Taal Matol
Water!
By Shoaib Hashmi
What is it about water? Our reaction to it seems to be rooted in some deep seated primitive instinct, which isn't so with any other element. I mean element in the ancient sense. The ancients thought of the 'earth' first and it is around us much more so than water. And yet the only reaction to it is, if we happen to be near a heap of sand, especially if it is slightly damp, the thought is to dig into it with fingers opening up a mine passage right up to the armpit. And if you happen to have a companion, you both dig from opposite ends, and if your fingers meet, the right thing to do is to shake hands in the depth before you withdraw your hands!

interview
'The aim was to get my protest registered with the world'
By Nadeem Iqbal
The News on Sunday: Tell us abut the award which you were supposed to get from the U.S. ambassador?

Samad Khurram: In 2005 A' levels examinations, I got the highest score in the world in thinking skills and highest marks in chemistry in Islamabad region and 7 A grades.

Trouble with peace
Lack of cooperation between the government and the militants is causing tension in the Swat peace accord
By Delawar Jan
The Taliban and the NWFP government did not show sincerity and seriousness to put the Swat peace accord into practice as after the lapse of more than a month the peace deal could not be enforced

Due to unnecessary delay in the implementation, security forces and the Taliban -- operating under the command of Maulana Fazlullah -- skirmished last week after the suspension of talks and put an end to the 44-day ceasefire. As a result, the clashes claimed several lives putting the future of the peace accord in danger.

RIPPLE EFFECT
Appeasing the militants
By Omar R. Quraishi
Both the federal and the NWFP government's strategy -- if there indeed is one -- of fighting extremism and increasing Talibanisation in the country is flawed to say the least. Of late, there has been talk -- and it's been going on for some time now -- that pro-Taliban militants have surrounded the capital of NWFP, Peshawar, from the north, south and west and that it is only a matter of time before they make their move on to the city.

A little news item that appeared a few weeks ago was ignored by our all-knowing analysts and TV channels. Reportedly, the Federal Public Service Commission failed to recruit all the vacancies that were advertised for the CSS competitive examination held in 2007. Out of 290 available posts, the number of successful candidates in the 2007 CSS competition was merely 190, leaving almost 100 vacancies unoccupied.

Last year, too, the government could not get enough number of successful CSS candidates to fill in the available posts and 47 vacancies could not be filled. Such instances have occurred before but given the state of unemployment this is, to put it mildly, shocking.

The truth of the matter is that entering the civil service is no longer an alluring career option for the talented young men and women of this country. Perhaps, the greatest damage to the attractiveness of the civil service came in the wake of the devolution plan that rendered the most coveted service group -- District Management Group -- unpalatable. Within days, the district administrators had no prescribed career-paths and that they had to be subservient to small time political cronies of the central political elites.

But this would be too simplistic an explanation. The last decade has also witnessed Pakistan's fitful integration into the global economy resulting in expansion of private sector opportunities with higher salaries. The remuneration of a new entrant into the civil service is three times less than what a telecom company would pay to its junior employee. With money as a new god in the age of globalisation, choosing a dysfunctional civil service would make little sense.

The almost sinister destruction of the DMG and the centuries old office of the district magistrate or its historical predecessor, the mansabdar, was ahistorical and reflected the petty tensions within the Executive where the rival services viewed the DMG as an unfairly privileged elite service. The martial mind viewed the DMG as an alternative power centre that needed to be neutralised for effective capture of civilian institutions.

Today all the major civil service training academies are headed by former army men; and most poignantly the civil service reform unit in Islamabad is headed by a general as well.

It is ironical that opportunities for rent seeking have multiplied under the newly devolved structures. The District Coordination Officer, the new avatar for the erstwhile Deputy Commissioner, and his staff have a wider menu of commissions and kickbacks along with the political honchos, thereby defying the faint possibility of electoral accountability. The testimony of this comes from none else than former Chief Minister Punjab. It is therefore not the lack of 'extra' income that has made DMG unattractive. It is the loss of the unique service culture where the DC and his team functioned as relatively neutral state agents, mediated between the citizens and the state; and could potentially resist political influence.

From the citizens' perspective, two immediate after-shocks haunted the local governance patterns. First, the reconfiguring of the 'system' led to an unbridled and unchecked police force interacting directly with citizens with remote, little supervision. Second, the absolute collapse of local citizen interest regulation, which evolved over 150 years of governing experience. There are two to three hundred local and special laws, ranging from price control to natural resource management (water, irrigation and land) and from public health (adulteration, hygiene etc.) to environmental protection (forest, wildlife, pollution etc.). This is not to say that prior to 1999 the police was supervised effectively by the district magistrate or local regulation was optimal or efficient. In fact, decades of politicisation of civil service had resulted in ugly distortions of the so-called 'system.'

If the old system was not delivering or a colonial relic there were other ways to handle it than to throw out the sick baby with the bath water and usher in multiple patronage seekers and distributors. After all, civilian administrations in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and in many other countries continue with local adaptation and contextualisation. Why could we not learn from our much-feared neighbour especially the way its organic growth of local institutions blends grassroots democracy with a Raj administrative steel-frame?

Whilst these systemic tremors were felt by the citizens in whose name a reform was imposed from the top, the provinces felt completely bypassed thus reincarnating the old demons of troubled federalism. Services such as health, education were meant to improve. Whilst the budgetary allocations went up, the results were nowhere to be seen as the provincial secretariats appropriated more powers and local rent-seeking replaced the earlier patterns of malfeasance.

The much touted system of police accountability through the public safety commissions was a still-born concept. It never took off at the local level as the nominees to these institutions were selected along party and patronage lines thereby eroding the capability of these bodies. Where this Commission showed some teeth, its members were the first ones to bear the brunt of police excess. The naivete of appointing the provincial police officers through a panel, desirable as it is, and ensuring that he (indeed they are all men) completes his tenure foundered at the rocks of provincial politics.

The lure of raw power was reflected in the group allocation preferences that the CSS candidates indicated from 2000 onwards. Joining the Police became the top priority of those who appeared in the competitive examination followed by Customs and Income Tax. It was the Customs group that for some time became the prized service under General Zia ul Haq when the society ought to have become more spiritual in the face of a heavy dose of dubious 'Islamisation.' Alas, the monetisation of 1980s; and the brutalisation of 'governing' have been the direct results of these authoritarian spells.

Things have come to such a pass that there aren't enough qualified candidates, in a country of 170 million, to fill in the entry-posts. If on one hand, this trend betrays the decline of institutions, on the other it spells doom for the future of Pakistan's governance. There can be no compromise on a capable civil service to manage and implement policies. Yes, the private sector is more attractive and perhaps is always so, what about state's regulatory and redistributive functions? The goal of a capable state cannot be compromised nor ignored.

There is no alternative to increasing the salaries of the civil servants and making the promotion policy and work-environment more attractive. Otherwise, it is a dangerous trend that has already set in. However, it is nor irreversible.

The political parties are now calling for a revision of the devolution system and the monstrous possibility of another disruption looms large. Another 'revolution' will further lead to systemic jolts and ensue painful period of transition that might fuel the current climate of instability. There needs to be a two-pronged strategy: implement civil service reforms at the central level and fix the gaps of the local government systems with attention to the way provincial governments set policy and supervise local bodies. The solutions are well known to all and sundry and there is no need for another Commission or a white elephant body to carry the changes through.

If only the political parties (and corporate media) would halt posturing, stop targeting or extolling individuals and focus on institutions. The prospects of this happening are remote but this is a fast changing Pakistan. The moment is now, or perhaps, never.

Raza Rumi is a freelance contributor. He blogs at www.razarumi.com; edits a cyber magazine Pak Tea House & Lahore Nama blog.

The Punjab Government, through a directive issued by the governor, Punjab has abolished the contentious New Murree Development Authority (NMDA) on June 19. NMDA was implemented through an act of parliament by the previous government on January 24, 2004 to plan, execute and manage a mega-project of developing a hill resort encroaching 4,111 acres of forestland and costing about Rs 40 billion. The project included: five star hotels, golf course, shopping malls and residential villas at the panoramic Patriata resort of Murree Hills.

Patriata is situated 15 kilometres south-east of Murree, is the highest point in the area where hills stand 9,000 feet above the sea level. The colonial administration had declared this area as reserved forest in 1886.

The exotic New Muree project in this area was dismissed at the very outset by environmental and political lobbies. In response to the aggressive advocacy by concerned groups, Supreme Court of Pakistan took a suo moto notice in 2005 and prohibited further work till the environment impact assessment (EIA) was approved by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (PEPA).

PPP, MMA and PTI representatives jointly opposed this project while terming it a "nefarious design of land mafia" allegedly "headed by the then CM Punjab." IUCN criticized this project for its perceived negative impacts on local ecology and the environment.

It was also observed that social and environmental impact assessments were not carried out before launching its commercial feasibility, which indicates to the blatant violation of regulations. However, an official handout issued recently by the government of Punjab has admitted though retrospectively that, "any tourist resort project should have an imprint as soft as possible on the ecological system." "It is pertinent to mention that Murree has already become an extremely crowded place and over exploitation of its carrying capacity would have seriously and permanently damaged this premier tourist destination. Moreover the issue of ribbon development, land speculation and mushroom growth around NMDA area was conveniently ignored," the handout concedes.

The New Murree Project is one of the many examples of the misplaced logic pursued by mainstream planning, and is directed to a narrow and isolated sectoral perspective.

As in this particular New Murree case, the project area constitutes the catchment for downstream Simly Dam which provides 62 per cent of total drinking water supply to Islamabad. The unexamined massive construction at the upstream in Patriata would have had fatal consequences for downstream drainage and water supply. But this was hardly a matter of concern for the project designers, who were more obsessed with establishing a highly corporatised tourist resort at Patriata at the cost of low lying areas and communities.

The New Murree Project also confirms that the cross linkages of development initiatives are habitually ignored which subsequently contribute to increasing the disaster risk for vulnerable areas and communities. The ceremonially revised PC 1 formats by the Planning Commission pre-condition the approval of any project after an extensive environmental appraisal of the projects. Yet these pre-requisites are either treated as a shallow formality or simply ignored for the corporate connivance, benefiting investors and rent-seeking bureaucracies.

Rent-seeking in 'construction' and 'development sector' in Pakistan has largely been 'legitimised'. Through an 'elaborate' mechanism of over-invoicing and compromise on the quality of construction inputs there emerges a contractor-financier nexus in public sector, which belies the public interest and causes profligacy of public resources. In the case of a public structure collapse -- as it happened in the form of massive killings of school children in Kashmir earthquake -- the brunt is borne by public users. A financial critic would term it a disaster subsidised by its victims -- the tax-paying citizens. The human implications of a (mal)development are rarely analysed by the insensitive state and maximizing markets. The gap is frequently factored in the planning precepts and processes of mainstream development models.

This lesson indicates that here is a growing trend in Pakistan where development appears to have contributed in the shaping of new disasters. It causes the spiral increase in vulnerability and disaster risks. The UNDP's South Asia Disaster Report 2005, in this regard, indicates that an unexamined pursuance of inappropriate, rushed and rapid growth models have increased disaster risk and vulnerability in the region. UNDP asserts that hazards are being reshaped and new hazards introduced by contemporary development trends. It explains that the conversion of mangrove coasts into intensive shrimp farming pools in many low-lying tropical coastlines in Southeast Asia and South America has increased the level of local hazards through coastal erosion and loss of the coastal defense provided by the mangrove stands. The introduction of new technology such as chemicals into agriculture, rising energy demands of urban centres and the international trade in hazardous waste, are all processes that have increased the complexity of hazard.

Some reports note that a common practice among road designers is to make the road higher than the expected design flood level, thereby ensuring uninterrupted access during high floods. Sometimes this creates a dilemma because the road embankment itself creates higher flood levels which can exacerbate flooding of homes and other property.

It is to be recognised that disasters are the pending issues of development planning and governance, therefore, the managements of disasters should be made part of the overall governance and development planning and implementation and vice versa. Some analysts argue that decision-makers ignoring these relationships between disasters and development do a disservice to the people who place their trust in them.

The planners, the public representatives and the investors need to bring about a shift in the applied planning paradigm. It is to assess the development-induced risks and disasters hitting local society, economy, ecology, and environment and prepare against them. Therefore, no more New Murree Projects.

What is it about water? Our reaction to it seems to be rooted in some deep seated primitive instinct, which isn't so with any other element. I mean element in the ancient sense. The ancients thought of the 'earth' first and it is around us much more so than water. And yet the only reaction to it is, if we happen to be near a heap of sand, especially if it is slightly damp, the thought is to dig into it with fingers opening up a mine passage right up to the armpit. And if you happen to have a companion, you both dig from opposite ends, and if your fingers meet, the right thing to do is to shake hands in the depth before you withdraw your hands!

With air we don't do much. I mean there isn't much to do with it, except maybe fan yourself with a folded newspaper absentmindedly. It is slightly better with 'fire' especially if it is the remnants of a bonfire which you can get close to; then it is normal to fiddle around with it, and poke it with a twig and try a wetter twig which sputters and smokes when you do.

With water it is a totally different ball game. After the rain, if kids come across a little rivulet where a stream is finding its way to lower ground, kids will at the drop of a hat tear up the holidays homework for sheets of paper to fold into primitive boats and start sailing them down the stream. The remnants of rain are not the Nile and are navigable only a few inches at a time after which you have to untangle them and help them along, but no matter, they can stay busy with it for hours.

Or, on a summers evening if you come upon the gardeners handiwork, where he has done two bits worth of work, digging up three weeds and patted the grass down, and then connected up the hose and left it filling up the place. There is no way you can leave the hose alone! You have to pick it up, stick a finger in the end to turn the flow into a cascade, and spray the lawn.

And that is not all, the spray can't be static, it has to be swathed all over, and sent here and there, and up and down so it sprays the most intricate patterns, and this time if a companion comes along, the spray must first first fall on him unintended, then a bit more and then all over him intentionally before you are in the middle of what is called a 'Water Fight'.

Any time you are within reach of running water, or maybe in a boat where the flowing water is within reach, it is impossible for you not to muck about with it, dip your hands or feet in it and splash about. They say water is 'our' element early life had its origin in water, and later before we are born we have a nice haven again in a watery environment inside the womb.

That is patent nonsense! The watery environ inside the womb is still water and does not swirl about. Here it is not still water that inspires us -- we do not feel impelled to muck about in a still pond -- only water which is on the move tempts us to redirect the movement. So it can't be pre-natal memories of moving water and I wish someone would give me an explanation which makes sense!

The News on Sunday: Tell us abut the award which you were supposed to get from the U.S. ambassador?

Samad Khurram: In 2005 A' levels examinations, I got the highest score in the world in thinking skills and highest marks in chemistry in Islamabad region and 7 A grades.

The Roots school was presenting me this award in recognition of my achievements. And it was to be presented by the U.S. ambassador. The award was a certificate and a shield and did not have any monetary value.

TNS: Were there other students also who were to receive similar awards?

SK: There were around 85 people at the ceremony who accepted the award. I was the only exception.

TNS: Was your refusal to receive the award from the ambassador a well-thought out decision or did you decide on the spur of the moment?

SK: That was very much pre-planned. I had been following the news regularly and was pretty upset on the repeated air strikes on Pakistani territory and killing of many people. Just three days before the award, another U.S. bombing killed innocent Pakistani soldiers. That upset me. Initially I was thinking of boycotting the ceremony but that would not have made an impact on the ambassador or on others. Therefore, I decided to attend the ceremony and politely refuse the award. The aim was to express my protest and get it registered with the world.

TNS: But killing innocent people and violating Pakistani borders have been going on for the last eight years. Why now?

SK: I think that the recent expansion of media has raised political awareness among my generation. In addition, today's courage is inspired by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the stand he took on March 9 last year.

TNS: What are you studying in Harvard and when do you finish your degree?

SK: My degree is in Government Studies with minors in Economics and South Asian Studies. In the Government Studies, which is a very comprehensive subject, one mainly studies the philosophy of the government, national government and international relations, politics of leadership etc., while in Economics I am studying micro and macro economics with some emphasis on labour markets as well. In South Asian studies, the regional governments including that of Pakistan are studied.

I will hopefully graduate by early 2010 as three semesters are left.

TNS: What are your future plans? Do you want to stay on for further studies or come back to Pakistan?

SK: I will definitely come back at some point but can't give you a date.

TNS: What profession are you planning to choose?

SK: Most probably the government sector or non-government sector but it will have something to do with social work.

TNS: What career do the American students studying similar subjects pursue?

SK: Generally they go into politics, policy-making, thinktanks, consultancy etc.

TNS: Studying in Harvard must be expensive. Is your family bearing the cost?

SK: I have a university scholarship, which covers all my expenses.

TNS: Since when are you in Pakistan?

SK: Right now I am on summer vacations. Earlier I took my one semester off for participation in the Lawyers Movement. Then I went back.

TNS: Do you think that your refusal to receive an award from the ambassador has made any difference?

SK: I hope that it does. I took a principled stand without caring for the outcome. Whether it has made any difference or not is immaterial. But what I have seen in the last few days is that the press has given it tremendous coverage and I am sure the U.S. policy makers are also paying attention. On a personal level, I am getting positive messages. I have got over 4000 emails and SMS-s to respond to and many receptions are arranged in my honour. So the response is overwhelmingly positive.

TNS: What is the reaction of your friends at Harvard?

SK: They are really very happy. They are sending me congratulatory messages every day.

TNS: Are the modes of such protests common in Harvard University?

SK: Making such statements are pretty common not only in Harvard but in the whole of the United States.

TNS: As a Pakistani student, do you get a space to express anti-American sentiment in the U.S.?

SK: Yes Pakistani students get space to freely express their views. And these sentiments are not anti-American but anti-Bush. In the U.S. and in Harvard there are regular protests being held against the federal government's Iraq policy.

TNS: You have been associated with the lawyers' movement. Do you have any political affiliations or are you a part of civil society?

SK: I don't have any political affiliation. I am part of the civil society. In fact I am one of the founders of Student Action Committee. And I am also working with People's Resistance in Karachi, Concerned Citizens of Pakistan in Lahore and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad and Human Rights Ittehad in Islamabad. For the recent lawyers march we had organised seven student buses.

TNS: Which university and colleges did the students represent?

SK: They were from different universities both public and private like Quaid-i-Azam University, Punjab University, LUMS, LSE, FAST, Bahria, Iqra, FC college etc.

TNS: In terms of numbers, the civil society has failed to muster popular support. Do you still think that it can make any difference?

SK: In some positions, numbers matter and in others they don't. For example, on Dec 17 last year around 1000 civil society member protested in Islamabad for the restoration of judges. They were baton-charged and many were injured. I was one of them. It made headlines all across the world.

TNS: Where do you think is the lawyers' movement heading?

SK: It is no more a lawyers' movement. In the long march around five million people from all walks of life participated. I am sure good times are ahead. Soon we will get the independent judiciary installed and start working for the rule of law and prosperity of the people.

TNS: How would you compare student activism in Pakistan with the students in the U.S.?

SK: The student activism in the U.S. is much more organised as compared to Pakistan as they get funding from different philanthropists. In Pakistan it is sporadic mainly because in the past efforts were made to keep students de-politicised.

The Taliban and the NWFP government did not show sincerity and seriousness to put the Swat peace accord into practice as after the lapse of more than a month the peace deal could not be enforced

Due to unnecessary delay in the implementation, security forces and the Taliban -- operating under the command of Maulana Fazlullah -- skirmished last week after the suspension of talks and put an end to the 44-day ceasefire. As a result, the clashes claimed several lives putting the future of the peace accord in danger.

Two key militant commanders, Shehzad and Khan Agha, an Afghan national, were among the dead. The Taliban blamed the security forces for attacking Shezad's house near Sambat Cham where Khan Agha was a guest, but the military spokesman in Mingora said that the militants attacked the forces first which forced them to retaliate.

Five schools were also set on fire but the Taliban denied their claiming their hand in it.

The provincial government was making unflagging efforts to control the situation and return the defiant Taliban to talks.

Maulana Fazlullah, who remained underground for months following the military operation in 2007, came down from his mountainous hideout on June 17 to chair the Shura meeting and meet his followers. Militant sources said he met more than 1,500 fighters, key commanders and ulema. They said that Fazlullah asked the Taliban team negotiating with the government to brief the Shura on the peace accord and report the progress on its implementation. During the briefing, the Shura noted the government had failed to release Taliban prisoners within 15 days of the deal as promised in the accord. Also, the government did not withdraw troops, pay compensation to the victims of military operations and dismantle check-posts. Subsequently, it asked the negotiating team to stop talks on the implementation of the accord with the government until the release of the Taliban prisoners.

However, Fazlullah ordered his fighters to abide by the peace agreement, he also directed his commanders to investigate attacks on girls' schools in Upper and Lower Dir districts, because he thought that these attacks could imperil the peace agreement with the NWFP government.

Muslim Khan, the spokesman for the Swat Taliban, told TNS that the government had released only 18 Taliban prisoners in 25 days through a 'painful' judicial process while the government, he claimed, had to release all prisoners within 15 days of the accord, the deadline ended on June 5. "There are 45 Taliban prisoners in Timergara jail and 20 in Circuit House Mingora," he said. Asked whether there was any key commander among the prisoners, he said the government has held one of their top commanders, Khan Khitab. The claim was shocking as the commander, allegedly involved in beheading of security forces and cops, had been killed by the military during operation in Matta area late last year. The security forces had arrested him in injured condition but Muslim claimed that Khitab had not died. "Where is his corpse if he has been killed?" he asked. However, Muslim reiterated the militants' commitment to adhere to the peace deal adding that they also did not doubt the sincerity of the local administration and the NWFP government.

Analysts claim, both signatories to the accord, which was agreed upon in only 13 days, in just three rounds of talks, are not sincere or determined enough to implement the accord, as after the lapse of more than a month the peace deal could not be enforced. With both the sides reluctant to act, the accord proved ineffective and served as a fragile ceasefire.

The Taliban blamed the government for not making progress on the implementation, but they also have not honoured their part of the agreement.

The 16-point agreement written on plain paper in Urdu made the militants bound to accept the writ of the government, dismantle all centers where suicide bombers were being trained and explosives prepared, disband the private militia, end and condemn kidnappings, stop attacks on government buildings, installations, infrastructure, security forces and police. The militants were also required to put an end to display of weapons and their opposition to female education. However, the militants are not complying with the clauses of the agreement and instead pressurising the government to act first. The Swat Taliban have neither disarmed nor disbanded their private militia whose number runs in thousands. As far accepting the writ of the government, Taliban have not honoured it as several incidents including the murder of a Jamaat-e-Islami worker, Muhammad Zameer took place during the truce.

The government accused the Taliban of continuing armed patrol in certain parts of the district, moreover, there were fresh reports regarding the establishment of courts in Matta tehsil and whipping of 'criminals.' A highly placed source informed this scribe that the militants had also set up main court in Peuchar and sub-courts in Mian Kalay, Namal, Barthana, Fazil Banda, Sakhra, and Sambat-Bodigram. However, Muslim Khan denied the establishment of courts, "We have only reconciled between disputing parties as jirgas in other parts of the province do, so we acted as jirga and not court," he said. Muslim Khan added they had not imposed any verdict on people.

There were also no signs of dismantling the training centers where suicide bombers were trained and explosives prepared. The attacks on girls' schools are also a flagrant violation of the deal. They are still fully equipped with sophisticated weapons, having the ability to strike any time. The government, though, has taken some measures towards the enforcement of the accord, but the process of implementation is dead slow. According to the pact, the NWFP government had to enforce Shariah in the erstwhile Malakand division, release Taliban prisoners after reviewing their cases (there is no mention of 15 days in the deal), pay compensation to military operations' victims and gradually withdraw 20,000 army troops billeted in several buildings. "At present the army patrol should end and troops should be limited to buildings and then their gradual withdrawal may be initiated so that trust can be established," said Muslim Khan and hastened to add that they were not forcing the government for the immediate removal of army. Both sides had also agreed to change Mamdheri Complex -- the former headquarters of Fazlullah -- into a modern Islamic University.

The government released 18 prisoners in two phases, earmarked Rs 5 million for Islamic varsity and proposed Dr Farooq Khan as the vice chancellor of the proposed university. The government, however, is yet to free the remaining Taliban prisoners, pay compensation, enforce Shariah and start the process of troops' withdrawal.

Both the federal and the NWFP government's strategy -- if there indeed is one -- of fighting extremism and increasing Talibanisation in the country is flawed to say the least. Of late, there has been talk -- and it's been going on for some time now -- that pro-Taliban militants have surrounded the capital of NWFP, Peshawar, from the north, south and west and that it is only a matter of time before they make their move on to the city.

This may sound like an alarmist scenario to some but it is not entirely unexpected to think that the Pakistani Taliban would stop at expanding their growing influence from beyond all of FATA to the settled districts of the NWFP and that having Peshawar under their control would perhaps be their crowning glory. If and when such a doomsday situation happens, the XI corps may be pressed into action, with an infantry division based in Peshawar and Mardan and an armoured brigade at Nowshera.

Signs of the extremists extending their sphere of influence to the city's district have already been reported with shopkeepers in the Peshawar's outlying areas saying that local militants have come to them and warned them to close down all shops that sell videos CDs, DVDs and cassettes. This was followed by the kidnap of several Christians from a Peshawar neighbourhood, ostensibly by militants of the Lashkar-e-Islam, which has been more or less allowed by the federal government to establish a strong foothold in Khyber Agency, which straddles Peshawar.

And around the same time that all this was happening came the depressing news that the town of Jandola in South Waziristan had fallen to Baitullah Mehsud's men. This obviously means that the peace talks between the federal government and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan are not delivering, and there is probably good reason for that -- foremost being the severe reaction from America and other western allies of Pakistan, all of whom seem convinced that allowing such deals only benefits the Taliban and consequently al-Qaeda and that the next attack on US soil will probably emanate from these sanctuaries provided to the militants by the Pakistan government.

Many in the country call this a blatant interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. However, even keeping America, NATO and other western stakeholders aside, is it really in Pakistan's own interests that extremists and fanatics clearly bent upon creating their own Taliban state be given such a free hand in the country? Have we not seen their misdeeds in attacking schools and colleges for girls, have we not seen that through their frequent attacks on video and music shops, on barbers and in general on anyone who disagrees with them (he or she is called a U.S. spy and summarily executed, and the dead body, usually, thrown on the roadside) that these people have no problem in using the sword (and of course the Kalashnikov) to enforce their literalist and obscurantist interpretation of religion on everyone else.

As for the NWFP provincial government, it has to be said that while it may be well-intentioned and is sincere in wanting peace to return to the province, surely it needs to re-examine its approach vis-a-vis the militants in Swat. For weeks, the district was under curfew and a military operation was in full swing, which caused hundreds of deaths and led to many arrests, with the military then proudly claiming that the militants had been driven out of the district, had surrendered or were on the run.

Why, after such success against them, enter into a deal that allows them precisely the kind of autonomy and power in their area of influence which they wanted in the first place? Why give Maulana Fazlullah the right to have his own radio station when such a concession is allowed to no other citizen of Pakistan? Does this mean that the power of the militants is such that the state -- not by admission but indeed by its actions -- is willing to capitulate and allow them a degree of freedom which taken to its logical culmination may well end up threatening the country's territorial integrity?

This is, of course, compounded by the fact that the people of this country are fed a healthy diet of half-truths and fibs and presented only one side of the story. For instance, according to a recent survey conducted in Pakistan while over half of those surveyed were concerned over the growing influence of the militants, a mere eight per cent wanted the government to fight and eliminate the militants. Compared to this, around fifty per cent thought that the problems affecting the country internally were being caused by America (proof, if ever it was needed, that we are also the land of the conspiracy theory).

It is probably these very people who also think -- like many educated and apparently moderate people -- that those who died at Lal Masjid were all 'innocent' done to their deaths by a military under (who else's) America's influence. Of course, these people have forgotten the vigilante actions of the Lal Masjid students, the several kidnappings and hostage-takings they were involved in and the routine threats they used to give to Islamabad's shopkeepers to not sell music or video products. Of course, 'innocent students' involve themselves in such things, defy the writ of the state at will, go around kidnapping people and summarily trying and convicting them of moral turpitude -- and that's why the government sees it fit to not even prosecute them!

Perhaps, the fact that Peshawar is now encircled on at least three sides by sympathisers and supporters of the Lal Masjid vigilantes and who owe their allegiance to the likes of Baitullah Mehsud, will awaken those Pakistanis who still are unable to see where the real danger to their country comes from. And maybe, just maybe, this will bring them around to repudiating the passive support, nay sympathy or even admiration, many ordinary Pakistanis -- brainwashed and indoctrinated by years of Islamisation and appeasement of militants by military-led or military-controlled governments -- have for such elements.