of Islamic spaces as external to Islam, Ahmed putatively produces an immutable essence of Islam that maintains its sameness through geographical and cultural difference. Islam, in Ahmed's construction, remains similar to itself when encountering plurality and difference. Islam, for him, is an empire of similitude in a world of difference.

By designating the seventh century Islamic social configuration as the ideal type, Ahmed's discourse posits a safe and idealised / idealisable essence to Islam, thereby relegating the religion to the realm of metaphysical purity instead of the worldly mutations and revisions. For Ahmed, the idea of Islamic identity is predicated upon similitude: Islam has to be similar to its essence as imagined by the producer of safe scholarship to be Islam. In Ahmed's schema, the worldly changes, revisions and mutations are the Other to the divine text of Islam. His version of Islam is situated outside history – in the safe realm of the beyond and the ideal. Islam, as constructed by Ahmed, is in this world but not of this world and, therefore, is apolitical.

The desire to construct an Islamic similitude, the empire of the Islamic Same, manifests itself as the narrative of Akbar S Ahmed's book Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise that becomes his most extended analysis of the contemporary interaction between Islam and the West. For Ahmed, the contemporary West as a civilisation is signified by the media and its global dominance. The Western media represents Islam with Orientalist stereotypes and the representation of Islam, he argues, betrays homologies to the colonial encounter in the nineteenth century. However, Ahmed does not specify the geographical location of the colonial encounter he broaches. In his formulation, the desire to maintain the Self of Islam mobilises itself un-problematically across the linguistic, ethnic and cultural multiplicities that constitute the Muslim world.

In his latest book titled Islam Under Siege, which is written as a response to the contemporary violent reconfigurations of the world after September 11, 2001, Akbar S Ahmed asks Muslims to visit "synagogues, churches, and mosques," and launch a process of "interfaith dialogue." In this book, he constructs a different prescription for the Muslim subject and the way he or she should interact with the non-Muslim subject: "Muslims need to place themselves in the place of the non-Muslims who see them as a threatening and anarchic force. The Muslim world needs to institute and ensure the success of democracy." Though the prescription is different, the alterity of the Other is recognised as a valid mode of existence. Though Ahmed's scholarship at times acquires the semblance of critique, it does not radicalise itself by offering any dangerous revisions to the structure of Islamic subjectivity. Hence, it becomes possible to argue that Ahmed's scholarship does not become critique in any significant way, because it does not introduce the possibility of de-subjectification of the Muslim subject as the subject of leniency and compassion. The capacity to extend compassion is not a sign of the Sufic annihilation of the Self, as celebrated by Ahmed, but a sign of self-referentiality and self-validation. The non-Muslim Other, within and without Islamic spaces, continues to haunt Ahmed's safe construction of Muslim subjectivity.

It is possible to question why is it necessary for the intellectual to produce interrogative and critical scholarship? What are the dangers which are perpetuated by safe scholarship? Why is the production of critique so important? The answers to these questions are complex but necessary if the analysis presented here has to have any significance. The attempt to answer these questions involves two inter-connected arguments. The first argument is informed by Edward Said's formulation of the role of the intellectual from the Islamic world in The Representations of the Intellectual: "Islam is the majority religion after all, and simply to say that 'Islam is the way', levelling most dissent and difference, to say nothing of widely divergent interpretations of Islam, is not, I believe, the intellectual's role… [The task] for the intellectual in Islam is a revival of ijtihad or personal interpretation." On the other hand, Ahmed does not introduce a personal interpretation of Islam; rather, he foregrounds certain aspects of Islam which construct postcolonial Islamic spaces in an uncritical way: Islam seems to subsume every other form of lived reality. In Ahmed's work, Islam as a doctrine displaces Islam as a culture along with other non-Islamic realities within those spaces where Muslims constitute a majority. In this way, Ahmed's Islam is not an egalitarian Islam, despite its attempts to simulate generosity and leniency. Moreover, Islam, as constructed by him, maintains its sameness through different histories and locations and also becomes the Other of the West.

The second argument in support of critique is inspired by Foucault's theorisation that critique operates as a challenge for governmentality. The modern forms of governmentality in postcolonial Islamic spaces are operative through institutions created by colonial administrations. It means that, without the production of critique, the Muslims in postcolonial Islamic societies will only attain a mere repetition of the colonial forms of governmentality administered through the indigenous elite. And because contemporary Islamic societies do not have their own forms of governmentality, the relationship between the Muslim subject and the governmental forms is not adequately addressed when the Muslim intellectual launches tokenistic demands for governmental leniency, democracy or human rights. Thus, postcolonial Islam has to develop its own forms of social organisation in order to deliver social justice to its subjects.