question
The soul of Islam

The 'secular' vs. 'religious' binary is extremely problematic, and there is a need to look towards a third alternative that recognises the Muslim sensibilities of ordinary people
By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
Since September 11, public discourse in the western world has revolved around a handful of polemical debates, none more controversial than that over the 'soul of Islam'. Many Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals alike have dismissed the violence that has been perpetrated by 'Islamists' as having nothing to do with Islam.

Newswatch
White House fib factory is running full tilt

By Kaleem Omar
If we, in this part of the world, have our rumour and  conspiracy--theory factories, people in the United States of America have their White House fib factory. That fib factory has been working three shifts ever since George W. Bush was sworn in as president and became the holder of an office once occupied by such towering figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

review
Countering terrorism, the political way

The first of a series of articles seeks to explore the 'new' phenomenon of extremist terrorists that seems to have engulfed the country, particularly its North Western territories
By R Khan

Extremism and terrorism are the curse of the contemporary world, whether it is in the form of neo-conservatism of President Bush or the clerical extremism in the Muslim countries, especially Pakistan. 

planning
Urban uplift

Indigenous strategies, institutional framework and implementation will go a long way in revitalising cities
By Dr Noman Ahmed
During the second week of July 2007, sections of the press reported that City District Government Karachi (CDGK) is facing acute problems in locating and allocating plots for CNG stations in the city, especially for buses. Safety measures, statutes related to land use conversion and public concern are some of the reasons in this regard.

Poverty despite productivity: Part 1 
Pakistan's economic engine is fuelled by cotton, yet the people in the cotton sector belong to the poorest segments of society
By Karin Astrid Siegmann
Cotton is grown on more than three million hectares (ha) in Pakistan, that is about one sixth of the total cultivated area. Annual production surpassed 2.4 million tonnes in the 2004/05 harvest, Pakistan's highest ever cotton production. It made the country the fourth largest producer world--wide. Directly, the 'white gold' accounts for a tenth of the value added in agriculture.

rights
The uncounted half

Despite being major food producers, the women in Pakistan remain dependent on their male relatives for access to land and housing
By Aoun Sahi
Rural women are an integral part of the agriculture sector in Pakistan as, according to the Economic Survey, they contribute 43 per cent of the total labour force in agriculture. They participate in all operations related to crop production such as sowing, weeding, and harvesting, as well as in post-harvest operations such as threshing, winnowing, drying, grinding, husking and storage.

 

Necessity of doctrine
Judiciary has to prove that it stands between the state and the individual to supervise a regime of the rule of law and not the rule of men with might
By Amjad Bhatti
The infamous presidential reference of March 9, 2007 has decidedly changed the contemporary juridical discourse in Pakistan. Nonetheless, three core issues emerged as the eventual dividends namely: irrelevance of 'doctrine of necessity'; judicial review or judicial activism; and public trust in judicial dispensation. 




question
The soul of Islam
The 'secular' vs. 'religious' binary is extremely problematic, and there is a need to look towards a third alternative that recognises the Muslim sensibilities of ordinary people

By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Since September 11, public discourse in the western world has revolved around a handful of polemical debates, none more controversial than that over the 'soul of Islam'. Many Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals alike have dismissed the violence that has been perpetrated by 'Islamists' as having nothing to do with Islam. Others have been more bold and insisted that violence and intolerance are not as recent phenomena as one would like to think and that, in actual fact, the use of violence for religio-political ends has been a constant in the Muslim world since the time of the Prophet. Indeed, the title of this article owes itself to the analyses of British Muslim scholar Ziauddin Sardar.

As one would expect, this debate has been coloured by the insecurities and biases about the Muslim world that remain deeply ingrained in western societies. Importantly such biases and insecurities can be traced at least as far back as the Crusades that marked medieval Europe's emergence from the so-called Dark Ages. Notwithstanding the racist tendencies latent in western countries, the debate over the 'soul of Islam' is a crucial one and it is unfortunate that this debate has not originated in the Muslim world rather than in the west.

The biggest supporters of the present regime have submitted that the 'enlightened moderates' have attempted to take back the 'soul of Islam' from the forces of bigotry that have monopolised public discourse on Islam at least since the Zia dictatorship. This is the constituency that roars in approval when hundreds of 'mullahs' are killed in commando operations or because thousands of tonnes of bombs are dropped on them from a mile high. This also happens to be the constituency most alienated from the vast majority of Pakistanis because of their lifestyles, their culture, and their politics.

There is little sense amongst this high elite that a large number of ordinary Pakistanis are deeply offended by the blatant surrender of sovereignty by the current regime to the United States, and the death and destruction that this surrender has visited upon hundreds, and maybe thousands of innocents. For the elite, the only thing that matters is that the 'mad mullahs' do not make further inroads into the 'civilised' world that they inhabit.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of Pakistanis, even if they are not particularly won over by the revivalist and utopian ideology that informs contemporary Islamic religio-political movements, share even less with our 'secular' elite. In fact, if anything, at least part of the reason why religious parties and groups are able to garner support in the wider society is because they work within the people, and have, to some extent, won the battles of hearts and minds, whereas the 'secular' elite have succeeded only in maintaining their many social privileges while failing miserably in the post-colonial nationbuilding project.

Having said that it is always important to reiterate that the 'secular' elite has instrumentalised Islam to no end to maintain its dominance. It is only because of the changed geo-political realities after 9/11 that the state has had to stop patronising the very same elements that are now said to be causing immense harm to the image of the Muslim world and indeed endangering the 'soul of Islam' itself. There is no attempt to historicise any of the analysis, nor would such an effort serve the purposes of empire and its henchmen running Pakistan.

Accordingly, there is an urgent need to mobilise political and intellectual circles within Pakistan, and indeed within the Muslim world more generally, to fill the huge gap in our collective memory without resorting to reactionary rejection of Islam under the guise of reviving that elusive 'secular' nationbuilding project. In other words there is a need to debunk the almighty myth that seems to be almost uncritically accepted throughout the Muslim world that Islam 'in history' was a holistic political, cultural and economic system that, if not perfect, closely approximates perfection.

Alongside this need to objectively study history, there is also a need to recognise that our secular elites do not offer a way out of the quagmire that is contemporary political Islam. Indeed the 'secular' vs. 'religious' binary is extremely problematic, and there is a need to look towards a third alternative that recognises the Muslim sensibilities of ordinary people while doing away with the instrumentalisation of Islam that has been the primary ideological tool employed by the secular state elite to maintain its privilege.

Such an alternative should build upon the numerous competing visions of Islam that have also existed alongside the highly orthodox and intolerant visions that inform political violence. In particular, the mystic tradition which has deep cultural roots across much of Pakistan offers a compelling challenge to the violence of 'Islamists'. This practice of Islam celebrates art and culture whereas the orthodox scripturalists reject such practices as un-Islamic. It allows space for dissent and difference, whereas the orthodox scripturalists condemn dissenters to the hell-fire.

Predictably, the state has attempted to instrumentalise the mystical tradition as well. The current regime comically formed the 'Sufi Council' in which the officebearers are none other than Pervez Musharraf, Chaudhry Shujaat and Mushahid Husain. This effort can be traced back to the Ayub period when the Auqaf Department was created to take over the direct administration of shrines. Such initiatives are no less cynical than state patronage of religio-political movements committed to violence. Ultimately the objective is only to ensure that the state remains the repository of Islamic ideology, whatever its forms.

It is high time that those who purport to be intellectually and politically committed to democratic values and practices stop propagating the binary of 'religion' and 'secularism' and thereby empowering the state to protect the cause of secularism against religious bigotry. Ultimately, a state that has always instrumentalised Islam cannot be trusted with doing anything other than changing its tune according to its perceived needs; it will never relinquish its ability to manipulate society through the use of Islam, and so to expect it to do away with a problem that it has itself created is simply naive.

Meanwhile given that religio-political movements still do not represent the dominant vision and practice of Islam in Pakistan, it is essentially to recognise that many activists of such movements can and will respond to principled anti-imperialist political alternatives that do not romanticise violence and purport to revive a perfect past, if such alternatives were to exist. To reject all of the large and growing number of young people drawn to such movements as 'mad mullahs' is part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

 

Newswatch
White House fib factory is running full tilt

By Kaleem Omar

If we, in this part of the world, have our rumour and  conspiracy--theory factories, people in the United States of America have their White House fib factory. That fib factory has been working three shifts ever since George W. Bush was sworn in as president and became the holder of an office once occupied by such towering figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Bill Clinton was impeached and nearly removed from office for lying to the American people about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. But President Bush and senior administration officials have been repeatedly lying through their teeth about far more serious issues, such as the war against Iraq, and getting away with it.

The Bush administration lied about Iraq posing an 'imminent threat to the national security of the United States.' There was no such threat. It lied about Iraq 'possessing weapons of mass destruction.' There were no such weapons. It lied about Iraq attempting to buy 'yellow-cake uranium' from Niger to make WMD. There were no such attempts. It lied about a mobile laboratory that was found by US troops in Iraq being a 'laboratory for making chemical weapons.' In fact, the 'laboratory' turned out to be a facility for filling weather balloons. And it lied about there being a 'link' between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime in 'planning the 9/11 attacks' against the United States -- a claim rejected not only by American intelligence agencies but also by the bipartisan commission appointed by Bush to investigate the attacks.

Ever since the US launched its war against Iraq in violation of every canon of international law and in flagrant defiance of world public opinion, the Bush administration has been coming out with ever--changing explanations about why it invaded and occupied the country. All these so-called explanations are nothing but lies, lies and more lies.

On July 4, 2007, Bush came out with yet another lie about why the United States had invaded and occupied Iraq. That lie came in a Fourth of July (US Independence Day) speech delivered by Bush to the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia National Guard in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Equating the war against Iraq with the 1776 US war of independence against the British, Bush said that like those American revolutionaries who 'dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty,' American soldiers in Iraq were also fighting 'a new and unprecedented war to protect US freedom.'

So US freedom now depends on reducing Iraq to rubble and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, does it? If Bush expects us to believe that, he must think we are so gullible that we'll believe anything, no matter how absurd or divorced from reality it is.

In a reprise of speeches he delivered throughout the 2006 US congressional mid--term election campaign (in which Bush's Republican Party lost control of the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democratic Party), Bush told his audience in Martinsburg that the threat that emerged on September 11, 2001 'remains,' and that 'a major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day.'

In his Fourth of July message, Bush was adamant that he would oppose calls to end the war in Iraq before he believes it has been won. "Withdrawing our troops prematurely based on politics, and not on the advice and recommendations of our military commanders, would not be in our national interest," he said.

But he was unable to explain just how the US national interest would be served in any way by carrying out more bombing campaigns and missile strikes against Iraq and killing more Iraqis.

In this latest whopper from the White House fib factory, Bush not only claimed that US forces in Iraq are fighting 'the same people' who staged 9/11, he also claimed that withdrawing US forces from Iraq would mean 'surrendering Iraq to al-Qaeda.'

As Eric Margolis noted in an article in The Toronto Sun newspaper on July 15, 2007, "These absurd assertions mark the latest steps in the Bush administration's evolving efforts to depict the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as battles against al-Qaeda."

In saying what he did in his Fourth of July speech about the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq meaning 'surrendering Iraq to al-Qaeda' Bush also conveniently failed to mention the fact that there were no so--called al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq before the US invaded and occupied the country. He also failed to mention that the vast majority of those fighting US forces in Iraq are, in fact, not al--Qaeda fighters but Iraqis who want the American occupation forces out of their country.

The Geneva Convention, to which the US is also a signatory, states that the people of a country occupied by foreign troops have every right to attack them in an effort to drive them out.

In his article in The Toronto Sun, Margolis said, "When marketers want to change the name of an existing product, they first place a new name in small type below the existing one. They gradually shrink the old name, and enlarge the new one until the original name vanishes."

As Margolis noted, that's what's been happening in Iraq. When the US invaded, Iraqis who resisted were branded 'Saddam loyalists, die-hard Baíathists or dead-enders.' Next, the Pentagon and mainstream US media (led by the likes of Fox News) called them 'terrorists.' Then, a tiny, previously unknown Iraqi group appropriated the name 'al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia' -- Mesopotamia being the ancient name for the land now known as Iraq.

Pouncing upon the name, the White House fib factory then began calling all of Iraq's 22 or more resistance groups 'al-Qaeda.' Gung--ho sections of the US media were quick to join this deception, even though the vast majority of Iraq's resistance groups had nothing to do with any so-called al-Qaeda movement. Indeed, it is far from certain that any such thing as al-Qaeda even exists.


Extremism and terrorism are the curse of the contemporary world, whether it is in the form of neo-conservatism of President Bush or the clerical extremism in the Muslim countries, especially Pakistan.

Extremist terrorism is not a new phenomenon or is linked with Muslims as is generally perceived. The Nazi agenda of Fuehrer Adolph Hitler in 1930s and 1940s in Germany, and the Fascism of Mussolini in Italy were epic examples of extremism. However, presently, the Muslim countries especially Pakistan are experiencing the emergence of radical extremism. The country has, of late, faced its worst ever cases of extremism and terrorism in Islamabad at Lal Masjid and a consequent spree of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people. Also, the country has had to bear with the May-12 carnage in Karachi at the hands of the non-religious extremists.

The clutches of extremists and terrorists seems to be getting stronger by the day. Apparently, the state and the society have fallen prey to their stranglehold. The odious aspect is that the extremists and terrorists are pursuing and implementing their radical agenda in the name of Islam.

There is a general consensus among the intellectuals, scholars, writers, and researchers that the underlying political reason for the spread of extremism in Pakistan is the absence of democracy or representative government. This is true to a certain extent because the unrepresentative regimes and the military authorities have had to depend upon clerical groups and the power of the pulpit to depoliticise the society. Depoliticisation naturally went in favour of the unrepresentative authority. It is generally believed that the seeds of extremism were sown far and wide during the rule of dictator General Zia ul Haq (1977-88). A migrant from Indian Punjab, Zia had a tendency towards clerics. He was lucky enough that due to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979, the US badly needed religiously motivated 'jihadis' to become cannon-fodder in the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance. Although there had been religious and ethnically based extremist demands in the early years too, the interplay between the rise of militant religious groups, government policies, and the growing poverty was unprecedented in the two decades spanning Zia's military regime and even in the subsequent years of 'democracy'. This period also witnessed the rise of sectarian and ethnic violence in Pakistan on a scale never seen before.

It was the misfortune of Pakistan and particularly the Frontier territories straddling all along the Durand Line to become frontline territories and a base for the recruitment, training and organisation of anti-Soviet resistance elements. The traditional political vacuum in FATA with no universal adult franchise and the extension of Political Parties Act were instrumental in converting these areas into dens of extremists. Whereas, in the rest of NWFP where Pakhtoon nationalist, reformist movement with its anti-violence philosophical traditions and Deoband Madrasa-linked JUI -- also with its anti-violent traditions -- were politically strong, but could not resist extremism to thrive under the military junta. In fact, the Pakhtoon nationalists having many links with the erstwhile Soviet Union could not openly condemn Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, thus losing ground to extremists in Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that the larger political parties sticking to their earlier policy of ignoring the Frontier, despite it being internationally and strategically very important, could not play their role in countering the establishment chicanery of turning these areas into extremist strongholds. 

At the same time, in the rest of the country, the draconian dictatorship of General Zia kept mainstream political leadership either exiled or jailed and the rest concentrated on struggling for the restoration of democracy. Therefore, it could not directly comprehend the thriving extremism under the veneer of pseudo-Islamisation of Zia. During this era, hundreds of madrasas sprang up like mushrooms throughout the country. Initially, a large number of Afghan refugees became students and a large number of those madrasas were run with the financial assistance of the Arab countries. By 1988, when Zia was killed, the clerical extremists took an undue advantage of the political vacuum created by his dictatorship, specially in FATA, and started playing a direct role in the making and unmaking of governments. Benazir Bhutto has time and again stated that Osama Bin Ladin used his fortune to dislodge her governments. However, until recently, despite decades of military patronage, flow of governmental and international funding, and a political discourse dominated by Islam, the constituency of militant Islam has been smaller. This trend had borne out in the elections, and the electoral performance of religious political parties remained dismal. However, with Pakistan's involvement in the US military offensive against Afghanistan in 2001, these political parties have been able to mobilise support for their political agendas and have even succeeded in coming into power.

An important political reason for the thriving of extremism in Pakistan during Zia was the erroneous thinking of Pakistani policymakers. It is often discussed that Pakistan supported the US-backed anti-Soviet resistance for its own security. However, the informed circles are of the view that the foremost reason of this was the elimination of unfounded threat embedded in history from Afghanistan. Zia thought that the best way to eliminate any threat such as the Pakhtoonistan Movement that always haunted Pakistani establishment through stepped up support to clerical elements within Afghanistan. As the perpetrators of the Pakhtoonistan Movement in Afghanistan were secular, liberal elements, Zia thought the clerics of Afghanistan could be supported to overtake the weak Afghan state. Through pumping billions of rupees from Pakistan's own exchequer along with US financial assistance, extremist clerics were made so strong to weaken the already enfeebled Afghan state where the tribes always had a voluntary allegiance with the rulers of Kabul. In fact, after the fall of Dr Najeeb, the last non-clerical head of Afghan state in 1992, the first so-called Mujahideen and then in 1996 Taliban overtake Afghanistan. The Afghan clerics also ran a number of madrasas in refugee camps of Pakistan and keep their war machines going in the ensuing civil war in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops. However, these muhajir-turned-mujahids were also used to fan sectarian extremism by the establishment in order to pursue their divide and rule policy with the assistance of Arab countries who wanted to wage a sectarian war far away from their territories.

The Pakistani origin extremist militants who took part in Afghan war energies had to be diverted after they had no scope in Afghanistan so Zia had a plan to use them to engage India in Kashmir through a guerrilla warfare which was implemented after his death that culminated in Kargil War. After the change in the state policy of reversal of traditional Kashmir policy these elements imbued with pseudo-Jihadi sentiments felt betrayed along with all those in the establishment who nurtured them. Perhaps a reverse brainwashing occurred and the passive schemers within the establishment emulating the active militants they initially tried to brainwash. Presently, the jihadis finding no space for expression of their inculcated dogmas and physical actions have now found it expedient to declare a war on Pakistan state. The ability of the extremist groups was enhanced by the deteriorating social and economic conditions, easy access to weapons on account of the Afghan war, support by the government and intelligence agencies to different groups for their own political goals, including the use of media to promote their causes.

It may be mentioned that it was not only clerical extremism that was given an opportunity to thrive in Pakistan but also ethno-nationalist extremism. In Karachi, Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) was propped up by the Zia-led military to counter the then most popular party the PPP in order to dismantle its stronghold in Sindh and Sindhi nationalist credentials. The ugliest manifestation was on May 12 this year when MQM bandits went on a killing spree in front of TV cameras.

Keeping in view the background a number of political measures are needed both at the macro level of society and micro-level. The foremost panacea is the introduction of genuine democracy which hitherto has never been allowed to be evolved and practised. Holding of rigged and suspected elections is not going to work at all. Even as a result of elections if a party or coalition gets government and de jure powers rest with the military and agencies as has been between the so-called democratic era of 1988-1999 extremism cannot be quarrantined. Transparent election without pre and poll day rigging by the establishment and political parties and even media should be ensured. The majority parties have to be given all the powers by the military while judiciary perhaps for the first time is favourably poised to play its constitutional role. Giving powers to the people's representatives would lead to formulation of rationale foreign and domestic policies in which people's interest would be given precedence instead of using extremism as a tool for attainment of objectives of foreign and domestic policies. However, polices could only be reflective of national interest and pragmatic if debated at length in both houses of parliament.

Dr Maqsood ul Hassan Nuri, a senior research fellow at Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) told TNS, "The problem of militancy and extremism should be approached politically and we have examples internationally. The Sikh insurgency in Eastern India could not be curbed through military means and it was the political engagement of the Sikh community and leadership which solved the problem befittingly. Now you see that despite being a religiously in minority Sikhs have their prime minster in the Hindu dominated India."

We have to make realise the extremists and militants that they have legitimate stakes in Pakistani state and unravelling of it is not going to serve their interests. Through this way their extremist proclivity could be marginalised."

In order to check extremism Pakistan has to formulate consistent policies. Inconsistent policy of the state has wreaked havoc. First, the policy was to make terrorists and then try to dismantle them. So the state has to pay a heavy cost for these discrepancies.

The most important political measure to counter extremism is to affect meaningful change in Pakistan's Afghan policy which instead of our strategists thinking to be our strategic depth has become a strategic ditch for us. Pakistan Afghan policy is mainly responsible for extremism in Pakistan. Dr Noori said, "An important aspect of extremism is that Pakistan has to review its Afghan policy as the policy of strategic depth is not relevant. We also have to realize our Afghan brethren that Pakistan is not against them. Recently, I visited Afghanistan and I got the feeling there that the Afghan intelligentsia think Pakistan is out there to turn their country into its fifth province. In fact, we in Pakistan should not be worried who is in power there. Pakistan and Afghanistan interest are symbiotic and no one can compromise other's interest to serve its end. Instead we should also increase our consulates in Afghanistan.

Dr Syed Alam Mehsud, who is a Vice President of Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) in NWFP and a tribesman from South Waziristan told TNS: "Unless the strategic depth policy is reversed and the Afghan phobia of our establishment ends I don't think that the state support to extremists could be scotched.

He giving another suggestion said, "Pakistani agencies should be brought under the control of parliament and they should be made accountable for their activities to the people of Pakistan. The problem is that our agencies have become adept in waging proxy wars and they did so in Kashmir, Bengal, Kargil, Kabul and FATA. Now these agencies without any responsibility towards the people do what they deem correct. There is urgent need to bring our foreign and domestic policies in people's hand our policies would remain myopic."

On the domestic front there is need to be creating a balance between the units of federation. Otherwise, in order to keep the lopsided status quo and highly centralised federal structure in which the central government amass resources and provinces cant' meet their expenditures, the state and its establishment had to depend upon extremists and other elements. Decentralisation and giving financial and executive powers to the provinces would make them more resourceful to challenge militancy.

As extremism and terrorism in Pakistan especially pertain to Frontier including NWFP and FATA, therefore, some drastic political measures need to be taken. The foremost is making FATA a settled areas and the best way to do is to merge FATA with rest of NWFP and giving it representation in NWFP Assembly. An important aspect of political reforms in FATA is to replace the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) with law of the mainland. In fact, one of the reasons for tribesmen tendency towards extremism is due to repressive ruling methodology of top officer political agent and his administration in every tribal agency. These steps along with a popularly elected agency councils would be instrumental in filling the political vaccum in FATA. Thus checking any possibility of using there areas by certain elements within our establishment or by foreign countries like India to create instability in Pakistan.

Dr Noori said an important aspect of marginalising extremists in Pakistan particularly their hideouts and influence in FATA is to allow political parties to carry out their activities there and organize tribesmen politically. He said, "To curb extremism economic development in marginalised areas especially the Frontier is very important. However, it should be ensured that the development process should be in harmony with the culture of these areas.

He opined, "Force is not a good option to curb militancy as it would further make the problem complex. In Bangladesh we tasted massive collateral damage and presently we cannot afford any large-scale such damage.

"In Frontier especially, the FATA traditional leadership structures and power centres have been dismantled and replaced by clerical extremists. These structures need to be brought back, reinforced and modernize," Dr Noori said.

"Another strand in strategy should be to that all foreigners from FATA should be expelled. The view that the Pakhtoons under their traditions have been hosting militants is fundamentally wrong. Because Pakhtoons definitely have the traditions to give shelter in their homes those who ask for the same, the foremost prerequisite for this is to take any arms which the guests have and never allow them to use the guest's house to attack the neighbours or someone else," Dr. Mehsud said.

He opined that the tribesmen owned 'jirga' should be restored.

In Frontier, the nationalist parties have also had to play a more proactive role. They do not have to restrict to mere slogans for provincial rights because due to their inactivity and failure in delivering despite having a popular mandate in Pakhtoon areas disenchanted people and made them fall into the lap of clerical and militant groups.

The so-called religious parties having their government in NWFP and Balochistan since 2002 have to be asked by the state to clarify their position over militancy and extremism. They have either to operate in democratic, electoral politics and have to stop their support to extremists and terrorists and also to use their own youths in militant activities. For instance, the recently wanted militant Taliban leader Abdullah Mehsud was found in the house of JUI-F leader in Zhob while the party is also said to have links with Taliban in Waziristan. This hobnobbing with the militants is due to the self-centred approach of its head Fazur Rahman. He by having links with militants on the one hand want to have influence in the extremist controlled areas in order to win some seats in elections and on the other using this influence enhance his bargaining position to secure benefits from the government and establishment. When Fazl says the key of "peace in FATA and Afghanistan lies in his hands," he means business. The JUI has to go back to its pacifist anti-extremist traditions otherwise, there are ample chances of the radicalization of its organisation. This has already started on the grass roots.

The Jamaat-e-Islami has to renounce links and declare that it does not, as a policy, believe in militancy. Otherwise, its record in taking part in militancy against Bengalis in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Kashmir suggests otherwise. The establishment also has to stop supporting the JI for its vested interests as it did in the past.

Dr Mehsud said, "Religious parties should give a clear 'fatwa' if suicide attacks are 'haram' or not. In Pakhtoon areas, all the political forces -- at least the nationalist democratic parties -- should put their heads together and join hands to find a solution even if the clerical parties are not ready to do so."

 

(The writer is a journalist/political analyst and researcher: razapkhan@yahoo.com)


planning
Urban uplift
Indigenous strategies, institutional framework and implementation will go a long way in revitalising cities

By Dr Noman Ahmed

During the second week of July 2007, sections of the press reported that City District Government Karachi (CDGK) is facing acute problems in locating and allocating plots for CNG stations in the city, especially for buses. Safety measures, statutes related to land use conversion and public concern are some of the reasons in this regard.

Unavailability of appropriate spaces for standby generators, shortage of parking spaces for the exponentially rising number of vehicles, safe locations for erecting publicity signage and billboards, informal conversion of residential properties for educational and commercial purposes are some of the chronic matters that are faced by civic agencies.

It must be taken into account that cities are living entities. With the passage of time, the need for transformation becomes unavoidable. Civilised societies choose a path of planned transformation to benefit all sections of communities. Corresponding management, financial and technical capacities are developed by civic authorities to deal with these issues. In contrast, we find that our civic agencies and upper tiers of government prefer to entirely depend on foreign agencies to share this burden.

Various agencies have offered to lend funds for urban development assistance in Pakistan during the last few months. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the most prominent of them. Amongst the several packages announced by ADB, funding for urban renewal programmes in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar is an important mention. A potential loan of USD 800 million -- tied with an expensive technical assistance package -- is being pushed with new vigour and zeal. Whereas one can question this programme on the basis of ADB's funded ventures of the past, there is no denying the fact that there is a desperate need to introduce strategic urban renewal and revitalisation progammes in almost all large cities of the country.

Over burdened and dilapidated infrastructure; unplanned conversion of land uses; rampant rise in densities (especially in city centre areas); run down status of public building stock and amenities; medieval modes of commuting and public transport systems and incompatibility of existing cities with the ever pressing demands of contemporary living are few reasons that can justify the initiation of urban renewal progammes. However, wisdom demands that this initiative has to be self planned and home grown. Its agenda should be developed through independent studies and analysis.

A rational approach would be to evolve indigenous strategic and institutional frame work as well as implementation mechanisms for this vital assignment. It is common sense that when the local capacity for planning and execution will be developed, the absorption of any relevant international or local funding shall generate useful results. Many useful feedbacks can be obtained from regional experiences.

The Indian government launched Jawahar Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005 in a bid to focus attention on integrated development of infrastructure. For this seven years initiative, 63 cities have been earmarked including the mega cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai. It may be noted that the total allocation is a whooping one trillion Indian rupees through the combined portfolio of national and international funding.

The JNNURM has given an enormous opportunity for the revitalisation of Indian cities in an institutional manner. The fact that all provincial capitals and cities of historic, cultural and touristic significance are included clearly shows that a massive uplift is expected from this indigenous exercise. However, the approach outlined for planning and implementation is fairly scientific in nature. The release of investment funds is made conditional to the preparation of a city development plan (CDP). This plan has to be based on assessment and analysis of existing situations, review of potentials and constraints, vision building for the city, formulation of city development strategies and preparation of city investment plan/financial strategies.

As Amitava Basu -- a New Delhi based development practitioner -- puts it, it is a laudable effort that will surely improve the fast urbanising regions in India. It will also act as a consolidating tool for urban governance as the local bodies shall plan and implement the most strategic urban development projects with institutional assistance from JNNURM.

Our urban context is now replete with dilapidated and run down neighbourhoods where the basic ingredients of life are difficult to sustain. In other words, these localities have become slums. Apart from the spread out squatter settlements most of which are passing through different levels of urban metamorphosis, many planned localities have become run down and dilapidated due to neglect and haphazard development. City cores, walled cities of Lahore, Multan and Peshawar; the Hyderabad, Quetta and Rawalpindi city centres as well as older neighbourhoods in Faisalabad are some visible examples. Two types of strategies have been applied in such circumstances.

Community-based participatory strategies have generated useful results where slum dwellers have been motivated to evolve through cooperative action. There are many examples from South Asia that can be taken as examples. A Slum Improvement Project (SIP) was launched in Dhaka, Bangladesh in the 1980s to upgrade the spread out slums. Unemployment and under employment amongst slum dwellers; absence of urban basic services including water supply, sewerage and drainage; vulnerability to disasters such as cyclones and torrential rains; organic layouts and high density settlements; acute problems in public health; very limited literacy and absence of governmental interest were some of the prominent ailments.

By introducing simple but doable interventions such as capacity building of local bodies and municipal corporations, community mobilisation (particularly women) and sustained provision of basic health services, a sizable impact was created. In a time period of 15 years, 32000 slum households could be directly benefited in 185 slum clusters in 25 cities. The project was acknowledged globally, especially in the Second UN Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul.

Review of urban renewal schemes that are conventionally planned show that they focus on the supply of physical ingredients with an objective to raise economic returns. As the point of view and interest of poor and weak communities are set aside, they become a nightmare for the down trodden.

For example, local bodies in Pakistan begin upliftment exercises by demolitions and evictions of the poor and vulnerable. One finds that helpless hawkers, vendors and the like are pushed away from their locations of petty business and even residence. The same administrative bodies look the other way when it involves encroachments and land grabbing by powerful land mafia, members of law enforcement agencies and political groups. Whereas illegal occupation of properties and land is not a commendable option, the corrective actions have to treat all the violators alike.

In the rising tide of commercialisation and real estate development, it is feared that the entrepreneurs will now colonise strategic squatter settlements/low income localities as the prospective sites of re-development. Locations close to city centres and business districts will be the most affected sites. In the prevailing tense social situation, such actions are likely to generate unwanted unrest in our cities and towns.

Urban revitalisation is a much needed intervention for a sizable number of Pakistani cities. The relevant knowledge from the field experiences and existing situation demands the development and application of carefully drafted approaches. The federal government must consider the creation of a federal support body for urban renewal and re-development with a clear mandate. As urbanisation is rampant and its effects have already begun developing complexities in various regions, this matter can not deferred any longer. The next issue is the availability of qualified and motivated human resource. If the respective municipal institutions and development bodies possess appropriate staff strength, many of the imminent issues can and will be resolved at the local level. The next issue is to evolve a system of participatory planning and decision making.

Many decisions related to the choice of locations of new urban facilities and upgradation of older ones can only prove effective when the area interest groups are taken into confidence. Efforts should be made to raise the local finances for development and management of urban renewal and re-vitalisation. Even large cities such as Karachi and Lahore have to reinvigorate options of raising revenue for such ventures.

The local bodies must also recognise the local initiatives for community improvement. Such examples which have generated useful results must be upgraded and replicated in other similar contexts.

 


Poverty despite productivity: Part 1 
Pakistan's economic engine is fuelled by cotton, yet the people in the cotton sector belong to the poorest segments of society

By Karin Astrid Siegmann

Cotton is grown on more than three million hectares (ha) in Pakistan, that is about one sixth of the total cultivated area. Annual production surpassed 2.4 million tonnes in the 2004/05 harvest, Pakistan's highest ever cotton production. It made the country the fourth largest producer world--wide. Directly, the 'white gold' accounts for a tenth of the value added in agriculture. Through its use in the textile and clothing industry, Pakistan's industrial backbone, it is indirectly responsible for another tenth of the GDP and about two thirds of total merchandise exports. Pakistan's productivity fares well in international comparison (Table 1). Although, for example, Pakistani cotton is sown on about a third of the acreage that is covered by Indian cotton fields, its harvest is not substantially less.

The most important cotton--growing districts in Punjab are located in the Seraiki belt of Southern Punjab and include Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Vehari, Muzzafargarh, Lodhran, Khanewal, Rajanpur, Multan, Bahalwalnagar and Dera Ghazi Khan. Sixteen cotton--growing districts of Punjab account for about 80 per cent of the national area under cotton, whereas the remaining share of fields are almost entirely found in Sindh. The hot and dry climate, especially in the districts of Sanghar, Ghotki, Khairpur, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Nowshero Feroze, and Sukkur, is conducive to cotton-farming. In terms of acreage and harvest, cotton production is larger in Punjab as compared to Sindh, though. average yields are higher in the main cotton--cultivating districts of Sindh..

Paradoxically, the productivity of its cotton-based agriculture hasn't made the cotton belt itself rich. Access to food in cotton growing districts of Pakistan is low to -- mostly -- extremely low.

Amongst the poor, women and girls are further marginalised. Women of rural Pakistan including the cotton belt play a major role in agricultural production, livestock raising and cottage industries. A majority of women, working as unpaid family helpers, are not paid for their crucial economic contribution. They participate in operations related to crop production such as sowing, transplanting, weeding and harvesting, as well as in post-harvest operations. They carry out these tasks in addition to their domestic chores of cooking, taking care of children, elderly and disabled, fetching water and fuel and cleaning and maintaining the house. Obviously, these women work longer than men do. Surveys have revealed that a woman works 12 to 15 hours a day on various economic activities and household chores.

Despite their involvement in the rural economy, women have hardly any ownership of nor control over resources. Women work and produce on land they commonly do not own. Due to the societal perception of men as the household's main 'breadwinners' and women as supplementary income-earners, they are prevented from searching for paid employment and, consequently, have limited access to and control over financial resources. Where women do earn an income it is often rather the stick of poverty rather than the carrot of gainful employment, which persuades them to join the labour force. Patriarchal gender norms reinforce this economic subordination. Girls are taught not to value themselves when it comes to equality with males in the family. This is expressed in the distribution of food between female and male household members as well as in the lack of decision--making power regarding, education, health, marriage, family-planning etc.. Significant gender gaps in education and health indicators are the result. For instance, in rural Punjab and Sindh, female adult literacy is 30 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, on average as compared to 56 per cent for men in both provinces. The cotton--growing districts of Punjab are at the bottom of the provincial ranking of female literacy.

More than one and a half million farmers produce cotton, that means the

'white gold' contributes to the income of every tenth household in the country. Of these, more than two--thirds own some or all of their land, whereas one fifth are share--croppers with no fields of their own. Earnings from cotton sales accounts for 40 per cent and 45 per cent of household income of landowners and sharecroppers, respectively. Rather than making them rich, this high degree of dependence on one crop makes them vulnerable. As compared to wheat farmers, for example, who use their produce for household consumption as well, cotton-producers are entirely at the mercy of market fluctuations. Resultantly, among cotton farmers, 40 per cent of landowners and two thirds of sharecroppers are in the lowest two fifths of the consumption distribution. Households depending on sharecropping and selling labour for their livelihoods include about one fifth of the rural population and have the highest incidence of poverty.

Small and marginal farmers face risks due to the high incidence of pest infestation -- and equally great financial and health hazards resulting from the use and overuse of pesticides for 'plant protection.' About eighty percent of all pesticides consumed in Pakistan are used on cotton fields. The so--called 'pesticide treadmill', i.e. the necessity to use more and more pesticides due to resistances developed in pests as well as the fact that pesticide prices have dropped since imports were liberalised in 1995, have raised consumption considerably. During the same period, yields have not risen significantly, though, raising questions regarding the effectiveness of increased pesticide consumption. The effects on their own, their workers and communities' health are disastrous. Pesticide poisoning with symptoms ranging from mild headache via skin allergy to cancer of internal organs is chronic among cotton pickers, especially in the post-harvest period.

Pesticides and fertilizer alone represent about a third of the costs incurred in cotton cultivation. Lacking storage facilities and the money to hold on to the produce for better prices, forces farmers to sell their produce immediately after the harvest in order to meet cash requirements for the purchase of inputs. Often, they would even sell their standing crop. The high rate of inflation during the past years has aggravated the situation. Resultantly, many farmers get trapped in a spiral of indebtedness. The resulting enormous pressure to produce higher yields especially on low--income small farms and for tenants also induces a lack of concern for health risks, degradation of water and soil, and, thus, future productivity.

The dramatic growth rates in cotton production have generated high demand for women's labour as harvesting cotton is an almost exclusively female task. Million tonnes of cotton are hand-picked by women and girls every year between August and February in Pakistan's cotton belt. In an environment characterised by poverty, cotton pickers are socially and economically even more disadvantaged. As compared to other agricultural workers, their wages are low. Their precarious status as seasonal, contract and piece rate workers as well as their poverty and poor bargaining power contribute to suppress their earnings. Their health is at risk by the chronic exposure to poisonous pesticides - but they lack the means for medical treatment.

A recent study undertaken by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) identifies close ties between global cotton markets and poverty in Pakistan's cotton belt. It shows that lower cotton prices in Pakistan resulting from the decline in world prices in the second half of the 1990s contributed to the rising levels of poverty among cotton--producing households. A simulated increase of low cotton prices in 2001/02 back towards the higher levels of earlier years is assumed to move a substantial number of cotton farmers out of poverty. At the national level, a 20 per cent increase in cotton prices is estimated to reduce poverty among all cotton-producing households from 40 per cent to 28 per cent. According to the simulation, almost two million people would thus be pulled out of poverty. The findings stress the case for a reduction of subsidies for cotton farmers, especially in the USA, which artificially increase global prices for the 'white gold' by 10-25 per cent.

Yet, in practice, it is questionable, whether global price increases would trickle down to those at the beginning of the cotton chain as smoothly as assumed in model simulations. Power differentials between different players in Pakistan's 'cotton league' has a crucial role to play. The substantial market power of yarn manufacturers in particular obviously has helped them to ensure low input costs and thus their competitiveness and economic gain. The picture that emerges here rather displays economic and export growth that is based on the weak bargaining power and, resultantly the poor earnings of the most labour--intensive part of cotton and cotton-based T&C production. It is time to acknowledge that national economic successes are based on exploitation of the marginalised -- and to change this situation.

 

Karin Astrid Siegmann works as a Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad. This article series on Pakistan's cotton sector is based on the SDPI study 'Weakest link in the textile chain. Pakistani cotton pickers after the quota expiry'.

 


rights
The uncounted half
Despite being major food producers, the women in Pakistan remain dependent on their male relatives for access to land and housing

By Aoun Sahi

Rural women are an integral part of the agriculture sector in Pakistan as, according to the Economic Survey, they contribute 43 per cent of the total labour force in agriculture. They participate in all operations related to crop production such as sowing, weeding, and harvesting, as well as in post-harvest operations such as threshing, winnowing, drying, grinding, husking and storage. They carry out these tasks in addition to their normal domestic chores. Despite the fact that they share an equal or, at times, greater workload, the rural women are not fully involved in decision-making about the growing or sale and purchase of crops or the selling and owning of the family land and property.

According to the official data (based on the Labour Force Survey), in the year 2005-6 in Pakistan, 68.9 per cent of women as compared to 38 per cent of men were engaged in agriculture and related activities. Nearly 36-38 per cent of the economically active rural women work on their own family farms.

Though our constitution and religion both give women the right to possess property, it is the legal complexities, the lack of political will, and discriminatory cultural practices that make it almost impossible for women to own land or involve in decision making in agriculture.

Rahat Bibi of village Arrakh in district Swabi, NWFP, is the mother of three sons and four daughters. Her husband owns two acres of land and they both work on this land to earn bread and butter for their family. "I suggested my husband to take some land on lease as an additional source of income. Initially, he rejected my idea but when I insisted that our daughters, who by virtue of of them being girls were not 'entitled' to study in schools, would help us at the farm, he agreed and took two acre of land on 2/3 shares. Now we work together on that land. Although our level of effort is more than that of the men in the family, I feel so discouraged when my husband and sons do not value our suggestions or judgement," she says.

For the most part, her husband grows tobacco, but the post-harvest work that is considered more hazardous and involves greater hard work is looked after by the women folk.

"But, finally, when tobacco is ready for sale, it is entirely my husband's decision that counts. We have no say in the process of sale and after-sale. So, all the money goes to my husband, and he spends most of it on himself and, at best, on our male children."

Rahat is happy anyway that her sons are getting education, though she feels sorry for her daughters at the same time.

One of the main reasons for this injustice, according to Rahat Bibi, is depriving the women of their right to the land. She says that her brothers are also not ready to give her her due share in her father's property.

The situation is, unfortunately, the same almost everywhere. "If I am allowed to make the decision about what to grow, my first preference will be growing wheat to ensure the availability of food for my family all through the year and other cash crops," she adds.

The civil society organisations are of the view that government departments are equally responsible for the situation. Sameena Nazir, Executive Director, Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy (PODA), says that the role of the government in the lives of the rural women in the Potohar region -- as in other areas of the country -- is minimal or nonexistent. "For example, there is not a single female agriculture extension worker in district Chakwal. It is rare to see the local agriculture officer or extension worker making any effort to meet the rural women farmers. This happens because the rural women are not considered farmers but are viewed as women who work on the land," she says.

Similarly, according to Sameena, women are not considered the rightful owners of land and are not involved in decisions about land disputes that are usually settled among the males of the community in local mosques or in courts.

She says that in order to empower women farmers in her region PODA -- with the help of Action Aid -- initiated a Seed Bank project two years back. "At the start of the project, only five women farmers were members of Seed Bank. But, the number has crossed 150. Our members, in order to gain maximum profit, have switched from food crops to cash crops and are also using imported seed."

Sameena believes that the Seed Bank project has given women farmers an opportunity to store and conserve the seeds, and enhance women control over productive resources.

Shujaat Ali Khan, Secretary Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG), a network of civil society organisations and farmer groups, says that 70 per cent of women labour force in Pakistan is engaged in the agriculture sector. Yet, women farmers' contribution is not recognised. "They don't even have the right to get loans from banks as access to agriculture support and extension services (including agro micro-credits) are strongly linked to land ownership which they do not have," he tells TNS.

A United Nations study shows that in agricultural activities women spent 39.34 per cent and 50.42 per cent of their time in rice and cotton growing areas of Pakistan respectively while a survey conducted in five districts of NWFP reveals that 82 per cent of women participate in agro-based activities.

According to Shujaat, it is considered that only two per cent of women in Pakistan have the right to own the land while in decision-making only one per cent have some kind of say.

He says that according to a survey of 1,000 households in rural Punjab in 1996, only 36 women owned land in their name, while only nine had the power to sell or trade it without obtaining prior permission from their male relatives.

"Women's land rights and their importance in decision-making are closely linked to their social, political, and economic status, as well as other broader issues such as economic development and the availability of food," he adds.

The situation is worse in Sindh. Mir Zadi, a 40 years old woman from rural Sindh tells TNS that the women farmers in her area are forced to live like animals. "They work all day in the fields besides managing home, whereas the male members in the family spend their time playing cards or gossiping with friends," she says, adding that when it comes to reaping the crops it is the male members who dictate the process and grab all the income.

ActionAid Pakistan, in collaboration with SAAG, has started a campaign on women's rights with regard to land owning and decision-making in the agriculture sector. Aisha Mukhtar, Programme Officer Women's Right ActionAid tells TNS that despite being major food producers, the women in Pakistan remain dependent on their male relatives for access to land and housing.

"We want that women farmers should be given their rights. As part of our awareness-raising campaign, we formed a women farmers' national assembly on July 10, 2007, in Islamabad. Hundreds of women farmers from around the country participated in the programme and shared their experiences."

According to Aisha, the various ill-famed traditions in our society such as marriage to the Holy Quran, 'watta satta', and honour killings are linked with depriving the women of their inherited land.

"We are lobbying so that women should be given the right to their land, access to information and agriculture services. Their right to own the agricultural produce and income must be recognised, and women farmers should also be given access to the market."

In this way, she adds, the women farmers will be in a better position to educate and train their children and also to ensure food security for their families. She also says that the government can play an important role in empowering women as such, "but it is, in fact, the duty of the society at large to ponder over the situation and to permit women their basic rights."


Necessity of doctrine
Judiciary has to prove that it stands between the state and the individual to supervise a regime of the rule of law and not the rule of men with might

By Amjad Bhatti

The infamous presidential reference of March 9, 2007 has decidedly changed the contemporary juridical discourse in Pakistan. Nonetheless, three core issues emerged as the eventual dividends namely: irrelevance of 'doctrine of necessity'; judicial review or judicial activism; and public trust in judicial dispensation. 

 

Doctrine of necessity

Doctrine of necessity has served as a theoretical tool orchestrated by the pragmatics of power not only in countries like Pakistan but in the US as well. 

Kenneth S. Davis, a biographer of America's thirty-second president Franklin D Roosevelt (1882-1945), termed the Roosevelt-Supreme Court conflict of 1930 as "the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War". This bid in which US president wanted to pack the court with his favourites is still known as the 'court-packing fiasco' in American history.

In Pakistan the doctrine of necessity was first used in 1954 as a judicial logic -- termed by some as 'judicial fiction' -- to validate the dissolution of first constituent assembly headed by Khawaja Nazimuddin and presided over by Maulvi Tameezuddin as a speaker. The then chief justice Munir sided with the then governor-general Ghulam Mohammad by giving the reason that constitution had to be held in abeyance to preserve the country.

In 1958, the martial law of General Ayub Khan was upheld by the Supreme Court of Pakistan which later remained intact for 11 years suspending civil liberties in the country. In 1977 General Ziaul Haq dissolved parliament and abrogated the constitution, which had been unanimously approved by all political parties in 1973. Nusrat Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party knocked at the doors of Supreme Court but once again the doctrine of necessity came to rescue the military dictator.

More recently, in the Zafar Ali Shah case the full bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan not only validated the military coup by Pervaiz Musharraf in 2000 but also extended some powers to the regime to amend the constitution.

However, the verdict of Justice Khalil ur Rehman Ramdey's larger bench is believed to have dealt a fatal blow to the 'doctrine of necessity' by setting aside the president's reference of misconduct and forced leave against the Chief Justice. During the four month-long proceedings and public protests, the infectious doctrine was brought under rigorous scrutiny. The superior court resumed to wash the blot, which has subsequently raised high hopes for questioning the legitimacy of present regime.

 

Judicial review/activism

Judicial activism is divided into two broader categories i.e. interpretive and legislative. The dominant narratives of modern history suggest that John Marshall (1755-1835), a captain-turned federalist politician, lawyer and chief justice of American Supreme Court was a proverbial architect of judicial activism in the US. Some view this judicial logic as trespassing in legislature's domain and some term it a buffer against the arbitrariness of executives and legislatures in the course of social policy.

According to Waseem Ahmad Qureshi, a legal expert "judicial activism is the last refuge against an arbitrary and irresponsible government... a vigilant judiciary upholds the constitution, confining the legislative and executive to their constitutional spheres. It acts as a check against the privileged power abusers of the society i.e. the building, crime and drug mafias, corrupt parliamentarians and the influential 'law moulders."

After the restoration of chief justice, the future contours of judicial review and activism are being discussed amongst legal and political fraternity. Will the renewed spirit of Supreme Court steer up these issues of greater importance which have a direct bearing on the civil and political choices of the people? Can president be elected from the incumbent assemblies? Should Musharraf contest presidential election in uniform? Would exiled leadership be allowed to mobilise and organise their parties for the forthcoming election? Should the authors of presidential reference be held accountable for the cost they caused to the nation and public exchequer? Would the apex court strike down on public policies persuaded by the regime? Would the judiciary become more pro-active and benevolent for the public interests?

Public trust

During the lawyers movement one concern that was raised time and again was that it was a judicial issue that should not be politicised. The apologists of this version wanted to keep the issue confined to the folds of legal debate without allowing it to slip into the public and political spheres.

General Musharraf was quoted saying repeatedly that the judicial controversy was 'a temporary irritant'. He also advised in one of his public gatherings: "We must stop taking this issue on to the streets and making it into a political issue".

But this vision was not shared by the people at large. People poured their support in this legal battle as proponents of judicial autonomy. The case was argued in and out of the court simultaneously. The resisting lobbies argued that the suspension of CJ itself was a politically motivated initiative. Public stood by the lawyers which gave the apparently judicial controversy a political overtone of resistance.

This triggered the debate: Is justice apolitical, anyway? Is there any correlation between justice and public trust? Is public not entitled to hold and exercise its perspectives in the affairs of governance -- judicial dispensation being one integral part of it?

Peoples' access to and trust in the justice system is still an unanswered question in Pakistan. It draws a line of power between influential and disenfranchised. The future course of judicial activism would provide a baseline for the public trust in judiciary.

Necessity of doctrine

In the aftermath of CJ verdict, the leading lawyers of the movement affirmed that "this was only the first phase of the movement; the second phase had begun now which would be directed towards the supremacy of civilian rule in Pakistan." This was asserted by Munir A Malik, the president of Supreme Court Bar Association and endorsed by his colleagues and core group who spearheaded the movement with professional diligence and intellectual acumen.

Political parties and civil society groups also expressed their hopes for a more organic change in the country empowering people to make and break their representative governments. This public demand underlines the need of 'paradigm shift' in judiciary -- a shift from the 'doctrine of necessity' to the 'necessity of doctrine'.

The contours of this new doctrine would have to be determined by the will of people rather than the will of powerful. Military rules, executive coercion and legislature arbitrariness need to be countered and regimes should be sent back to public to seek the legitimacy instead of giving indemnity to those who step in conveniently and abrogate the constitution.

Through this doctrine judiciary has to prove that it stands between the state and the individual to supervise a regime of the rule of law and not the rule of men with might.

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