Census without consensus
The struggle for power among various social and religious groups in the society draws on the imbalance between census figures and the situation on the ground
By Nadeem Omar Tarar
The census scheduled for 2008 has been postponed. The federal government, which is responsible for census operations, cannot foot the bill and is seeking international donor support and private sector investments to fund an exercise in which 150,000 armed forces' personnel would be required to provide security to civilian census staff, especially in Balochistan and the NWFP.

According to the NWFP Emergency Response Unit (ERU), 36,293 and 16,462 displaced families from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies, respectively, live in/off camps in and out of the province. The total number of displaced people from the two agencies comes to around 0.8 million, if unregistered people and families are also included.

After the military operation against the militants was re-launched in some parts of Bajaur Agency recently, thousands of more families have reached these camps, while thousands others are still stranded on the outskirts of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies. A resident of Bajaur Agency tells The News on Sunday that 18 villages -- including Babra, Marrongi, Elal Khel, Chinar, Sharif Khana, Tangi, Kohi, Karkani, Kotki and Hashim -- have been the worst affected and thousands of families from here had to move to safer places.

Bajaur Agency first saw mass exodus of the population in August last year after the army and paramilitary forces launched operation against the militants there. Though it broke the back of the Taliban's resistance, the operation also resulted in massive displacement of the local population. The internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Bajaur Agency were shifted to Kacha Grahi, Jalozai, Palosay and other camps, which had earlier been used for the Afghan refugees. However, most of them opted to live with their relatives or in rented houses, rather than the camps set up for them by the government.

Initially, the IDPs from Bajaur received a lot of aid, but after the huge influx of displaced people from the Malakand division, the focus of attention shifted somewhere else. As a result, there is now a growing perception among the IDPs from Bajaur that they are not being treated on a par with their counterparts from Swat and Buner. This was partly responsible for the demonstration in Pabbi (Peshawar) on March 25, which resulted in the death of two people and injuries to many others.

In May, more than 4,000 displaced families from Bajaur returned home after being instructed to do so by the government and the agency's political administration. The NWFP government had elicited a special package from donor agencies and the federal government for an early return of the IDPs from Bajaur. The package comprised Rs50,000 cash, as well as food and non-food items, as compensation for returning to their respective hometowns, but those who returned were not fully compensated in most cases.

"The government and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) promised to provide us compensation and food for three months, but they gave us nothing. The people who returned to their hometowns are repenting now, because they are yet to receive the money promised to them by the government," says Muhammad Bilal of Charmang, who lives near the Jalozai camp. He also believes that the IDPs from Bajaur are not being provided the same facilities as those hailing from the Malakand division.

Dr Begum Jan, chairperson of the Tribal Women Welfare Association, agrees that the IDPs from Bajaur are being neglected. "The attention and resources of the government, philanthropists and NGOs are being reserved for the IDPs from Malakand. On the other hand, the IDPs from Bajaur, Mohmand and other tribal agencies are being denied entry in settled areas of the NWFP as well as in other provinces. According to some sources, new registration has been suspended for the IDPs from Bajaur. Moreover, no rehabilitation package has been announced for them by the government as yet," she laments.

"The federal government has received millions of dollars in aid for the IDPs from Bajaur, but we are getting no relief from this money. We are not against the IDPs from other areas. We are only requesting for the government's attention to our plight," says Shahid Gul of Nawagai. In addition, the registration of the IDPs from Bajaur who had returned to their hometowns on government assurance has been cancelled. Now when they have come back to the IDP camps, they are being denied registration, space and relief. As a result, they are left with no option but to live with their relatives in the already congested tents. So, they are not only facing hardships themselves, but have also added to the problems of their relatives.

"Registration has not been suspended. It has only been slowed down a bit, because of the cases of multiple registrations. The new IDPs are only being registered after thorough investigation," Adnan Khan, the media spokesperson for the ERU, tells TNS. He says the new IDPs are being registered with the technical support of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).

Despite Adnan's assertion, there is widespread confusion regarding registration of the new IDPs from Bajaur. Though no one was willing to confirm it officially, this scribe gathered from interactions with different local and foreign officials that registration of the new IDPs from Bajaur has been suspended for an indefinite period. "The NWFP government wants to discourage large influx of the IDPs from Bajaur, because it is already facing acute financial problems. The situation has only worsened after the UNHCR suspended registration of the new IDPs from Bajaur," a government official informs on condition of anonymity.

Abduallah, a resident of Kohi in Bajaur Agency, says their villages and houses have been demolished and their businesses ruined. "We reached Peshawar after facing a lot of difficulties, but were not registered because UNHCR officials are not coming for field work. When we visited their local head office in Peshawar a few days ago, an official requested us not to come there because of security reasons. We have no shelter, no facilities and no support from the government," he adds.

When this scribe visited the heavily-guarded UNHCR office in Peshawar, Rabia, the public information officer, said registration was on in the Jalozai camp. However, she admitted that registration had been suspended in other camps, because there was no room for more IDPs. When she was asked whether registration at the Jalozai camp was also open for the IDPs from Bajaur, she promised to contact this scribe after getting the required information. However, she did not do so until the filing of this piece.

Arbab Arshad, administrator of the Kacha Garhi-1 camp, says registration at the camp was suspended a few months ago because of space constraints, but now there was room for some more families. "Our camp has space for 300 more families and this has been communicated to the UNHCR, which is responsible for registration of the IDPs," he informs.

Many IDPs from Bajaur in the Kacha Gahri-I camp complain that the field staff of the UNHCR is absent from duty. However, Ishrat Rizwi, national information officer at the UN Information Centre in Islamabad, tells TNS that humanitarian assistance-related field work has not been suspended anywhere in Pakistan. "All the UN agencies are working in the field," she claims.

The camps housing the IDPs from Bajaur -- Jalozai-1, Kacha Garhi-1 and Palosai-1 -- are not even shown on the website of the ERU. Against each camp, the number of IDPs from the Malakand division is mentioned, but the word Bajaur is simply missing. When this writer asked ERU officials about this, they feigned ignorance. The response of the UNHCR official to this question was no different.

Saad Wali, an IDP from Charmang at the Kach Garhi camp, says hundreds of families have been stopped from leaving Bajaur at Nawagai, Lakaro and Inzari check posts. "Individuals are allowed to move out of the agency after body search and verification, but families are not. The political administration plans to build a relief camp at Zorbandar in Bajaur and that is why it is not allowing the people to leave for other areas," he informs.

Dr Begum Jan laments that the media is not being allowed free access to the area. "Genuine IDPs are being pushed to the wall, while paper-based organisations are being pampered. The ERU was headed by an honest man until recently, but now he has been replaced by a crony of an influential politician," she alleges.

Every week, mostly on Fridays, I used to receive a call from Kaleem Omar informing that he has emailed his weekly column Newswatch. The words hardly varied: "Mustafa Sahib kaisay hain? Mazmoon bhijwa dia hai." (How are you Mr Mustafa? I have sent the article).

Our association began about two years ago when I was entrusted with the responsibility of editing the Political Economy section of TNS. One of my first guidelines was not to mess with Mr Kaleem Omar's language. Though a fan of his writings myself, I found this too hard to swallow. After all, can there be a bigger affront to an editor's vanity than not being allowed to edit what he or she publishes?

True to my habit, I started making a few changes here and there in his columns. However, I made these changes only after I was completely sure the change was imperative. Let me admit that many a time when I checked the dictionary I was proved wrong. It was not long before I received an email from Kaleem Sahib informing me that my addition of 'the' before World War II in his column was incorrect. I was somehow so sure of this that I would have bet anything on it. I was only assured I was wrong after I had checked the dictionary. After that, I never changed anything in his column without consulting the dictionary and that used to be very rare.

Kaleem Omar was very particular about whatever he sent for publication. Initially, he would call to make minor changes in his column that I would have made anyway. However, with time I was able to win his trust. Before he could ask me to make certain changes, mostly typos, in his column, I would tell him that I have already done the needful. Similarly, he always made sure that I had received his column. In fact, whatever he wrote mattered to him and he took it very seriously. There were hardly any other writers who were as averse to changes in whatever they wrote.

But Kaleem Omar was not only about good English; his knowledge of issues was immense. He excelled in writing in a witty and sarcastic tone, and the fact that he shared a lot of information on the way was an icing on the cake. I have personally learnt, as I am sure most of his readers would have, from each and every single column he wrote during these two years. And the topics of these columns ranged from politics to literature to economy. He was a prolific writer who also contributed to many other sections of The News. His columns on George W Bush and Ireland could be published separately as comic books. But he wrote serious articles and obituaries with the same ease. For example, his piece on Benazir Bhutto after her assassination moved one to tears.

More than anything, he was a humble soul. As our association grew stronger, he started congratulating me on any good article that I wrote. He was an articulate person who loved to talk and share information. The choice of topic for his column was his discretion, but whenever I requested him to write on a particular topic he was always forthcoming. In fact, he would narrate on the phone his whole thesis and what he would be writing. Figures and required information were always at his fingertips.

The knack for professionalism, which is so lacking in our society, won Kaleem Omar many admirers. I came to know about this when he fell ill and stopped sending his columns. After a lot of queries on why his column was not being printed, we had to publish a note informing the readers that his column would resume soon.

As soon as he got better, he started sending his column again. Last week, his last column on US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech was printed on these pages after a gap of many weeks. We were glad that he had recuperated from illness.

This week, he had promised to write on Sindh's reluctance to host IDP camps. Before I could call him this Thursday to inquire about his column, I got the news of his death from a colleague. These are insufficient words to fill up the space he graced for years through his illuminating words. One thing is for sure: the void left by his death would be hard to fill.

-- Mustafa Nazir Ahmad

Saadia Toor, 38, is assistant professor of Anthropology and Social Work at Staten Island College and part of the group Action for a Progressive Pakistan. She did her MS and PhD from Cornell University. Her PhD dissertation is on the political economy of 'national culture' in Pakistan. Saadia Toor recently talked to The News on Sunday about the situation in Pakistan today. Excerpts follow:

The News on Sunday: For the last few weeks, the media have been filled with reports of the "imminent threat of the Taliban" and then coverage of Pakistani military assault on the Taliban in Swat. Why has the Pakistani military abandoned the former peace and launched this attack?

Saadia Toor: Finally, we're beginning to see a lot of good analysis coming out of the left media. Earlier, the US government's rhetoric was being picked up uncritically. We've seen scaremongering in the media over the imminent takeover of Pakistani nukes by the Taliban. The US has created this bizarre new moniker 'Af/Pak' as a way to cover over their expansion of the war from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Building consent for this expansion has been what all the State Department, Pentagon and media propaganda has been about in the last few weeks. To address your question about why the Pakistani Army abandoned the peace, we have to step back and understand the relationship between the Army and the Taliban. The Pakistani military has not been interested in dealing with the Taliban because the Taliban don't appear as a threat to them. The military's primary and existential obsession is with India, and that's where the majority of the Pakistani Army is deployed. The Pakistani Army knows that the Taliban is, in part, its own creation, and it can deal with them. Moreover, the military knows very well that the Taliban are not in any sense an existential or military threat to the country. The army therefore allowed the Taliban to enter Swat. They accepted that Swat and some of the other border provinces are incompletely integrated into the country, and allowed the Taliban to exert its control. The army has been under massive pressure from the US to deal with the Taliban problem, and the fact that the Taliban broke the peace deal allowed the army to prove to its American masters that it's a reliable ally. So now the military has driven back the Taliban quite easily from Buner and pummeled them in Swat. The Pakistani Army isn't concerned about what their attack on the Taliban would do to the civilian population in Swat, so what we have now is a humanitarian nightmare, with over a million internally displaced civilians.

TNS: Why did the Obama administration push Pakistan to abandon the peace deal?

ST: The US doesn't respect any Pakistani rules or laws. It has its own imperial ambitions and priorities in the region. So it pressured Pakistan to essentially rip up the peace deal and go on this brutal offensive. The peace deal with the Taliban that was struck by the ruling party in the NWFP was pragmatic. The Taliban had been upping its threat in the NWFP. It had killed ruling politicians and threatened their families. The civilian ANP government in the province also got no support from the army, and so was backed into a corner and had to accept the peace deal. But the US told the Pakistani government to ignore that deal after the Taliban attack on Buner. Still, that's only the superficial cause for the US to back the assault on the Taliban. Tom Hayden has a fabulous piece in The Nation entitled 'Understanding the long war' that goes a long way to explaining what US ambitions are. To understand those, you have to step back and examine the whole 'war on terror'. It's in reality a renewal of the 'Great Game' of rivalries in the region over who's going to control the oil and natural gas resources. Beyond that geopolitical battle, the military industrial complex has a material interest in perpetual warfare. The US wants to wind down its occupation in Iraq, which it sees as a distraction, and push ahead with a much larger scenario -- what the US State Department calls the arc of instability, from North Africa to the Middle East to South and Central Asia. The US is gearing up for, in the shocking words of one official, 50 years of warfare in this area. The question of resources is central. This is the new Great Game -- between the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran, to name a few -- that we have been observing since the beginning of the war in 2001. The US had planned a pipeline to go from Central Asia through Balochistan. It saw Afghanistan as strategically important in these designs. Balochistan, in particular, is under the radar right now, but it's going to be a key region in the imperial competition. The Chinese have already been active in Balochistan; they helped build one of the ports. To counter this Chinese presence, the CIA has overrun Balochistan. With the help of the Pakistani military, it's also also been training forces for black operations in Iran.

TNS: You said that the Pakistani Army is primarily focussed not on the Taliban, but India. How has the recent tilt by the US towards India affected this?

ST: The US has cultivated India, which has been happy with this new relationship, and shifted towards a much greater alignment. India has made a huge break with its traditional non-alignment posture of the past. We saw that come together dramatically right after 9/11, when India, the US and Israel formed a block of so-called democracies against terror. We saw the reactivation of this alignment after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Sadly and tragically, the attack in Mumbai gave India the boost it needed to convince the US to pay attention to India's strategic needs in relationship to Pakistan. So in the State Department's Af/Pak policy document, you see that India isn't considered one of the regional players that needs to sit together and be told what to do. India has bought itself out of this trap. It's not going to be asked to do anything. For example, the US isn't going to pressure India to do anything about Kashmir. Because extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, as well as the Pakistani military, are so Kashmiri-focussed, the logical thing would be to force India and Pakistan to sit down with the Kashmiris to work out a solution that respects the Kashmiri people's wishes. Of course, if that were to happen, the Pakistani military wouldn't change, nor would Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed disband. But it would result in stability along the border with India. Since India has managed to extricate itself from these regional talks, it has avoided getting pressured towards a solution in Kashmir. But this, in turn, guarantees an ongoing conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, at the expense of the region, and especially the people of Kashmir.

TNS: Couldn't US plans backfire and cause further destabilisation, not only of Afghanistan but now of Pakistan as well?

ST: We can't underestimate the hubris of an imperialist state like the US. Despite eight years of war, occupation and counter-insurgency, and seeing that they aren't working and are, in fact, backfiring, US thinking doesn't seem to be shifting at all. In Pakistan, the US policy could really destabilise the country. A military coup is a real possibility. The military is always happy to step in and overrule civilian democracy. The reason that it hasn't done so is because it suffered such a severe public relations crisis in the last few years of the Musharraf regime. It did not feel it could come back. But given the way things are going -- especially all the finger-wagging by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton against the civilian government for being fragile and incapable of handling things -- it seems like the US might support a return to military dictatorship. The US has always been happier dealing with the Army, whether it has been in power or not. And the Pakistani Army's most important backer is the US state. The US has fed the army, nurtured it and allowed it to become the monster it is. Certainly, the Pakistani military has had no support from below -- that all comes from above and from the US in particular. The army suffered this huge PR crisis under Musharraf because it was seen as doing the US' dirty work -- which, to be honest, it has been doing for 50 years. So it retreated. Gen Ashfaq Kayani has been very happy to work behind the curtain of the civilian government, because the military ultimately knows that it's always in control. It will do whatever it has to and let the blame fall at the feet of the civilian government. But if events turn in such a direction and the army is successful in winning back moral authority, it could take power. Part of the hysterics about 'the Taliban are coming; the Taliban are coming' was drummed out for the US, and part was for the domestic consumption of the Pakistani elite. The liberal elite supported the Pakistani Army in attacking the Taliban. This is just after having pushed Musharraf out of power. There's a constant vacillation among the liberal elite between democratic rule and the Pakistan Army. So knowing that the Pakistani military helped create and backed the Taliban in the first place, the liberal elite supported the attack. This is dangerous, since it is re-legitimising one of the most reactionary forces in Pakistan -- the military.

TNS: Recent opinion polls in Pakistan show the majority of Pakistanis are concerned about the economic mess, and not terrorism. What do you make of this?

ST: What you see in these polls is the split between the haves and have-nots. The aim of the army has been to win back the liberal elite. Of course, the military would love the support of the masses. But the liberal elite is what matters to them. And on the ground, conditions are so dire for the masses that nothing the Pakistani military is doing is going to shore up mass support for it. For example, people in Swat say that before the current operation, the Pakistani military targeted the Taliban. In the US and Pakistani media, military leaders played out a drama for our consumption -- they pretended to attack the Taliban when, in fact, they weren't. The Pakistani state has always provided safe haven to the Taliban, as well as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, even when Musharraf declared them illegal. That was only done to please the US. It was obvious that these groups were never repressed. When the military raided the offices, no one was there. When it arrested people, it wasn't the leadership. This was all a drama staged for American consumption. In Swat, the Pakistani military was doing nothing but terrorising civilians. On top of that, those who lived close to the border with Afghanistan have had to deal with the US drone strikes. So the masses feel completely helpless and angry at all sides. The Pakistani military will never be able to win over those people who actually experienced what is happening on the ground. And certainly those people are not Taliban supporters either, since they have experienced the terror of the Taliban. But the elite sitting in the cities are really terrified of the Taliban. Now, if one could assume the Taliban could become a major force in those cities, there would be something to be afraid of. But that's not going to happen. My worry is that this whole fear of the Taliban will function to make the Pakistani elite willing to accept anything else -- from the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with all of his connections with the fundamentalists, to the military itself.

TNS: How has US pressure on Pakistan to attack the Taliban affected the lawyers' movement that developed in opposition to Musharraf after he got rid of Pakistan's chief justice? Does the lawyers' movement offer hope for progressive social change in Pakistan?

ST: To begin with, some of leadership of the lawyers' movement did come from the upper class, but the main section came from the middle class -- the petty bourgeoisie -- and extended on down from there. So when the confrontation between the lawyers' movement and Zardari came to a head, the liberal elite was against the Long March to demand that Zardari restore the chief justice. The elite's biggest fear is the Taliban -- that is, this religious takeover of Pakistan. Never mind that they have been fine with the general religiosity that has flooded Pakistan since Gen Zia-ul-Haq's dictatorship. They felt that it had no effect on their lives; they could go to their clubs and say, "So what if the rest of Pakistan is becoming more and more religious." The liberal elite was, thus, complicit with this spread of Islamism. It failed to step up and make secularism mainstream the way it used to be. In the 1970s, the political discourse was so different than it is now. This liberal elite, therefore, supports Zardari uncritically because it sees him as the only secular force. Musharraf made his whole political career by saying that if it weren't for him, the fundamentalists would take over. He sold this very effectively to the US, but also to the upper-class liberals. They very much saw him as their man until that was untenable. This same kind of thinking is now behind the uncritical support for Zardari, because the elite wrongly believe that if it weren't for him, the whole country would be taken over by the Taliban. The upper-class liberals were, therefore, critical of the Long March because they thought it was attacking Zardari, and any action or criticism would therefore open the floodgates for the fundamentalists or the army.

TNS: How has the left in Pakistan responded to the military operation against the Taliban?

ST: The left is very fragmented and small in Pakistan. That, of course, has its own history because of its complete decimation under the US-backed dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq. Among some elements of the left, there is tremendous confusion about the situation. For example, I can speak about the Communist Party of Balochistan and its positions. It has been anti-Taliban and pro-secular, and trying to speak from the position of the Swati people. But the discussion for a long time on its e-mail list was that it should support the army going in and attacking the Taliban. This is a disastrous position. It does not take a very sophisticated analysis to see that the army stands to gain from this whole operation. The action is designed to build up support for the army and show that it is an effective force that needs more money. Of course, there are always small groups and individuals which have taken a principled stand. There have also been a few altercations between the principled left and the liberal elite on this issue. The elite's position has been pro-army. The principled leftists have argued against army action because the army is deeply involved in creating this mess, isn't interested in addressing the main issue of the Taliban and the whole action is window-dressing. So there were actual altercations at public meetings between these two positions.

TNS: What should the principled left position be?

ST: The principled position is always to be anti-army -- not just on an abstract level, but drawing on the actual history of the relation of the army to groups like the Taliban and the Pakistani people. If you've been paying any attention to these things, it boggles the mind that someone would call on and expect the army to protect the people. It shows the ideological confusion. It's not so long ago that we were marching against the army for its cozy relationship with the US, the 'war on terror', and the disappearances under Musharraf. I don't understand the basis on which the left would be calling on the Pakistani Army to solve the current problem. I think a principled position would denounce the army for its disinterest in dealing with these groups, for actually cultivating these groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for its continuing extraction of money from the US and for its ongoing mobilisation against India. Now with India's investment in Afghanistan growing, the Pakistan Army's investment in the Taliban is even higher. The Pakistani Army supported the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, which they perceived to be supported by India. With India giving aid to Afghanistan, establishing an embassy there and supporting infrastructural projects, the Pakistani Army will have a greater stake in supporting forces like the Taliban as a counterweight. The Pakistani Army is locked in this conflict with India, which is increasingly a sub-imperial power in the region.

TNS: What should the left say about the Taliban?

ST: It's sad and shocking to hear people talk about the Taliban as an expression of class anger. At one level, that analysis is really troubling because it presumes the Taliban has a vast amount of popular support. But if you talk with refugees coming from Swat, it's clear that the Taliban doesn't. We must oppose the Army, but clearly not because we support the Taliban. A principled left position is to oppose both. A left position must talk about the disenfranchised and the federal issues in Pakistan, as well as expose the Pakistani military and the entire ruling elite's complete disinterest in its people. The Pakistani state has never honoured the rights of its federating units. In the war of 1971, the ruling West Pakistani establishment was happy to let go of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), rather than give in to its demands for a more balanced relationship between the centre and the provinces. And East Pakistan was not a small federating unit; it was the majority of the population at the time. The West Pakistani establishment constructed an image of East Pakistan as a hotbed of Hindus and communists. During the army action in 1971, the army brutalised the population of East Pakistan, for which the Pakistani state has never apologised. That's the real face of the army and its relation to the Pakistani people. A left position should focus also on the developing class anger and struggles among the peasants, as well as among the proletariat across the country, including in Punjab. These struggles must be reported and not ignored. The fact that they are ignored has a huge impact on the balance of power in the political sphere. If you don't acknowledge that these struggles exist and that they matter, then it can seem as if the Islamists are the only opposition to injustice and imperialism. That's simply not the case, as the massive lawyers' movement and many local class struggles prove.

TNS: What should the US anti-war movement say about Obama's new surge in Afghanistan and his expansion of the war into Pakistan?

ST: In liberal circles, Iraq is looked upon as the bad war, of course. That was Obama's main argument. He was never an anti-war candidate. He was against the war in Iraq to some extent as a distraction. But now, after his election victory, we've seen the split in the anti-war movement between people who opposed the entire 'war on terror' and those who just opposed the Iraq war. So there is no effective anti-war movement to counter Obama's escalation of the war into Afghanistan and Pakistan. In this context, the American military is having a field day. It's obvious for anyone to see that Obama has carried over the personnel, the ideologies and the policies of the Bush administration. The Obama administration is certainly trying to repackage essential continuity with the Bush administration's policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But there isn't a whole lot of finessing that needs to be done to sell this to the American public, since there is a whole lot of agreement that the Afghan war is the moral war, and that Pakistan is thought of as an untrustworthy and reluctant ally that is crawling with militants. In this context, the anti-war movement must educate people about the true situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It must demand that the drone attacks stop, and that the US get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The rhetoric of the Obama administration is disingenuous; the concern is not about getting Osama bin Laden if it ever was. They have had eight years to do this and haven't succeeded. Their real ambitions have little to do with Osama bin Laden, and are actually much larger. As Pepe Escobar, Tom Hayden and Gareth Porter have argued, the US is planning a 50-year engagement, a new Great Game for control of the region -- and that is not something that the US anti-war movement should endorse. The anti-war movement should not let Obama continue this imperial policy of aggression into Afghanistan, Pakistan and potentially lots of other states.

In a university common room, a beaming faculty member announced the publication of his research paper in a journal. "It is about the fourth leg of a bird that is found in the Arctic region," he said. When a junior colleague questioned the relevance of his work, he was told: "Our job is to increase the scroll of publications, even if they are about an imaginary whale with wings." Interestingly, most of those present apparently agreed with him.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) recently published the research output of universities and institutions of higher learning in the country. It is a baseline statistic to show their comparative output in terms of research papers. Inaccuracies notwithstanding, the information raises several important questions. For example, research productivity of faculty members, relevance of research agendas of universities to national issues and liaison of universities with the society are a few things that need to be discussed in detail.

Research is defined as systematic inquiry towards the creation of a body of knowledge or addition to it. This definition establishes the focus of the research process as well as its essential ingredients: systematic inquiry and creation of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is typically classified under three heads: pure sciences, such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc; applied sciences, such as engineering, medicine, architecture, planning, surveying, etc; and social sciences, such as languages, religion, philosophy, history, ethics, etc. Each of these disciplines has numerous fields and sub-fields where research is carried out on a continuous basis, adding knowledge to their respective spheres.

Systematic inquiry refers to the essentials of conducting research. It is undertaken through a variety of formats and methodologies depending on the objective and nature of the research. However, there are some common types of research processes that are usually applied either independently or in combination. Problem solving research focusses on the development of workable solutions to an identified problem. Sponsored research is conducted through the assistance of a sponsoring body that usually determines the nature and magnitude of the research process. Applied research draws from the outcomes of scientific discoveries and inventions to help create processes, products and systems that can be used for the service of the humankind. Experimental research bases its outcome on specifically designed scientific experiment. In the domain of social research, the case study method is becoming increasingly popular. It builds on documentation, analysis and synthesis of case studies, and drawn conclusions according to the respective outcome. Action research bases its focus on 'learning by doing' in real life situations. Pilot projects and demonstration experiments fall in this category.

Conventionally, good researchers have to be highly qualified people possessing an MPhil or PhD degree, normally considered as the minimum adequate qualification to allow a person to undertake research. Several qualities are considered as essential for good researchers, especially those working in the domain of social research. They should be unbiased and analytical; they should possess good observational and writing skills; and they should be communicative, both verbally and graphically.

The most common medium of communication of research work are research journals, which are periodically published according to a stipulated frequency. These journals are normally field-specific, though in some cases they may focus on sub-fields or specific topics within a field. Research papers, articulated according to the respective style of writing and bibliographical referencing, are submitted to the editor and published after a thorough peer review process.

Why is research conducted or, in other words, why it is important to conduct research at all? This academic question keeps coming back for debate and discussion, leading to lengthy arguments in some cases. However, the purpose of research can be justified on several grounds that are common to the majority of scientific disciplines: research is an activity that adds to

knowledge, which helps humankind and benefits the society at large; research is a vehicle that is vital for advancement of knowledge across scientific disciplines; research helps in solving persisting societal problems; research facilitates informed decision-making; and research also acts as a process to discover hidden truths.

After revisiting the premise of research in the overall realm of scientific learning, it is vital to analyse the local context. The state of affairs is dismal. Hardly a few research journals are published in Pakistan that subscribe to the established format and are accepted for their standing. In several disciplines, not even a single appropriate research journal is published in the country. Applied disciplines, such as town and country planning, are a leading example in this regard.

Researchers, with the exception of those working for defence related areas, do not receive any recognition or patronage of their work. Even those who have built repute on their own though self-motivation have been denied the rightful recognition of their efforts. Nobel Laureate Dr Abdul Salam was given a cold shoulder when he tried to establish a research centre in his field of expertise. Similarly, Dr Eqbal Ahmed passed away with his dream of Khaldunia University unfulfilled. The late scholar wanted to set up an institution of learning and discourse in the broader domain of social sciences.

Researchers, both existing and prospective, are wary of the fact that intellectual property rights are not applied or followed in the country. If a scientist, through his or her self-interest, discovers, invents or creates any object or process worth patenting, it is instantly stolen and applied without any reference to the original inventor / creator. This even applies to creative sciences where objects are designed through tireless input. Nothing can perhaps be more heart breaking for a researcher than the fact that his or her creation goes out of hands and gets applied in a haywire fashion.

Another dilemma is that, while the lack of research activity is lamented by all and sundry, some isolated black box type research work is always being carried out to fulfil some of the most narrowly defined objectives. This usually happens when faculty members of a university department, in a bid to complete the essential requirement of writing a certain number of research papers for their promotions or move overs, undertake experiments that are extremely expensive but have least relevance to their contexts. In the same reference, faculty members who are sent abroad for obtaining higher qualifications sometimes choose the most irrelevant topics for academic research that bear no relevance to the national context.

Research is needed to provide practical solutions to the majority of our daily life problems. Such research options need wider application to make them worth their discovery and development. For instance, housing for low-income groups is a pressing issue. Several projects, programmes and schemes have been initiated without catering to the plight of the needy. In the same domain, a research based solution has been developed in the form of incremental housing. It is a concept that facilitates shelter through provision of land at affordable prices and with appropriate communal amenities. Though recommended by local and international experts and successfully demonstrated on three distinct sites in Sindh, it still awaits a wider application.

Many pressing problems related to our national life need solutions based on objective research. Choice of power source between hydle and thermal (both long and short term); water logging and salinity in relation to the existing farm drainage techniques; desertification; low-cost but sustainable flood protection options; effective and sustainable methods of urban sewerage disposal and treatment; sustainable forestation; efforts to impart literacy and awareness; making development projects compatible to ecological considerations; minimising the re-settlement impacts of transportation and power projects; regulating the informal economy; and providing social support to economically invalid social groups in the context of market economy are a few areas that require unabated research input for evolving workable solutions.

The matter of establishing the significance of research in various scientific fields cannot be swept under the carpet for long. Academic research, which is the core area in this regard, needs to be strengthened on priority basis. The country's institutions of higher learning should be encouraged to interact with the foreign institutions to obtain feedback and support in their respective research exercises. Most importantly, research agendas of universities must incorporate national priorities.

Incentives must be ensured for the scholars engaged in serious and original research. Generous prizes for research work of substance can be a means of encouragement. Assessment of the same can be done through research participation assessment of the faculty and scholars, a standard exercise which is conducted in universities across the world. Until such measures are taken, despite its invaluable potential for national development, research shall remain an obscure entity.

An assumption is made in much of the academic and scholarly literature, usually implicitly, mostly by historians, all eminent and highly respected, that there is a line of continuity among the traditions of the ulema of a nineteenth century South Asia, through the seminary at Deoband (now in Uttar Pradesh, India), which links them with the numerous militant movements, which all bear the name of the Taliban, in the northern regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many scholars, who are all authorities on South Asian Islam of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- such as Barbara Metcalf, Francis Robinson, Qasim Zaman, etc -- have worked through this theme in some of their writings. Their otherwise excellent work on seminaries, institutions and the development of Islam in South Asia since the mid-nineteenth century is somewhat soured by this assumption.

I will argue that for far too many reasons, there is little, if any, continuity and far greater rupture, which rides through any such assumed linkages and formulations. By presenting a different set of arguments, I will also argue that these ruptures also suggest that Pakistan has, finally, separated from many Indian Islamic traditions, and Muslims in India are not a "divided nation" any longer, if ever they were. Moreover, my arguments also question the use of terms such as 'ulema' from one context and century to a very different set of conditions. I also argue that the issues and problems related to contemporary developments regarding militant and religio-political Islam in the early twenty-first century in Pakistan and Afghanistan, present very different analyses and solutions than does a more historical and scholarly assessment which creates a link between tradition, learning and religious practice from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. By arguing that this is a very different nature of political Islam, analysis and solutions to address the contemporary issue of 'Talibanisation' or militancy will have to be very different.

The two main aspects on which this assumption is based revolve around the term 'ulema' (religious scholars) and the fact that many of those who are said to belong to the many forms of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan subscribe to a 'Deobandi-form' of the interpretation and practice of Islam. Some scholars even draw the lineage of the new madrassas (seminaries) in Pakistan and Afghanistan from the founder of the madrassa at Deoband in 1867, Maulana Qasim Naunatvi, arguing that his "vision of a great network of madrassas" meant to "revitalise Islamic society" seems to have been realised through the hundreds of madrassas across north Pakistan and Afghanistan. This argument is apparently reinforced when scholars emphasise the fact that the Taliban who took over Afghanistan at the end of the 1990s were students (talib, singular; taliban, plural) of madrassas in the NWFP.

The use of the term 'ulema' (singular alim) with such ease and impunity is, perhaps, far more problematic than is appreciated, and I think underlines the main problem with this strand of analysis. Historians of languages, and of society and culture, are aware that the meanings of words change over time and in different contexts. The term 'alim', or 'ulema', in the 1850s and 1860s is bound to have a different meaning and connotation even in the same locality and geographical context a century-and-a-half later. The Islamic religious scholars in British India, who were well-versed in the literature and traditions of Islam, represent a different form but are still being compared to those who run seminaries in modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, and even in India. The earlier pre-print, oral, traditions of learning, and the pre- and early-modern forms of pedagogy and knowledge, have been replaced by different more modern forms of the dissemination of knowledge and teaching practices. Moreover, the social and cultural context and position of the alim, in a primarily pre-modern rural society, is very different from the religious scholars trained at seminaries today. In short, the all encompassing term 'ulema' of the nineteenth century does not carry the same meaning as the alim or ulema of the twenty-first.

There is insufficient recognition of this transformation in the work of some scholars who link early manifestations of Islam and its institutions -- such as the madrassa and the alim -- with religious learning and the representation of Islam today. Treating the term 'ulema' as largely an unchanging category, or not appreciating the extent of change, scholars have continued to use the term comparing nineteenth century Islam and its representation to Islam today, without sufficiently marking this change. They are using a nineteenth century category in a completely changed context, misrepresenting the meaning of that category. In one case, this has led one scholar to imply that some of the many Talibanesque militant movements in Pakistan, many of which have under a different set of definitions been called 'terrorist' organisations, such as the Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Lashkar-e-Taiba, are led by the ulema. Clearly, the alim of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is not the same as the alim of the nineteenth or even early twentieth century. The alim as religious scholar is a very different category and entity from the alim as politician or jihadi.

Moreover, in some cases, using a largely religious paradigm, in which the notion of the ulema plays a key role, scholars have tried to look at sectarianism in Pakistan, where theoretical or literalist arguments are presented that supposedly suggest why the Shias and the Sunnis have been at war with each other for years in some parts of Pakistan. While there is no doubt that there are huge religious differences between the Shia and the Sunni in modern Pakistan, the manifestation and form of sectarianism is less based in theological disputation, but far more in modern politics, often very petty and localised. In the context of Pakistan at least, and presumably in that of Afghanistan as well, Shia-Sunni differences, or sectarianism, can be easily understood in their local political, often turf-related, contexts, rather than in debates following the succession of the Prophet of Islam. This is particularly so in parts of Punjab where sectarianism has been violent and brutal, often fought out in running gun battles between Sunni and Shia armed squads. While the mantle of the alim is often used to spur on such hatred, it is often a political feud that is fought through these means, rather than primarily a religious or theological one.

Furthermore, in the context of Pakistan, there is ample documentary evidence that shows quite conclusively that religious groups in Pakistan are led and run not by the ulema, but by leaders trained by Pakistan's military. The role of the ISI and other covert state actors in fermenting sectarianism, and giving financial and military support to numerous jihadi outfits, is well known. It is not the ulema who lead or inspire these movements, but arms, money and military training. Of course, one cannot deny the religious zeal and fanaticism that brings young men to such organisations, but it is improbable that it is merely the training imparted by 'religious scholars' which does so. And indeed, if they are religious scholars who are urging their students to wage jihad, they certainly are not the ulema of the nineteenth century mould.

The third major problem with this line of analysis has been that it refers to the Taliban and their many offshoots as 'Deobandi Islam'. Arguing that the curriculum of these madrassas is still based on a form of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Dars-i-Nizami curriculum of what later became Deobandi Islam, the suggestion that this tradition continues has made scholars and historians argue that the Taliban are Deobandis. In some very basic and elementary ways, they are right: there are ample traces of the Deobandi form of Islam in the teachings of madrassas in Pakistan, despite the fact that a larger proportion of Pakistanis follow the less austere Barelvi Islam. Nevertheless, one must recognise that while different Taliban groups may have had some access and pedagogic training in madrassas, the Deobandi component of whatever training they would have received would have been minimal. From the few studies that have been conducted of madrassas and their curriculum in Pakistan, the evidence clearly shows a hotchpotch of what is taught, ranging from elements of theological teachings originating in the Dars-i-Nizami, but also including 'modern' education, as well as what can only be called indoctrination and the spreading of hatred against other religious factions. To call such pedagogy 'Deobandi' is correct only in a very broad, general, sense, and while many of the jihadis may still call themselves Deobandi, the assumption that this type of teaching is related to the original madrassa at Deoband is overstretched.

Moreover, a fact recognised by many scholars, but perhaps not enough, is the impact of the Gulf and especially of Saudi Arabian Wahabi Islam on these jihadi movements. In terms of funding and indoctrination, Wahabi Islam now seems to dominate the more militant elements in the broad spectrum of Pakistani Islam. Again, perhaps it is less the theological part of Wahabi Islam that is transmitted, and the more militant and jihadi characteristics are passed on as knowledge and training.

I will maintain that as Pakistan's politics and economy has moved towards the Middle East, away from an Indian history and past, away from South Asia, its various Islams have also been influenced by these trends. Pakistan's version of Deobandi Islam is affected by Saudi Wahabism; hence, it becomes difficult to argue that these madrassas are still, in any real sense, Deobandi. Moreover, while it is true that many of the Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan were set up after partition by Deoband-trained scholars of the 1930s and 1940s, given Pakistan's and India's political and diplomatic relationship over the last 60 years, it is improbable that many Pakistani Deobandi scholars have visited Deoband, let alone studied there. Deobandi Islam in Pakistan today is bound to be very different from Deobandi Islam in Deoband, or anywhere else in northern India.

The final point that needs to be made in any line of reasoning which looks at continuity is the ruptures that have taken place in the form and notion of religio-political Islam, from the early twentieth century of Maulana Maudoodi or Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to the militant and political Islam of the twenty-first of Mulla Omar, Osama bin Laden, or Maulana Masood Azhar of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Islam, even Pakistani and Afghani Islam, is now globalised, Wahabi-ised, as well as affected by geo-political influences that have a far reaching impact on local and domestic Islam. In a post-9/11 world and in the region, Islam's forms and politics, as well as its religious and perhaps even theological components, would have undergone huge change and reinterpretation. The ruptures in the streams of ideas related to the continuities in history need to be rethought and the use of terms better contextualised, if at all one is to learn any lessons from the past.

The census scheduled for 2008 has been postponed. The federal government, which is responsible for census operations, cannot foot the bill and is seeking international donor support and private sector investments to fund an exercise in which 150,000 armed forces' personnel would be required to provide security to civilian census staff, especially in Balochistan and the NWFP.

This is not the first time that the government has failed to conduct on time this national data gathering exercise, which can be the only informed basis of allocating resources and rights to the citizens. The demographic profile is a key indicator to rank wealth and power of a nation and its constituent entities. Its data determines social power and political rights. That is why for many it is the hallmark of what constitutes a nation.

The fifth census scheduled for 1991 was delayed by seven years, and was conducted in 1998. It is strange that we have been devising policies and programmes in the absence of an updated demographic profile like the census since that year. Pakistan conducted its first census in 1951. Since then, four more decennial population and housing censuses have been conducted -- in 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998 -- with frequent lapses. The failure to hold regular census points to weakening writ of the state. It also reflects division within the nation, and the contested nature of rights and resources administered on the basis of census.

Is the delayed census a tragic reminder of a divided nation, which, if required, should be united through the use of armed forces? Or is there something about the census that does not neatly translate into indicators of equitable development and sustainable growth for all the members of a nation? A bit of history will help us answer this question.

Census as a tool of state craft was originated in the Western Europe in the early nineteenth century. After the first British census was conducted on March 10, 1801, and every 10 years thereafter, the practice of decennial census became a universal norm. The ability to conduct census also represented the power of the state over the nation. In the Indian subcontinent, the British colonial census drew on the long indigenous history of numeracy and information gathering institutions. This also included the Indian caste system, which provided the British with a relatively stable scheme to classify the Indian population according to indigenous criteria. Similarly, religion also appeared to the British a natural distinction to divide the population.

The first census of Punjab province, which forms a large part of present day Pakistan, was conducted in 1855 with Richard Temple as the chief census commissioner. It divided the population on the basis of two religious categories, the Hindus and the Muslims, creating the idea of numerical strength that was to serve as the basis of political representation and communal quotas later. The first decennial census was conducted by Denzil Ibbetson, who later became the governor of Punjab, in 1883. It extended the purview of census to the enumeration and ranking of castes in Punjab. The famous colonial anthropological text, The Punjab Castes, which is still in popular demand and is widely cited as the most authoritative account of castes and tribes of the province, was based on the report of this census.

The basis of Hindu-Muslim conflict can be traced back to the beginning of census operations in India. Communal boundaries between the Hindus and the Muslims were murky at the time of the first colonial census. Overlapping cultural codes and shared histories of dwelling rendered the communal identities as fluid. Therefore, the tabulation of information on population in distinct religious categories led to a heightened sense of religious identity. The census linked the elite political representation and communal quotas in education and employment with numerical strength of religious communities. In fact, state gazetteers and the census institutionalised the religious and cultural differences in mutually exclusive categories, sowing the seeds for inter-communal violence leading to partition and fuelling intra-state communal conflicts in the region.

Even the term 'Hindu' was largely a British invention. The British colonisers used it to demarcate a community distinct from the Muslims. Sikhs, untouchables and tribals were categorised as Hindus in the first census of Punjab. In 1868, the Sikhs were re-classified as distinct from the Hindus. Hindu nationalist saw this as a blow to their numerical strength and political representation. Every act of numeration sparked controversies and mobilised communities for effective self representation in census figures.

The colonial census computation of conversion rates of Hindus to Christianity and Islam precipitated the Hindu proselytising movement Arya Samaj in Punjab. For Muslims, on the other hand, early census returns brought home the realisation that they were a numerical minority in the Indian subcontinent, thus they sought education and jobs in the government service to bolster their demographic profile. The Muslim educational movement, such as Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh University, was engendered by similar fears of losing out on the religio-political front.

A quick reference to the censuses in Britain since the nineteenth century reveals how colonial census was used as a tool of imperialism in India. The census in Britain remained largely a secular institution as regards the collection and presentation of data. The census exercise exhibited either disinterest in religion or extreme reluctance to explore this field. In several censuses, there was no question on religion; and wherever any question on religion was included, it was done with extreme care. Not only this, the results were published separately from the census reports. No British census in the last two centuries has asked questions on ethnicity or religion. The question on ethnicity was for the first time introduced in 1991 Census and there was pressure to include religion in the 2001 Census of the Great Britain. The American census also specifically prevents collection of data on religion.

On the other hand, census in the colonial India had a different purpose altogether. Driven by the colonialist need to know the land and population it controlled, the census served the imperative of control and domination. In colonial census of India, the question on religion, caste and race was introduced since its beginning in the 1850s. Religion was used as a fundamental category in census tabulations and data on this was published without any restraint. It seems that the projection of cleavages within the colonial society was essential for sustaining the British rule. In fact, the British used a variety of texts, forms and methods to continue and perpetuate their rule at the cost of strained communal relationships in India.

Since a foreign and colonial government initiated both gazetteers and census, no public opinion or the representative institutions existed to limit the subjects investigated in the two documents. A comparative view of census enables us to see how modern census has played a different role in the social and political life of people in Britain and its colonies. The policies, procedures and institutions in Pakistan are very much framed along the lines marked by colonial census in the British India.

No attempt has ever been made to revisit the colonial categories and frame new one to unite, rather than divide, the society. From seats in the parliament to the allocation of jobs in government service, to the provision of education, health and civic services, all national resources are tied with numerical strength, irrespective of the needs of the marginalised segments of society. Every single census in Pakistan was conducted amid the storms of protests from the disenfranchised ethnic and religious groups, but without eliciting any changes in the census schedule. As a result, the struggle for power among various social and religious groups in the society draws on the imbalance between census figures and the situation on the ground.

Although the institutions gathering information on various aspects of population have diversified, along with the number of subjects under tabulation, the fundamental postulates of modern census as a measure of a nation's wealth and ranking have not changed. The politicisation of census in Pakistan has jeopardised the national planning process, because without reliable census figures, macroeconomic management is bound to fail and so is the electoral process based on doctored figures. The mirage of electoral democracy that holds the country together is in jeopardy, if the plans for decennial census are abandoned again. A fraction of media hype and public attention that is routinely showered on electoral process will relocate the issue of census and place it at the heart of the debate on national sovereignty and democratic struggle, to where it must belong.