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review History
weds narrative A word about letters By Kazy Javed A tribute to Dr Anis Nagi Alibrary could be the only befitting place for a writer, who published more books than the number of years nature had given him to live, to breathe his last. But Dr Anis Nagi's death past week at the Punjab Public Library in Lahore did not lessen the shock of his departure to his friends and admirers. He apparently looked all right at 71. He came to my office three days before his death. During a chit-chat over a cup of tea, he told me that he was spending hours daily at the Punjab Library to collect material for his next book. Of late, he had developed a longing for writing on the Sufi poets of the Punjab. Bulleh Shah was the title of his first book on this topic, which has now become the last of the 70plus volumes that he brought out during his lifespan.
A strategy to eradicate poverty The author's monumental study has the capacity to generate an intensive debate on South Asian people's poverty
By I. A. Rehman Challenging the Injustice of Poverty: Agenda for Inclusive Development in South Asia By: Rehman Sobhan Publishers: Sage Publications, New Delhi; 2010 Pages:486 Price: Indian Rs 850
Professor Rehman Sobhan, one of the most outstanding economists in South Asia, has challenged policy-makers, the hordes of the excluded and their advocates in the region to address the biggest threat to democracy, economic stability and human rights in South Asia -- POVERTY. The challenge begins with the title of the study itself, which defines poverty as a form of injustice. Few will disagree with that for nobody is poor by choice or by his own doing; he is in this condition as a result of the interplay of socio-economic-political forces over which he has no control. It is possible that the title has been inspired by the recently published book The Idea of Justice, another major work by Amartya Sen, to whom this study is dedicated. The thesis inspiring this work of immense merit can be
summed up as follows: South Asia has the largest concentration of income-poor
people in the world. Poverty and inequity result from the exclusion of the The strategy suggested by Professor Sobhan for promoting structural change includes agrarian reform, enhancing the market power of the excluded, and democratising educational opportunities. Some other measures suggested are changes in budgetary and financial policies, broadening ownership of assets through collective action and development of institutions for promoting such actions. Before advancing his strategy for creating space for the excluded, the author offers a review of the poverty alleviation strategies carried out at any level -- global, regional or national. This is an excellent summary of the schemes for reducing poverty devised by the World Bank, IMF and the International Development Community from Washington Consensus to Millennium Development Goals, proposals for promoting equity, some success stories from Asia, SAARC initiatives on poverty, the PRSPs in South Asia and India's recent experiments in poverty reduction. The conclusion is that these strategies are "mostly designed to alleviate rather than end poverty", and do not address "the structural injustices that reproduce poverty". Worse, in all South Asian strategies "the divide between a privileged class of property owners and providers of wage employment and those who depend upon them for employment has been accepted as an immutable feature of society". Even those who may not agree with the author's conclusions will find this account of what has been attempted by the leading actors in the drive against poverty extremely useful. While arguing for agrarian reforms the author does not support the view that the time for land redistribution has passed but he argues that land reform needs to be "situated within a wider agenda of structural change within rural society". This chapter offers a useful survey of land reforms in South Asian countries, changes in land ownership, and the nexus between land ownership/utilization patterns and poverty. Especially notable are the findings from Dr Akmal Hussain's 2008 study on Pakistan, to the effect that the lack of access to land and the exploitative nature of the landlord-tenant relationship remains the principal source of poverty. 45.8 per cent of households classified as very poor and 25.5 per cent as poor are exclusively tenant-farmers. In order to promote the vitally needed agrarian reforms, Prof Sobhan pleads for a national commission in each South Asian country and lays down its agenda. Although he has argued, quite rightly, for the need to distinguish between what is desirable and what is feasible, he seems to have pinned on South Asian states' hopes that realism might not justify. Prof Sobhan finds a great deal of potential for mitigating the problems of the small producers among the excluded through their collective action. Several successful models in India (ITC, Amul, Sewa) and Bangladesh (Pran, Brac) and dairy cooperatives in Nepal and Sri Lanka and women's collective action, are analysed. However, before replicating these models, states are advised to test feasibility of undertakings and the capacity of the implementing agency through pilot projects. Nobody can dispute the fact that in South Asia the people in low-income groups, who are exposed to no or poor education, have rather limited opportunities for rising out of poverty. The way out is to focus on upgrading the qualities of the state educational system. In Prof. Sobhan's view, India appears to have made a quantum leap forward "by simultaneously addressing the issues of universality of education, ensuring quality and reducing social disparity in the incidence of education". Of course how well the Indian initiative is implemented remains to be seen but other South Asian states will do well to study, and follow if possible, the Indian scheme. After a fairly detailed discussion on budgetary and financial policies for poverty eradication and some stimulating arguments for broadening of assets through collective action, that address the problems faced by the most vulnerable groups (tenants pushed away from land, slum-dwellers and other displaced persons), the author takes up the question of institutions that can promote collective action by the excluded. The models analysed are: cooperatives (Amul in India, micro-finance institutions in Bangladesh), collective action by women (SEWA), community based organisations (AKRSP in Pakistan, PAF in Nepal), the excluded as corporate investors, social enterprises, the Grameen model, NGOs as corporations of the excluded, and worker ownership formulas. Pakistani defenders of the excluded will find in these models good starting points for useful debate and worthwhile initiatives. The whole discussion has been summed up in the final chapter -- the Political Economy of Structural Change -- and some basic issues regarding the agents of change are raised. Will political parties, NGOs and the corporate sector have the wisdom and the capacity to push the structural reform agenda? Who will organise the excluded for collective action? Will governments carry out legislative reforms, administrative actions and upgrading of governance? These questions are central to the debate on elimination of poverty. Ideas for moving forward are there but these cannot be put into actions for want of necessary mechanisms. Professor Sobhan's monumental study must generate an intensive debate on South Asian people's poverty. This debate should also cover the nexus between gender disparities and poverty, to which Prof Sobhan does not seem to have paid adequate attention. Besides, despite his repeated claims to aim at what is feasible within an order that he does not want to challenge, Prof Sobhan allows the idealist in him to ignore the limits to pragmatism in the structures of South Asian states. It is possible to argue that some of the structural causes of poverty lie in the assumptions on which these states are based. The plight of the poor begins with their exclusion from the process of defining the nature and objectives of the state. How can anyone proposing agrarian reform in Pakistan ignore the bar to land reform imposed by the highest judicial authority? The people of South Asia are today losing out to the heartless market economy on the one hand and the bigoted exploiters of belief on the other, both of which curtail the area of what is feasible. It may not be good in the long run to divert the attention of the people, especially the excluded, from the desirability of changing the nature and direction of the state, and the urgency of replacing the intra-elite compact on governance with a genuinely all-inclusive social contract.
History weds narrative The novel reshapes our understanding of the colonial past into a sharper perspective By Bilal Farooq Hamid Sea of Poppies By Amitav Ghosh Publisher: John Murray 2008 Pages: 528 Price: Rs.525 Amitav Ghosh in his book Sea of Poppies, the first of his trilogy, gradually builds up the plot, digresses to develop the characters in his story, giving a glimpse of the end. The first paragraph contains the kernel of the story: "The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny for she had never seen such a vessel before, not even in a dream: how could she have, living as she did in northern Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast?" The British ship is on its way to dock at Calcutta to pick up labour and criminals for transportation to the British port of Mauritius. This is 19th century North-East India just before the first Opium War. This is a world where British were hegemonic. They undertook a massive engineering of the Indian society to suit their imperial objective: make money on the cheap. To do so they wanted commodities to sell, to make the commodities they undertook change in society, once it was dominated with the strength of arms. It is easy to admire the buildings they constructed, the railway lines, laws and the English education they introduced. Scratch beneath the surface: none of it was away from their goal of bending India to their need. Ghosh's work's value is it permits the readers to see for themselves -- how imperialism was carried out. The purpose of imperialism was to occupy land. Eighteenth century Bihar had been turned into an opium field. Opium was sold by the British in China to make money. As it started to devastate the Chinese society, the Emperor started to resist. The British evoked free trade and sent ships, and forcefully opened the ports. This was the age of the Opium wars. They established a presence in China to oversee this free trade, and became the biggest drug pushers of the world. Opium began flowing freely from India. Not only is the Chinese society devastated by opium but also India. The imperial power has converted vast lands of farmland to poppy production in North-East India, forcing villagers to produce poppy rather than grain to sustain themselves. Set against this background is the life of Deeti, married to a person with failing health, drugged and made pregnant by her husband's brother on her wedding night. On her husband's death, the harshness of a feudal society delivers its judgment to Deeti, she must die on her husband's funeral pyre. Her brother-in-law proclaims that her shrine as a sati would be profitable for the family. People would come to pay homage and donate money. Set on the pyre waiting the flames, Kalua -- a low caste village labourer -- jumps into the funeral pyre and rescues Deeti. Escaping a manhunt, they both start to make their way towards the ship which will take them away from India. On the ship their lives intersect with other narratives, each set in different segments of Bihari society. Different lives intersect and take a new meaning. The journey is not without strife, as racism spills over and class ordering begins to shift, abandoned on land. Initial part of the journey serves as end point of the story. In an interview Ghosh reveals: "This was the foundation of the British economy. It's how Victorian England existed. And they still make opium there. Without opium, the world wouldn't exist in its current form." Ghosh has been trained as an anthropologist. This reveals itself in the meticulous details he presents of 19th century North-East India -- food, furniture, religious practices, nautical commands, dresses, marriage customs and funeral rites. Ghosh is a consummate storyteller. He has found his niche. After dabbling in contemporary fiction, he has grasped historical fiction, and produced his most sublime work, surpassing The Glass Palace. Ghosh is an artiste, perhaps one of the most talented novelists of our time, and the Sea of Poppies is the greatest of his work. Sea of Poppies has an impact greater than the story; it reshapes our understanding of the colonial past into a sharper perspective.
By Kazy Javed A tribute to Dr Anis Nagi Alibrary could be the only befitting place for a writer,
who published more books than the number of years nature had given him to
live, to breathe his last. But Dr Anis Nagi's death past week at the Punjab
Public Library in Lahore did not lessen the shock of his departure to his
friends and admirers. He apparently looked all right at 71. He came to my
office three days before his death. During a chit-chat over a cup of tea, he
told me that he was spending hours daily at the Punjab Library to collect
material for his next book. Of late, he had developed a longing for writing
on the Sufi poets of the Punjab. Bulleh Shah was the title of his first book
on this topic, which has now become the last of the 70plus volumes that he
brought out during his lifespan. Anis Nagi started his literary career in the middle of 60s as a poet. His modern sensibility militated against composing ghazal. He always kept believing that this popular genre had exhausted all its possibilities. "You cannot write a new ghazal," he would say "you only repeat what has already been worn out." He kept 'poeticising' till his last days and published almost a dozen collections of verse, but he is primarily known as a literary critic and fictionist. Like many other writers around the globe, he was considerably influenced by the existentialist philosophy and literature which reflected the spirit of the middle decades of the 20th century. His novels and short stories are fine examples of existentialist sensibility. Deewar key peechay, his first major novel published in the 1970s, can be counted among the best works that this modern intellectual movement has produced anywhere in the world. Albert Camus and not Sartre was Anis Nagi's hero among the existentialists. He translated Camus' collection of ideological essays, The Myth of Sisyphus, as well as his famous novel The Plague into Urdu. Kafka's novels The Trial and The Castle also greatly fascinated him. Anis Nagi lived the life of a model writer. He was not a professional writer but all his life and energies were devoted to writing though, I believe, he never earned a penny from his publications. All his friendships and relations were based on literary pursuits and he was always ready to argue with anybody differing with him on some literary point. Nagi's death is also a personal loss to me. We had been on friendly terms since long. I was among the few friends he would present with a copy of his new book and would turn up occasionally for a literary gossip.
More literature Reading of Intezar Hussain's Urdu newspaper columns makes it easier to decide whether newspaper columns are part of literature or they fall in the category of journalism. Having gone through the newly-published collection of his selected columns titled Qatray main Dariya, I now find myself in a position to say that all that comes from the pen of Intezar Hussain is literature. One can read Intezer Hussain's new book as yet another
collection of his short stories. But it is also an exceptional volume on the
literary, intellectual and cultural history of Lahore of the second half of
the past century. It carries discussions on most of the issues raised by men
of letters and knowledge during those years. Intezar Hussain contributed these columns to the daily Mashriq from 1963 to 1996. Three hundred of them have been included in the book under discussion which carries a preface by the late Dr Suhail Ahmad Khan and published by the Sang-e-Meel publishers of Lahore. Kishwar Naheed's long-standing admiration for Simon de Beauvoir began during her college days and she is still under the spell of the French writer and progenitor of the modern feminist movement. She says she always kept de Beauvoir's La Deuxieme Sexe, the 1949 book that provided philosophical foundations to contemporary feminism, with her for quarter of a century and finally abridged and translated it into Urdu. Over thirty years have gone by since the publication of the translation. Kishwar Naheed has now come up with another translation of some of Simon de Beauvoir's selected intellectual pieces and her dialogues with Jean Paul Sartre. The Sang-e-Meel Publishers have brought out this 231-page translation under the title Aurat Mard ka Rishta. It carries not only the basic concepts of modern feminism but also many important ideas that make up modern sensibility making it a must-read for all those who have any urge for understanding the nature of human relations in our contemporary world. Afzal Haq Qarshi is one of the very few scholars who remain committed to our traditional values about gaining as well as spreading knowledge. He has authored and compiled a number of books which have been well received in academic circles. Qarshi Sahib's latest offering has been titled Taseer on Iqbal. It carries Dr M.D Taseer's writings on the art and thought of Allama Iqbal. Dr Taseer was a noted member of a group of men of letters, usually named as Lahore Writers, which is credited with bringing about literary renaissance in Punjab during the second quarter of the past century. His writings on Iqbal throw light on the versatile genius of the poet and 'add to our understanding of some facets of his personality and poetry'. If you have any passion to enjoy a good piece of modern Sindhi literature, Mukhtar Azad has provided you with a fine opportunity by rendering Senator Maula Bakhsh Chandio's book into Urdu. I read the book as a piece of fiction. Mazhural Islam, to whom the book is dedicated, says it is a book of memories while the author calls it a collection of travel writings. Whatever it may be, it is a well-written book that brings sweet, pleasant fragrance of Sindhi culture. The book is titled Galiaan yaad Nagar ki and has been published by the Sang-e-Meel Publisher.
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resource-poor from participating in the development process. A social order
which condemns millions of people to destitution, an economic order where
millions of young women are obliged to labour for a pittance, and a political
order in which the rich can capture power and deprive their voters of the
fruits of democracy -- all these are unsustainable. If South Asian societies
really wish to avoid a bleak future they "must at least begin to address
the injustices which reproduce poverty."
