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Left in Pakistan — I Political alternative Globally, the focus of the left has shifted from regime change to searching out political spaces and networks, and bringing people together to make normative claims about freedom, justice and equality. Is the left in Pakistan, particularly the younger lot, committed to similar goals? Do they see the ‘party’ as one channel for what they are trying to do? Do they have dogmatic formulations on this subject? Here’s an attempt to find answers to these and many other questions By Sarah Humayun Discussions of
the political left, as indeed the political left itself, will always
search for their own relevance and never be in danger of being irrelevant. It is within these
parameters that we can begin to inquire into the conversations the
political left is engaged in, with itself and with others — the
conversations it is having on class, identity, revolution, authority,
among others. In trying to write about
this, however, I would like to steer clear of judgements on left’s
standing in the ‘actually existing’ power politics of today. It is
hardly news that the post-1990s left is extremely marginal to mainstream
politics and diminished, with the exception of a few luminous struggles
such as in Okara and Faislabad, even in their traditional stronghold of
trade unions and peasant struggles. Or that its positions and perspectives
find no forceful, organised articulation in the public discourse,
although, as one activist pointed out to me, they are increasingly echoed
there without necessarily being associated with the left. But though the politics
of the centre and the right have absorbed shades of leftist thought — as
they have of liberal thought — it might be fair to say that this has
happened without the centre having shifted to the left. In addition, the
left has lost visibility in the public space; in this respect, it has
fared even worse than the NGOs, whose liberal pro-civil-society thought
has been similarly assimilated without increasing the appeal of liberal
thinking as such in the public space. Why pay heed to the left
when they do nothing, or almost nothing that shows up on the media-charted
political map of mainstream and populist politics? Why take an interest in
their interminable bickering over dusty ideologies, their painstaking and
fragile mergers, the promise and disappointment of their wavering
existence? By self-admission, the
left is in a state of crisis. The 2013 election delivered a clear mandate
for a socially-conservative, economically-neo-liberal and poor-indifferent
political parties. But the elections did not so much as mark a shift to
the right than extend and confirm it. Religious conformism that gives
direct and indirect support to murderous policies towards Qadianis and
Shias, not to mention other groups classified as ‘minorities’, is one
of the more obvious markers of the shift. Significantly, the
populisms of the last few years, from Imran Khan’s faltering tsunami to
Tahirul Qadri’s pro-establishment long march to judiciary and media
activism, have been pro-right or, in the lingo of the moment,
pro-middle-class. Their slogans are corruption, security, and good
governance, often justified with reference to religion and nationalism, or
presented in the idioms of righteous piety and nationalist hysteria. These
slogans make hegemonic claims on ‘our’ behalf and have successfully
come to dominate the public space as the rightful demands of the
‘people’, without significant alternative being articulated by groups
whose interests may not be aligned or be differentially aligned with them. At present, the issues
of the middle-class (as commentators are noting with increasing
insistence) are making a claim to being ‘everyone’s’ problems, or
everyone’s in the same way. This point is only rarely made in mainstream
public media (a recent article in Dawn, http://dawn.com/news/1034430/terror-talk,
was a welcome exception).The middle-class represents a sizeable chunk of
key state institutions — army, bureaucracy, judiciary — as well as the
media and the professions. It is interested in producing wealth and
acquiring education, in better service delivery and a functioning
government. But it is also invested, its critics would say, in regressive
norms of social stability, in opposing collective action for labour
issues, in patriarchal and exclusionary religion that favours social
conservatism and sexual puritanism, in enforcement of law without change
in the status quo and without radical interventions on the side of social
equality and wealth redistribution. Would the picture change
if we admit other collective entities as parties to the public space,
resources and policies in their own right, entitled to make a bid for the
name of ‘the majority’ or ‘the people’? ‘Class’ could draw
attention to the fact that security, governance and corruption can have a
different place in your life depending on differential ownership or
influence over resources, your ability to create opportunity or control
your environment through possession of material or cultural assets, or to
mobilise with others to defend what is in your interest. A working-class
position, it has been argued, generates conditions and experiences that
form subjects who are marginal to or altogether outside the prevailing
status quo, who perceive illusion or division in socially-inscribed
reality where another class might see them as given or necessary. Class in this sense is
not necessarily an empirical category; it is a socially-constructed
subject position to which meanings and possibilities can be ascribed, and
not just by people who count themselves as its members. But how might class be
mapped on the grid of today’s cultural and social figurations, and what
can be accomplished politically with it is far from clear. A lot depends
on whether a class is seen to exist prior to the struggle for its
‘emancipation’ or whether it is political struggles themselves that
shape the parties who struggle, for which ‘class’ may be one name
among others. In other words, are emancipatory struggles hitched to groups
who define themselves as classes or nations? Or are politics or political
struggles themselves shaped, not by a social and historical vector that
remains constant, but by the unpredictable unfolding of contingent and
context-bound political processes? The new-er leftism
seemed inclined to take the latter route. Globally, the focus has shifted
from regime change favourable to the left to searching out political
spaces and networks, discrete articulations and struggles, which may or
may not link up to produce the phenomenon recognised as class struggle or
collective identity but which nevertheless brings people together to make
normative claims about freedom, justice and equality. The recent Arab
uprisings are a case in point; they will keep the mandarins arguing for
long about whether or not they count as ‘revolution’ — perhaps only
to answer both yes and no. Benjamin Arditi noted after the events of 2011
that they gave ‘political thought with the opportunity to come to terms
with the loss of loss’, which means ‘parting ways with a grammar of
emancipation that was never there to begin with, at least not in actual
uprisings: an alternative to the existing order comes in handy but has
rarely played a central role in rebellions. One can then begin to think
the difference between insurgencies and programmes as a difference in
nature instead of framing their relationship within a hierarchy of stages
that commits us to place programmes above revolts in the political food
chain’. This dialogue with
an event is critical because it puts the narrow worlds of both academia
and the organised left in contact with an outside which has no obligation
to prove them right. One of the more striking
thing about the admittedly few young lefties that I met (all have or have
had a link with the Awami Workers’ Party, though not all are current
members) is that they see the ‘party’ as one channel for what they are
trying to do. No doubt, they are cautioned by the left’s history of
parochialism and factionalism; but possibly their imaginations are no
longer limited by the horizons offered by party politics. Refreshingly, I did not
hear many dogmatic formulations on this subject. The form of the party
does not seem obsolete, and there were lots of remarks that suggested
enthusiasm for elections, even if only as a mobilising opportunity, and a
considered engagement with party squabbles that showed amusement,
exasperation, and perseverance. Everyone had something interesting and
slightly different to say about this, and did not seem particularly
concerned with reaching agreement; even at times pointed out express
disagreements between themselves. What this means for the
long-term strength or coherence of ‘the party’ is difficult to say,
but to those in search of a different politics of heterodox forms, the
opportunities to come together will have a value of their own. ‘The left
gathers those who seek to improve on existing thresholds of egalitarianism
and solidarity through critical thought and collective action’, writes
Benjamin Arditi in a recent discussion of what counts as the left today.
‘It is not particularly relevant whether this pursuit is channeled
through mainstream institutions of liberal democratic states — parties,
legislatures, and executive branches of government — or through other
sites of intervention that are starting to demarcate a post-liberal
setting for politics. Echoing Karl Marx, all this happens in circumstances
that are not of the left’s choosing and within the constraints imposed
by the strategic relationships with others, the available resources, and a
particular time frame.’ Is it surprising that
the political left — with its insistence that the ‘social’ cannot be
mapped solely by monotheistic or monopolistic forms like state, capital or
religion, its organising metaphor of ‘class’ that stresses division
— is disunited, perpetually
on the verge of merger or split, perpetually restless and in disagreement?
(I would point anyone tempted to think this a peculiarly Pakistani
affliction to read this article on the Indian left is the latest EPW
http://www.epw. in/commentary/why-left-more-divided-right.html, and this
article in the Guardian http://www.theguardian
.com/politics/2013/sep/09/time-for-leftwing-ukip-labour on the new British
far left, which mentions its ‘apparent belief in an age-old socialist
maxim: why have one party when 59 will suffice?’) This can seem like a
good or bad thing depending on where you stand — but it is certainly
discouraging for those who want the left to present a unified front and
maybe even make some kind of showing at the polls. In 2012, news of the
merger of three left parties (Labour, Awami and Workers’ parties) in the
Awami Workers’ Party revived a degree of interest in the subsequent
course of action of the organised left. I asked a couple of left activists
about life after the merger. One senior activist I talked with described
it as an arranged marriage, in which you have to get to know the person
after you end up with him. Unfamiliarity with electioneering and perhaps a
fear of democracy-by-vote caused organisational friction. Fear stemmed
from recoil from what abject defeat could confirm about the present status
of the left among the awam as well as what the process of engagement would
do the parties who had spent much of the 1990s closeted in on themselves.
In the event the AWP did field some 14 candidates. Yet, the younger
activists or engagés that I met with seemed to be under no illusion about
their ‘objective’ standing in electoral or popular politics. One
admitted that their participation in the Lawyers’ Movement, which
aggregated the forces of lawyers, civil society activists and some
political parties, brought home to them the sorry state of their ability
to mobilise street power. The PPP’s legacy casts
its huge shadow or glow, depending on how you see it, on the left today;
the time may now be ripe to have an informed, multivocal debate about what
the left, specifically, can take away from this legacy. For some left
activists, the current state of the state is a direct corollary of the
disappearance of left-wing politics from the public sphere, which leaves
the field wide open for rightist religious extremism and pro-market social
conservatism. In this narrative, the PPP is sometimes credited with
keeping the floodgates closed. It presented a confused hydra-headed form
— Islamic-socialist, secular, pro-nationalist, pro-Sindhi-nationalist
and pro-poor, and perhaps even pro-intellectual —
that managed to win a substantial public space. As long as it was
not in a full-term government, where possibility decisively failed to
translate into performance. But beyond the nostalgia
for the PPP myth, a more pertinent question for the left might be if there
is any appetite left for a politics that makes a reality out of so many
illusions and compromises. What cannot be underestimated, however, is the
value that attaches to representation of interests above and beyond the
success of a particular political party. Are the ‘people’ are in need
of a new party — the disenfranchised factory labourers, peasants, slum
dwellers, women, liberals and artist whose constituency was so ambiguously
represented by the PPP? Or is this a juncture at which a new politics is
possible, one that would put the PPP in perspective and possibly make a
case for a politics not against but adjacent to the
state-party-establishment form. Sarah Humayun is a
writer based in Lahore. She can be reached at sarah.humayun@gmail.com
Education and self-interest The elite in Pakistan are never genuinely convinced that expanding education opportunity will accrue benefits to them, even if they were to be in the form of enhanced stability and security By Irfan Muzaffar This is the
first of a series of articles on education. In these, we will think
through some very basic questions about education, such as, why do we need
universal education? Should it be state’s responsibility to provide
education for every child? Is education an instrument of equity and social
justice? In addition to these and other key questions, we will also
address some very specific issues pertaining to education reforms such as
preparation of teachers, growth of private schools and their consequences,
and other pressing issues. In this article, I will
consider the rhetoric of Education for All (EFA). Those of us working in
education sector have repeatedly grounded their work in EFA. Since the
introduction of the term in 1990s, both the civil society and government
have talked about Pakistan’s efforts to expand educational opportunity
in terms of an obligation to the international community. Nearly every new
proposal and policy framework that I have seen invokes EFA, and now MDGs,
as international obligations to be met by our government. Just to give you
an example, the second paragraph of the most recent National Education
Policy (2009) justifies the review of the earlier policies in these words:
“…the performance remained deficient in several key aspects including
access, quality and equity of educational opportunities and secondly, the
international challenges like…MDGs, …EFA Goals and the challenges
triggered by globalization...” The policy proposals must be grounded in
an overarching policy framework. The rhetoric of EFA and MDGs works to
supply such a framework in the case of education sector in Pakistan. Although EFA is usually
traced to the UN conference on education in the Thai city of Jomtien in
1990, the rhetoric is certainly not new. Most countries becoming
independent from the colonial rule mentioned the idea of universal
education as a central plank of nation building. In Pakistan, for
example, the participants in the very first national conference on
education held in Karachi in 1947 resolved to provide free and compulsory
education for a period of five years, which was to be gradually raised to
eight years. Likewise, even before the 18th Constitutional Amendment that
made state responsible to provide free and compulsory education to all
children of the age of 5-16 years, education for all was on the
constitutional anvil as a principle of state policy. So the rhetoric of
EFA only assumed an international tenor after Jomtien, while it had been
with us all along. But there was one
crucial difference between the new and the old EFA. The early advocates of
universal education grounded its justification in terms of such
imperatives as nation building, individual and national progress, and so
on. The later advocates of EFA needed only refer to the international
obligations of their state. While the early advocates of EFA articulated
it in terms of state’s obligation to its citizens, the recent advocates
justified it in terms of state’s obligation to the international
community. Does this difference matter in terms of actually achieving
education for all? Let us this question by looking at the history of the
struggle for universal education. Not many people realise
that human civilizations have not always entertained the idea of universal
education and that it was necessitated only after substantive changes in
the organisation of societies. This has nothing to do with the importance
given to education per se. For instance, it is undeniable that Islamic
civilisation at its peak supported both knowledge acquisition and
production. Yet it did so without ever requiring all children to be
educated at state’s expense. If you could go back
about 300 years in a time capsule, and then keep going further back, you
are highly unlikely to find any civilisation on the planet that supported
universal education. It is only in the last three hundred years or so that
the idea of universal education took roots. How did nations arrive at this
strange idea to educate everyone at state’s expense? As you may have
guessed, the rationality behind this universalisation of education was
anything but moral. Establishing a system of
universal education required huge financial commitments by the state. This
is never easy as demonstrated by our own experience with frustrated
attempts to raise the percentage of GDP spent on education. How difficult
it must have been to persuade the policy elites to pay for basic education
of all children with public funds. The advocates of common schools in most
countries that universalised education in the mid to late 19th century
were involved in a protracted struggle to convince the policy elites of
the benefits that would accrue from educating everyone in the society.
Their arguments were largely pragmatic. Just to give you one
example, Horace Mann, one of the most fervent advocates of common
education in the US, used to draw the attention of policy elites towards a
growing tide of menace and decline at the source of which, he claimed, was
the unschooled mind. The following quote from his lecture succinctly
captures the argument for EFA in his times: “The mobs, the riots, the
burnings, the lynching, perpetrated by the men of the present day, are
perpetrated, because of their vicious or defective education, when
children. We see, and feel, the havoc and the ravage of their
tiger-passions, now, when they are full grown; but it was years ago that
they were whelped and suckled. And so, too, if we are derelict from our
duty, in this matter, our children, in their turn, will suffer. If we
permit the vulture’s eggs to be incubated and hatched, it will then be
too late to take care of the lambs.” So those championing
common education saw it as an instrument to create a secure society, to
ward off the menace of undesirable ideologies, and to help achieve the
goals of economic progress and individual fulfillment. It is easy to see
that Horace Mann’s frontal arguments would have lost their rhetorical
force if he were to ask his fellow citizens that it was their
international obligation to expand educational opportunity. It is not always the
fact that the policy elites are well meaning, that they really intend to
expand public education of a decent quality to all citizens for moral
reasons, but are finding it hard to do so. The findings of some
recent research on political economy of education are quite provocative in
this respect. When the governments undersupply public education they do so
because those who control the policy do not want other people’s children
to become educated (B.W. Ansell. (2010) From the ballot to the blackboard:
The redistributive political economy of education). Let us imagine a
society, which, in its given state, consists of two segments of
population, a small educated elite and a very large inadequately educated
semi-literate or illiterate segment. Someone demands that this society
should be given educational opportunity and that doing this will increase
the life chances of everyone in it. Imagine further the existence of a
small policy elite in this society and assume that it has the wherewithal
to make and influence all policy decisions. If the size of the economy of
this society is small then it is imaginable that redistribution of
resources aimed at making the disadvantaged better off would leave the
rich worse off. If so, wouldn’t it be perfectly rational for the policy
elite to block educational expansion if it were likely to leave them worse
off? The readers can see how
difficult it might have been to persuade the key players within a
political economy to expand educational opportunity. It only happened
because the elite were convinced that it was in their own benefit to spend
on education of all children. It was not because they owed it to some
international agreement but because they were genuinely convinced that
they would be better off by spending on education. In this country, we have
a similar situation. The elite are never genuinely convinced that
expanding education opportunity will accrue benefits to them, even if they
were to be in the form of enhanced stability and security. As I mentioned earlier
in this article, the rhetoric of EFA has been with us all along but after
1990, the civil society and government started referring to Pakistan’s
efforts to expand educational opportunity in terms of her obligation to
the international community. I would like you to contrast this with the
justification for education proffered by Horace Mann to his own policy
elite in the mid 1800s. The justification appealed to the self-interest of
the people and not to external treaties. The recent rhetoric of
EFA and MDGs etc. has had an unfortunate effect of justifying in terms of
international treaties, what should have been grounded in, and justified
on the basis of, a compact between the state and its citizens and on the
basis of enlightened self-interest of all segments of the society.
Public universities in the country don’t give admission beyond a certain age that discourage applicants with session gap By Sher Ali Khalti Miss a year at
college or university and you miss the opportunity to get into one ever
again. The doors of universities in Pakistan close to students who have a
session gap or who have turned 25-year-old before admissions to
universities open. Result of graduation has
been announced throughout Pakistan and students are enthusiastic to enter
in relevant educational institutions but there is no opening for those who
have crossed the 25 years age mark. It is printed in every public
university’s prospectus and was clearly advertised as well. Those who have no
finance to get education now, after 3 or 4 years if they become able
enough to afford education they will not be allowed to apply for admission
in public universities and their affiliated colleges. The literacy rate of
Pakistan is 58 percent which is not good to live in the 21st century and
only 16 percent are going to take admission in universities. Most of the
people don’t even knock the door of universities due to poverty but
those who do, must get an opportunity to study. This calls for declaring
emergency in public universities as well. Muhammad Anwar Sajid,
Registrar University of the Punjab, says preference will be given to fresh
graduates if they seek admission in Bachelor and Master Degree Programme.
Although there is 2-year relaxation for male and 3 years for female
candidates, those who fail to get admission can apply on self-support
programme. Director Admission
Committee student’s affairs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir says, “We have
set criteria for admission. After 22 years no student can be enrolled in
BSc and if the candidate touches his 26 birthday he will not be given
admission in Master programme. There is no space for students who are
overage and have session gap. The government should provide more land and
buildings for students because population has increased and in the given
structure only as much as can be accommodated.” He considers the present
admission policy oppressive — prohibiting people from seeking knowledge.
He says one can get
education at any time and state should facilitate people in the pursuit of
education. There is no concept of age and session gap in learning of human
beings in the developed countries. We need to create equal opportunity and
we have a long way to go. Deputy Registrar Farhat
Safdar from Sardar Bahadur Khan University Balochistan told TNS that she
is not aware of age and session gap because the university does not come
across such cases. Balochistan is a backward province and people are poor
so majority of the graduates don’t get education in Master’s programme.
“We have opened the door to everyone.” Lahore College for Women
University doesn’t give admission in BS 4 years programme if the
applicant is more than 22 years old. “If a student wants to get
admission in MS or PhD, age and session gap don’t matter,” says the
Deputy Registrar of LCWU, Shahid Jameel. Universities in the west
have a different concept. Correspondence with some top of the line
universities revealed that age and session gap are no issues there. Harward and Cambridge
University see years spent in work after graduation or pursuit of one’s
career as no limitation to their programs. Oxford University puts
no age limit to any of their programmes of study. “We find that students
are more frequently working for a number of years before undertaking
graduate studies, however you might like to discuss your situation and
your application with the department before applying, to ensure that you
do have necessary background to undertake our programme,’’ was the
reply from Oxford University. Even in an African
university — Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria, a 74-year-old man got
admission. Some universities take their own tests along with taking grades
under consideration. An intellectual, senior
journalist and columnist Khawaja Jamshaid Imam Butt says this policy was
introduced during Gen Ziaul Haq’s reign to eliminate influence of
students’ federations. It was necessary for Zia to keep the youth away
from politics. Butt says first word of
revelation is “Iqra” which means “read”, Our Holy Prophet (PBUH)
was taught at the age of 40. “Why are his followers being stopped from
getting education,” he questions. “According to 1973 Constitution no
law or policy can be drafted in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which is
contradictory to the Quran and Sunnah. Denial of admission on the basis of
age or session gap goes against them. It is a violation of the fundamental
right to get education.” “You would be surprise
I got admission at MAO Post Graduate College affiliated with Punjab
University at the age of 48 and got my degree when I was 50 years old just
2 years ago. I got admission on the call of HEC secretary Ahad Cheema to
chairman mass communication department MAO College. We are living in
class-based society where law is only for the fragile. Member of National
Assembly Muhammad Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha from Sargodha sees the age
bar/session gap policy as a hurdle in getting higher education. “I
condemn this policy of admission. Every citizen has the right to get
education any time. He promised to do something to change the government
policy regarding this matter.” Shahzad Roy, a famous
singer, social worker who has a lot of contribution in the field of
education says, “Everyone has the right to seek the light of education.
It gives the opportunity to look outside the window, the door to knowledge
should never shut at any cost.’’ He demands from the government an end
to age and session gap policy. “I will launch a programme against this
discriminatory policy which has become a hurdle in the way of
education,” he says. sherali998@gmail.com
Qualified quacks! Physicians educated in approved medical colleges, trained in recognised Unani Tibb institutions and homeopaths trained in homeopathic colleges are accepted as ‘regular practitioners’ By Syed Mansoor Hussain The Punjab
Healthcare Commission (PHC) recently announced that there were around two
hundred thousand (200,000) quacks practicing medicine in the Punjab. By
‘quacks’ we mean ‘medical practitioners’ that have not gone
through a proper educational and training process that qualifies them to
provide medical care. Physicians that graduate
from ‘accredited’ medical college and receive post graduate medical
training as house physicians and advanced training in medical specialties
firmly believe that all forms of medical care ‘other’ than what they
themselves provide is quackery. This in spite of the fact that officially,
Homeopathy and Unani Tibb (Greek-Arab Medicine) are accepted as
established alternate forms of medical treatment. So it would seem
appropriate to try and define what exactly a medical quack is. A little
bit of history is then worth looking at. Modern medicine is
indeed a modern reality. However, there are some systems of medicine that
have been around for thousands of years. Of these, the best known is the
Greek system of medicine that is often associated with Hippocrates (Buqrat)
circa 400 BCE and Galen (Jalinoos) circa 200 CE and was refined and
improved on by generations of Arab physicians during the previous
millennia including the likes of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Well into the
sixteenth century, this was the primary medical system in Europe. However,
this started to evolve in the seventeenth century or so into a more modern
‘scientific’ system while it continued relatively unchanged in the
Indian subcontinent especially under the Muslim rule. Hakeem Ajmal Khan
was perhaps its most famous practitioner in India during the twentieth
century. Besides the Hippocratic
system, we also have Chinese medicine that includes herbal medicine,
acupuncture and other modalities like massage therapy. All these three
have survived into modern times with some change. Then we have the
Ayurvedic system that originated in India in antiquity and survives even
today. Most of these ‘ancient’ systems are relatively ‘benign’ in
terms of treatment with the emphasis being on diet, exercise and
‘behaviour modification’. Herbs and other indigenous substances were
also used for treatment and still are. What we call the modern
system of medicine started to develop during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries as scientific discoveries helped to advance medical
science. These included the discovery of ‘germs’ and then
identification of germs as cause of disease. Also herbal medications were
chemically broken down to identify the ‘active’ ingredients in them
and these were then synthesised in the laboratory. Most importantly there
developed the idea to use a particular type of treatment and record its
results; this was followed by the concept of medical trials that further
refined treatment. This gave rise to what is now called ‘evidence based
medicine’. General anaesthesia, discovery of blood groups and
development of blood banking as well as the concept of sterilisation
revolutionised surgery. Until the discovery of antibiotics and many modern
medicines, even the so called modern medicine was still relatively
primitive and its results were often not satisfactory. During the nineteenth
century as medicine was evolving, many other schools of treatment based
often on what are now proven to be errant scientific ideas also developed.
Of these, Chiropractic, Osteopathy and Homeopathy survive albeit with
modifications. So, patients disappointed by regular medical treatment
often resorted to these forms of therapy looking for relief. The important
thing about these systems especially Homeopathy is that treatment is
unlikely to produce any serious adverse effects. To sum it up, in Pakistan
physicians educated in approved medical colleges, trained in recognised
Unani Tibb institutions and homeopaths trained in homeopathic colleges are
accepted as ‘regular practitioners’. All others that practice medicine
then are by definition quacks. But let us look a bit
deeper into this situation. Should all those that provide some form of
basic healthcare without belonging to one of the three categories
mentioned above be called quacks? As it is even in a country like the US
that has strict laws about who can practice medicine, we are seeing some
liberalisation when it comes to primary healthcare. Nurses and pharmacists
are being allowed to take care of some basic medical problems and midwives
are allowed to oversee uncomplicated home deliveries. The understanding,
of course, is that any problem above and beyond the capability of such
ancillary medical personnel to manage will be referred to a qualified
physician. This allows physicians to take care of those that really need
their services. Besides freeing up
physician time, when ancillary personnel participate in primary and basic
medical care, the cost of treatment is also considerably decreased. Things
like a fever with flu, a sore throat, and an upset stomach can all be
treated quite adequately by a nurse, a lady health visitor or a
pharmacist. And that is often what does happen in many of our rural areas
as well as in more than a few urban areas; people that have had some
medical training provide basic medical care. As long as such
‘practitioners’ stay within the ambit of their abilities and
appropriately triage patients to hospitals and qualified physicians as
needed, their services should be allowed. More importantly, since
these practitioners are community based, therefore, they have a better
idea of local problems and also have the need to provide ‘good’
results if they want to continue to offer their services in that
particular area. In my opinion then, such practitioners should not be
penalised but should rather be mobilised and provided educational
resources so they can provide better care including immunisation and pre
and post-natal care. That then leaves two
categories of people that should be called quacks. The first are those
that have little or no medical training but pose as qualified physicians.
The major problem with such practitioners is that they often misdiagnose
patients, treat them with incorrect medicines and make things much worse.
There are those among them that to make money often give unnecessary
‘injections’ with inappropriately sterilised needles and syringes.
This can produce massive infections and worse transmit deadly diseases
like Hepatitis C from one patient to another. In this category, we should
also include ‘road side’ dentists that use unsterilized instruments
and are also responsible for spreading Hepatitis C. The second category that
I consider quacks are also sometimes referred to within the medical
profession as ‘hacks’ are ‘qualified’ physicians that out of greed
give every patient an injection or worse an intravenous infusion (the
bottle) whether the patients needs it or not. And they often reuse needles
exposing their patients to the risks mentioned above. Such physicians
frequently over treat patients even when the patient is not getting better
and will only refer the patient onwards to a major hospital when the
patient’s condition has deteriorated and is often beyond salvage. Little
can be done about them since they possess a ‘genuine’ MBBS degree. As long as there is a
need for inexpensive and locally available healthcare, especially in areas
where qualified physicians are not available, quacks will fulfil that
need. And as things stand, there is little the PHC can do to control this
problem. The writer is former
professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital,
Lahore: smhmbbs70@yahoo.com
For decent urban living, sprawling Karachi needs an effective and corruption-free solid waste management system By Dr Noman Ahmed The Sindh
Assembly has passed a new local government law in August 2013 which has
virtually revived the status of municipal bodies to the level of 1979
status. The city had a development authority in 1979 which has disappeared
as a consequence of devolution in 2001 and the post-devolution bargains
among political power wielders. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC)
also seems to have miserably failed to maintain the sanitary conditions in
the city. Heaps of garbage on main streets and neighbourhoods, rampant
dumping along public open spaces, unregulated burning by sweepers and
choking of city sewers due to solid waste are common observations. It is disappointing to
note that despite investment of billions of rupees in SWM sector by
international financial institutions and the federal and provincial
governments during the past 25 years, the position of cleanliness has been
reduced to a null status. Needless to say that decent urban living is
unimaginable without a credible system of solid waste management. The changing life styles
and rise in consumer-oriented tendencies have been catalytical in
increasing the quantity of waste. According to conservative estimates, the
total amount of waste generated in the city is over 13000 tonnes per day.
This waste does not include the construction, electronic, industrial and
hospital waste for which authentic statistics are not available. About 12
per cent of this waste is segregated and disposed of at the household
level, 10 per cent is separated and disposed of by the waste pickers, 5
per cent is used for different operations in land reclamation,
predominantly along the coastline of the city and 33 per cent is picked
and disposed of by municipal bodies – when they work normally – and an
equal amount is dumped in natural drains, nullahs and creeks. In terms of composition,
a sizable part of this waste comprises urban organic waste with low
calorific value. Recyclable items are largely separated at source or at
the kundi where they are sold to junk dealers. Over 600 units of recycling
industrial units exist in the city, which belong to informal sector. Fact finding studies by
Urban Resource Centre — an action research based NGO — has revealed
that over 7500 households draw their livelihoods from the informal
recycling industry. The city lacks properly designed transfer stations for
interim storage, sorting and onward transfer of waste. As a result,
informally designated garbage dumps can be found almost every where in the
city. There is no
scientifically designed sanitary landfill site for the safe and final
disposal of waste. Most of the garbage is presently dumped in Jam Chakro
dumping site near Surjani Town; Govind Pass (near Hub) and Mehran Town
near Korangi. Sizable waste is illegally dropped by municipal trucks on
the way to dumping sites in connivance with waste pickers and higher
municipal officials. As no public health procedures are applied, open
dumping causes enormous problems. Due to visible falling
standards in performance in the past, privatisation of services was
conceived as a universal remedy by the donor agencies for performance
ailments in the developing countries. SWM was attempted for privatisation
in the previous formats of local government. In 1994, the KMC
contracted the waste collection to a private entrepreneur. He had
installed an imported plant to convert urban organic waste into compost
(which is a form of plant food used for soil enrichment). However, due to
various administrative and procedural reasons largely unknown, the plant
closed down and the contract was prematurely terminated. In 1998, DMC-Central
awarded a contract of waste collection and disposal for North Karachi and
Federal B Area to a private contracting firm. The contract ran into
controversies soon after its takeoff. There were allegations and counter
allegations between the contracting parties. It was soon terminated. According to the
contractor he had to undergo heavy financial losses in the capital
investments made for purchase of vehicles (trucks and other form of
vehicles) and manpower. The DMC-Central accused the contractor of poor
performance. The outputs of SWM
privatisation were below the desirable level. Most of these experiments
have encountered different types of problems during their initial phase.
The donor agencies, principally the World Bank, have been promoting the
concept of private sector participation for improving the efficiency and
level of service in a cost-effective manner. A number of formats and
arrangements have been tried and tested in this respect, which have met a
varying degree of success. It is a typical
situation in most of the developing countries that the private sector
operators are small in scale and capacity and are not able to handle all
aspects of the services themselves. They also have to bear the load of
taxes and duties on their equipment and accessories. In order to remain
profitable in the market situation, they establish political linkages with
the members of the government to get better conditions in the contract.
This is a case found prevalent in most of the Latin American cities. Cost recovery and
financial fitness are two essential criteria for inducting private sector
in a municipal system. With the passage of time, the municipalities find
it difficult to maintain the large scale sanitation infrastructure and
components as well as the spread out staff which is generally inefficient.
The private sector is normally hired at lower costs but due to its
compatible scale of operation, it generates an optimum level of
efficiency. Cities in Nigeria, Brazil and Colombia are examples in this
respect. Several lessons can be derived from these experiences. Livelihoods of certain
low income households are linked to SWM belonging to informal sector.
While devising a system of formal privatisation, the existing informal
practices of picking, sorting and recycling should be kept into view. It
is interesting to know that while we talk of privatisation today, the
informal private sector has been doing its job for several decades. It not
only maintains its own survival but also provides useful service to the
city by reducing the waste volumes, generating some useful products and
bye-products through recycling and creating avenues of employment for
skilled and unskilled labour force. According to studies,
there are more than 200,000 labourers/people in Karachi who are directly
or indirectly involved with income generation activities related to waste
on a part time or full time basis.
Monopolising nationalism The phenomenon
of nationalism is very vague in today’s world politics. Generally,
nationalism is attributed to the cause of a community whose language,
creed, culture etc are the same since long. Nationalism has so many faces
and concepts by virtue of which the objectivity and subjectivity of a
specific community is set. Modern world has introduced various kinds of
nationalism i.e, territorial nationalism, civic nationalism, state
nationalism and so on. In Pakistan, some
political parties are having a federal face and a few parties proclaim to
protect the rights of the people of a specific province, region or area. After 9/11, Khyber
Pakhthunkhwa came into the international limelight due to its close
boundary with Afghanistan. The nature and nomenclature of the Khyber
Pakhthunkhwa is very heterogenous not only in the form of its
geological/geographical structure, but in the form of communities living
here with different origins, castes, creeds and languages. Keeping in view the very
recent history of Khyber Pakhthunkhwa, some valid questions arise in
one’s mind about the political parties of this federating unit. The ANP
normally claims to be the champion for the rights of the people of Khyber
Pakhthunkhwa and its slogan is Khpala khawara Khpal Ikhthiyar (our soil,
our authority) and for this slogan it manipulates nationalism. The ANP usually claims
to protect the rights of Pakhthuns, but its role in the provincial and
federal level is not in line with the concept of nationalism. Rather it
appears that the slogan is wrongly interpreted and exploited for personal
wishes and whims. The party credits itself for giving the province its
present name i.e, Khyber Pakhthunkhwa. The truth is that the very same
resolution was passed twice unanimously by different parties (both
national and provincial) of the former provincial assemblies. It is worth
mentioning that the name suggested for the province in those unanimous
resolutions was “Pakhthunkhwa” and not “ Khyber Pakhthunkhwa”. The
ANP compromised on these resolutions accepting the ammendment in the name
with the word “Khyber”. It is really astonishing
that with the change of the name of the province, suddenly the movement
for the Hazara province got currency. The ANP’s policies gave
justifiable reasons to the people of Hazara for carrying on an active
movement for a province of their own. In 70s, the JUI being a
religious party and the ANP being a secular party formed a coallition
government. Can anyone point out as to what the ANP gained for its
nationalistic motives in this respect? If one wants to bring benefits to
people, there are several other issues such as health, education, social
sectors etc that can be used in manifestoes and slogans. But the ANP
stereotyped nationalism for its very own interests to maintain its status
qou in politics. It is high time that the
ANP leadership revise its concept of nationalism and determine the
parameters of idealogical nationalism, territorial nationalism and state
nationalism. Pakistan is a federation and the ANP has its roots in one of
the federating units, but its concept of nationalism still carries a big
question mark. In the light of recent
elections, the ANP also needs to re-consider its position in comparison to
the PTI, which managed to grab majority seats in the provincial and
national assemblies. The 2013 election has conveyed a message that the
people of the province, instead of banking on nationalism alone, want
uplift in the fields of education, health and other social sectors.
Withdrawal symptoms All believe the control of Malakand Division should be handed over to civilian administration. But, is the situation ripe for army withdrawal? By Tahir Ali As expected, the
Tehreek-i-Insaf-Jamaat-i-Islami coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
has announced a phased ‘withdrawal’ of army from seven districts of
Malakand Division — Swat, Buner, Shangla, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Chitral
and Malakand — after which civilians would take over control of
administration in the region. The troops’ pullout
was expected to begin by mid-October and completed under a plan approved
by the KP chief minister. However, the plan is put on hold for the time
being after the Peshawar High Court orders. Initially, troops would
be pulled out of Buner and Shangla. In the second phase, after assessing
the impact of withdrawal of troops from these areas, a decision about
troops’ withdrawal from other areas would be taken. It hasn’t been
explained whether it will be a complete withdrawal of army from the region
or it will only restrict its visibility and relocate to barracks by
handing over control of administration to civil authorities. In the former
case, it will have far reaching consequences. In the latter, it will be a
routine matter. Arguments for and
against it: Sardar Husain Babak, the
parliamentary leader of the ANP in KP Assembly who hails from Buner, terms
the decision an attempt at point scoring and grabbing newspaper headlines.
“Malakand has been badly hit by terrorism. Any decision about it should
be taken after due deliberations, consultations and assessment of ground
situation and capacity-building of civilian institutions, if required. I
don’t think these steps have been followed. At a time when insurgents
could attack and kill as high a target as General Officer Commanding of
Swat, Major General Sanaullah Niazi, I think the decision is illogical.
The PTI leadership is confused and devoid of any vision and ideas. While
the other side asserts it is at war with the state, this government
declares them as its brothers,” he said. Zahid Khan, the
president of Swat Qaumi Jirga (SQJ), who was shot and critically injured
by the TTP target killers, thinks the decision is tantamount to presenting
Swat as a cake to Taliban. “If Taliban accept the
constitution and writ of the state, army can be withdrawn. But at a time
when even a major general is not safe, neither have talks with militants
begun nor any pact concluded with them, Taliban still denounce the
constitution/ sovereignty of the state and police is insufficiently
trained, ill-equipped and therefore ill-prepared to be a substitute for
army, the decision is uncalled-for and wrong. Whatever peace is there in
Swat, it is due to the vast intelligence network and quick response of
army,” he adds. He asserts the decision
to keep or withdraw army from the region will be taken by the SQJ. “If
the government plans to withdraw army from the militancy-hit Swat, it
should also pullout troops from cantonments in Mardan, Peshawar, Nowshera
and other cities. Swat needs army. There should be cantonment here so that
troops are available immediately if need be.” Afzal Khan Lala, the
famous nationalist leader from Swat, says the PTI government is mandated
to take whatever decisions it likes but it should think that army was
called by the government itself. “Fazlullah-led TTP had
challenged the state writ. And whether by design or per chance, they
attacked police — the first line of state’s defence. The civilian
forces could not withstand the insurgents. So army was called up. It
defeated the militants, restored the state authority in the region for
which we Swatis are indebted to it. Army shouldn’t have permanent
control over civilian administration but as for its withdrawal, the
question is: is police ready and able to take complete control of the
region from army? If yes, it should come, otherwise army presence should
be maintained.” Replying to a question,
Lala says if Swat or any other area needs a permanent cantonment, it
should be built. “After all army, police and we all are sons of this
soil. They can be stationed anywhere including Swat if needed.” Religious parties,
however, support the withdrawal plan. “Army personnel are
ignorant of and careless about local culture and traditions. They, for
example, intrude into homes without permission. Their presence in MD has
created lots of malice and misgivings about them. We are against the use
of army in Malakand and elsewhere. Army can’t/shouldn’t be assigned
permanent control of administration. Civilian institutions are best suited
for this. The sooner the army is pulled out, the better,” opines Mufti
Fazle Ghafoor, a JUI MPA from Buner. When asked was police
ready to take over, he said it should be enabled if it isn’t. Is the situation ripe
for withdrawal? Analysts say the
ineptness of the withdrawal offer was revealed barely a day after the
government announced the pullout plan when the militants killed three army
personnel including Major General Sanaullah Niazi. Prolonged presence and
dominance of military in civilian administration is not desirable. In
principle, the army should withdraw from Malakand sooner rather than
later. It should be pulled out of Fata as well. But is this a realistic
supposition in the given circumstances when the TTP stresses it is at war
with the state forces and won’t miss any opportunity to attack them? The Peshawar High Court
recently asked the federal and the KP governments to make laws before
withdrawal of troops from Malakand division as withdrawal without proper
legislation will result in legal and constitutional crises such as the
maintenance of army’s internment centres and future of the hundreds of
detainees kept there, transfer of detainees to regular prisons and the
future course and mode of their trials. The court also asked the
authorities to think over the legal consequences of withdrawal since the
notification issued by the prime minister calling troops, Action (in aid
of civil power) Regulation 2011, was still in the field. Basic ingredients of any
counter-terrorism strategy are: clear, hold, build and transfer of
authority to civil administration. Residents of the area say that
extremists’ ability to occupy an area permanently has been weakened but
they fear militants could stage a comeback if the army is withdrawn
without consolidating the civil law enforcement agencies and taking
precautionary measures. The army flushed the TTP
militants out of Malakand and restored the state’s writ in 2009. Later,
it was decided that army would remain in Malakand for two years. It was
hoped the local security infrastructure would be fully operational and
capable by then, however it’s not clear whether they are or aren’t. Police has been fairly
successful with the limited resources after it was given partial control
of Buner and Shangla in May 2011. But more information needs to be made
public about its strength and state of preparedness. Repeated attempts to
take feedback from police in the region could not materialise. Also, it is not clear
whether the federal government and the newly-reconstituted Cabinet
Committee on National Security have approved the plan and whether the army
and police are on board? Peace has been
established in the area but improved governance, provision of speedy/cheap
justice, equitable distribution of wealth, poverty alleviation through job
opportunities, rule of law and tolerance are other requisites for
sustainable peace. The state also needs to fight the “political,
psychological or religious” trends that lead to radicalism. There is no room for
complacency as militants continue their hit and run campaign. “Six of
SQJ activists have been killed in 2013 in target killings claimed by
Taliban. Unfortunately, there has been no further investigation,” says
Zahid Khan. Then Malakand Division
is both a settled district as well as part of PATA. Both Fata and PATA are
inherently different from rest of the country. The CrPC or PPC aren’t
applicable there – PATA are governed by PATA regulations and the Fata by
FCR. Income tax, customs act and many other laws of the land are not
applicable there unless specifically notified. These anomalies need to be
removed. The write blogs at
www.tahirkatlang.wordpress.com and can be contacted at tahir_katlang@yahoo.com
Karachi is no more a provincial or national issue now. A more complex regional and international vested interest operates behind what is unfolding in the city By Naseer Memon Karachi never
evaded limelight during recent decades, albeit under a gruesome spotlight.
The city has become an ever bleeding wound. Politics in the city is so
fractious that a single incendiary statement can trigger death of dozens.
An inflammatory rumour can ignite ethnic or sectarian inferno that may
take days to douse. A single day strike call causes hemorrhage of billions
to national exchequer and leaves millions of wage earners unfed. Debilitated by
unremitting violence, the city has descended into a quagmire of felony.
Magnitude and complexity of fratricide in Karachi has proved that the
prevailing malaise is far deeper and sporadic surgical interventions can
only restore semblance of peace that may be also too ephemeral to rejoice.
Long term socio-political solutions are already over due. The ongoing turf war
among different groups is embedded in years’ long inept politics of
myopic minds. Ethnic and social stratification fueled by free movement of
arms has made the city a fertile battleground for fiercely fragmented
population. Genesis of the turmoil can be traced into unregulated
migration and refugee settlement in 1947 that laid the foundation of the
powder-keg called Karachi now. Being the most developed
port city in 40s, the smart, educated and socially advanced migrant
community fastidiously chose Karachi and other developed towns to be their
abode. To make it almost exclusively a migrant city, administrative steps
were taken to keep other communities specially the natives at bay. According to a report of
Pakistan-Sindh Joint Refugees Council, by May 1948 more than 700,000
refugees entered Sindh and three-quarters of them settled in Karachi
alone. Sindhi speaking made 61 per cent of the population of Karachi in
the Census of 1941 against only six per cent Urdu speaking. Mass influx in
the wake of partition, altered the demographic composition of Karachi. A
corollary of unbridled emigration, Urdu-speaking population swelled to 50
per cent and Sindhi-speaking shrunk to only 8.6 per cent in 1951. This
deluge systematically excluded Sindhis from Karachi through evacuee
property laws and other administrative measures which created an ever
yawning crevasse among the two permanent communities of Sindh. Baring few
ruses hardly any serious efforts were taken to forge some meaningful bond
among Sindhi and Urdu speaking population. Being more educated,
socially advanced and better penetrated in civil-military bureaucracy,
urban leadership preferred bonhomie with Punjabi-led civil-military
establishment. Streak of superiority and imprudent political arrogance of
migrant community fueled an acrimony that jeopardized shared interest of
both Sindhi and Urdu-speaking communities. Enigmatic murder of
Liaqat Ali Khan marked the decline of migrant’s supremacy in the state
matters. Over the period, Punjabi-led establishment became the prime ruler
and the migrants were reduced to a junior partner. After the assassination
of Liaqat Ali Khan, the politics of Urdu-speaking community was trapped in
a pernicious mania of sense of insecurity. Outmaneuvering by Punjabi
establishment sowed the seeds of insecurity among them. This sense of
insecurity was fully exploited by their leadership while the false sense
of superiority distanced them from native Sindhis. Influx of Pakhtuns in
60s further multiplied the feel of insecurity. With the rise of Bhutto,
rural Sindh strode from a predominantly feudal society to a gradually
transforming middle class-based society. This middle class-led Sindhi
society asserted its legitimate political share in the province and
Urdu-speaking population already spooked by sense of insecurity construed
them as yet another competitor. Language riots and the
movement against Bhutto in 70s further drifted Urdu-speaking population
away from Sindhis as their leadership aligned with anti-Bhutto security
establishment, thus paving the way for a dark decade. In the ensuing
years, indifferent attitude of urban population during MRD movements of
1983 and 1986 was another lost opportunity to cement ties with local
population. Isolation of
Urdu-speaking community was further sharpened when the MQM raised the
slogan of Mohajir nation and entered into bloody confrontation with
Pakhtuns, Punjabis and Sindhis in 80s and 90s. Gory incidents of September
30 and October 1st, 1988, perpetrated by hawks on both sides worsened the
matters. This made Urdu-speaking population acrimonious to all other
communities thus becoming more vulnerable to exploitation with a sense of
insecurity. The irony was that a sense of insecurity was initially
inculcated by urban leadership, then nurtured and ultimately exploited to
its full at the cost of thousands of innocent lives. In the meanwhile, an
active social transition continued in rural areas of Sindh and during 90s
a self-grown rural middle class made inroads into urban centres.
Excruciating law and order situation and faltering agriculture economy
forced rural Sindhis to migrate to urban enclaves of Hyderabad and
Karachi. Ethnic riots in 80s and 90s virtually bifurcated Hyderabad and
Karachi into Sindhi and Urdu-speaking precincts. Since then the short
spells of peace were frequently punctuated by abominable bloodshed. However, the major
conflict in Karachi started when unabated migration of Pakhtun community
started claiming their share in businesses and politics. Major influx of
Pakhtun community from up country was witnessed after the army operation
in tribal areas. In 2008, ANP first time
scrambled to wring out two seats and became shareholder in Sindh
government. Baloch militancy further shoved the MQM from old Karachi and
deprived it of sizeable extortion revenue from its areas of influence.
Spook of false sense of insecurity and isolation has now attained a new
peak among Urdu-speaking population as they feel that Karachi is no more a
unilaterally regulated entity. Religious extremism is the latest entry
that has added a new dimension to prevalent anarchy. An estimated three to
four million illegal immigrants are also a contributing factor to the
ongoing malaise. Meanwhile, police
department went through a rapid institutional decay due to mass
recruitment of political loyalists by the PPP and the MQM. The recent
years witnessed an unprecedented surge in crime and homicide as the police
department has been paralysed. Gravity of the situation can be fathomed
from the statement of former DG Rangers Sindh, Major General Aijaz,
recorded before the Supreme Court on September 7, 2011. He made a
startling statement by lucidly mentioning that “the problem in Karachi
is very serious, rather more serious than that of South Waziristan. The
political face of the city has been taken hostage by militant groups of
political parties. Political parties are penetrated by the criminals under
the garb of political groups who use party flags. The militants and
criminals are taking refuge in the lap of political and ethnic parties
which use the flags of these parties to commit illegal activities with
impunity.” Politics of violence and
gun power that was induced in the city in mid eighties has now sprawled in
other communities with an alarming ferocity. This has perturbed the ranks
of the MQM who enjoyed almost unparalleled authority in yesteryears. The
party leadership seems to have got fractious and committing fatal mistakes
one after the other, thus making life tormenting for its own constituency.
The MQM’s
ethno-centric politics that refuses to shun violent means and its
addiction to power seat have impaired its cognitive abilities to take
sagacious political decisions. Demanding new provinces and issuing
irresponsible statements about integrity of Sindh at this juncture is a
decision bereft of political prescience that may erode the residual scant
affinity among the two permanent communities of Sindh. The MQM ought to
realise that sense of superiority, appetite for sole proprietorship of
Karachi and dictating terms through gun power would only heap more
miseries for Sindh, specially for Karachites. Also, Karachi is no more
a provincial or national issue now. A more complex regional and
international vested interest operates behind what is unfolding in the
city. The Nato’s exit from
Afghanistan in 2014 and Sino-American cold war make Karachi an epicentre
of the regional power race. A peaceful Karachi would only be possible if
politics is detached from violence, streets are indiscriminately combed to
flush out terrorists and their arsenal, police are purged of obnoxious
Trojan horses and illegal immigrants are expelled. Dilatory cure has
already perverted Karachi and any further laxity may culminate in a
meaningless mourning. All this requires a firm political will that is not
subdued by machinations of power politics. The author is a writer
and analyst; nmemon2004@yahoo.com
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