A week from elections, the mood in Pakistan seems sombre. Call it what you want, the elections are not whipping up the kind of excitement they did in 2013 or 2008.
This time around there are accusations, resentment and disdain for the whole process.
In such circumstances, one is faced with questions like, is this whole thing worth it? Why are we even doing this again if the same set of people will get elected again on different party platforms? What is the point of this? Why should I even vote?
To the last question, Sarah Khan makes a compelling argument about voting. For the rest of the questions and general disillusionment with democracy, I am putting forward a case for proportional representation.
In a federation like Pakistan, we are stuck with a parliamentary system even though majority of the governance is now with the provincial governments.
As I have explained in my earlier articles, the role of our elected officials and our expectations from them are at complete odds.
This creates a disillusionment with the system that most people cannot articulate and simply call the system broken or corrupt.
I am here to tell you that it is not that our system is broken or corrupt; we just have the wrong system in place.
What Pakistan needs is a proportional representation system, at least at the National Assembly level.
What would this entail?
In simplest terms, people will not vote for a candidate, they will only vote for a party. A party will produce a list of candidates that it wishes to send to the NA and based on the national vote share of each party, it will get that percentage of seats in the NA.
For instance, if the NA was just 200 seats, a party securing 25 percent of the national vote would get 50 seats in the parliament.
The party makes a list of 200 candidates based on priority and the top 50 get sent to the parliament based on the vote share.
The advantage of this is that the voices of even the smaller parties get heard.
There are limitations to this system. For instance, a party needs to secure at least five percent of the national vote to have representation in parliament. But even with that, it gives a wider representation to different ideas and beliefs in the country.
Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway and Denmark are just some of the countries that rely on the proportional representation system for elections.
In all these cases, parties come up with a candidate list specifically designed for the job of legislation.
However, in Pakistan we have more potential advantages than those enjoyed by the Europeans.
No more electables
The most significant advantage we can reap from the system of proportional representation would be getting rid of electables.
Because there is no longer constituency politics for the national level and there are not even the limited development funds at play anymore, political parties can talk policy and long-term planning to the electorate and put forth genuine experts and newer faces without the fear of being beaten out by electables.
This also helps get rid of the party-hoppers who simply keep moving parties and coming back into government.
For a country like Pakistan, where electables are by default assumed to be corrupt, this change could give an aura of change to the system that a small, yet loud segment of our society believes is the end all evil in Pakistan.
All in all, this could end up providing significantly better legislators for us all.
More diverse voices
Consider an issue every party deals with — losing a seat by 1,000 or 2,000 votes. Thousands of your supporters voted and yet you lost a seat. Does that mean that the voices of those thousands should be silenced?
Maybe not. If we do have the proportional representation system, then those votes do not go to waste.
Instead, they help give a political party a chance to send one more person from their list to the national assembly.
This would be extremely effective to get voices like the Awami Workers Party into parliament or other smaller, specialised regional parties.
This helps with the diversity of the legislative process for a federation like ours.
Serious policy making & party professionalisation
Because parties no longer need to deal with electables or having uneven development across the country, they can nominate candidates that can do real work they are supposed to do: legislate laws and work on policies for the long run.
Because parties would be more likely to nominate people with professional credentials as opposed to those who can wrangle up votes in a very specific geographic area, the parties would then have the chance to professionalise and build structures that could attract genuine technocrats and field experts into the fold.
What we can potentially have in Pakistan is an overall improvement in the kind of politics we are undertaking at the national level, rather than cribbing about electables being necessary to win and questioning each other’s faith in the process.
Dampening polarisation
Polarisation online and in mass media has been on the rise recently.
In an election cycle, we can see voters getting angry and practically hating those who do not fall in line with their views.
We have a minimised space for dissent and disagreement. But if our system did not pit us against one another on a constituency by constituency basis, and our arguments remained at the policy level, the chances for this kind of rabid polarisation to prevail will diminish.
If voting on the national level is based on proportion, everyone’s voice gets heard. We can have substantial discussions and, in most cases, will be forced to create coalition governments.
The overall state of our democracy could be stronger because we are not obsessed with constituency level politics any more.
I want to lay out this idea as we walk into another election on the first-past-the-post system.
This system has not delivered at the federal level and expecting it to deliver is dishonest about democracy and its potential in a place like Pakistan.
A proportional representation system with certain conditions, like a minimum required voting percentage to get entry into parliament could do better for us.
We need our voters to believe again in democracy and one way to do that is to operate on a system where everyone gets heard and everyone has a say.
Our system is not broken, it is just simply the wrong system.
Are you a researcher working on political reform? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com
It is midnight in Balochistan. A WhatsApp group called the Baloch Journalist Circle remains abuzz. There are around a hundred notifications.
These are messages from reporters from across the province. Some are filled with bragging claims from print and television reporters how they have inside information about which candidates will be winning the national and provincial assembly seats on July 25.
Others reveal how much money candidates were allegedly willing to offer influential tribal leaders in return for votes. They speculate which clan would vote for a particular candidate and often pilloried the ‘futile efforts’ of individual candidates to win over a community that had already committed to voting for a contender of their choice.
The group has more silent members than active participants. They only read messages but do not comment. The hushed members are curious about the discussions, but seem too scared to jump into these sensitive political conversations. They suspect that “big brother” is monitoring their WhatsApp group.
So, they prefer to stay quiet in order to remain safe.
As the discussion gets intense and opposing views pop up, one journalist immediately shares a screenshot from an Urdu newspaper to support his argument. Others share photos of candidates attending corner meetings, supposedly discussing seat-to-seat adjustment.
The discussion is not always so sober. Members crack up with laughter as someone forwards a video clip showing a cow (a political party’s election symbol) literally eating up a rival candidate’s poster. The group never sleeps as election season gains momentum in Balochistan.
The next day, the Balochistan News Chanel (sic), a Facebook page also known as BNC, continues its indefatigable posting of live videos, photos and schedules of political gatherings from all over Balochistan.
The latest BNC Facebook Live is from Sarawan House, the residence of Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, a leader of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), who was killed in a suicide attack along with 149 other people on July 13, 2018 in Mastung.
Prominent national and local leaders, from Shahbaz Sharif to Imran Khan, are seen meeting with Nawab Aslam Raisani, Balochistan’s former chief minister and the slain leader’s elder brother, who is receiving condolences from the visitors.
Tweeting from the trail
On a sizzling summer day in Dera Bugti, once considered one of Pakistan’s most volatile districts, former home minister and BAP leader Sarfaraz Bugti unlocks his phone, captures a 26-second video from his election trail and posts it on Twitter.
The footage shows Bugti moving in an impressive convoy of expensive white vehicles. Most of his voters probably can’t imagine ever being able to afford these cars in their lifetime.
“InshAllah,” Bugti tweets, “we will win #PB10,” referring to the provincial assembly constituency from where he will be contesting elections.
He wants to win to “continue our ongoing efforts for the betterment and uplifting of #DeraBugti & #Balochistan.”
Day by day, Bugti is consolidating his grip over the gas-rich territory as his archrivals, Brahamdagh Bugti and family members of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti, live in exile, finding it nearly impossible to return home as a deadlock between the government and the Baloch nationalists and separatists persists.
Bugti, an intrepid Twitter user, takes his nationalism to the next level: he takes an Indian flag and stands on it to demonstrate his profound hatred for India.
Once the photo is ready, he posts it on Twitter. Within a few hours, he is flattered to see around 10,000 “likes” and more than 1,000 comments on his provocative photo.
In Quetta, Hasil Bizenjo, former federal minister and senior leader of the NP, tweeted his outrage at the Election Commission of Pakistan’s selection of Alauddin Marri as interim chief minister.
“After the choice of caretaker CM of Balochitan [sic], the people of Balochistan cannot trust this election commission,” he tweets, and tweets again sarcastically, “Thank you election commission for this joke.”
A new rapport with voters
Never before in Balochistan’s history has an election had such a robust social media component.
Instant messaging services and live streaming platforms such as Facebook Live and Youtube have completely changed the dynamics and the landscape of the election campaign.
When the last general elections took place in May 2013, most politicians and activists in Balochistan did not even have a Twitter account. Today, they spend a reasonable amount of time on Twitter and prioritise communicating with their followers and also monitor the activities and strategies of their opponents.
Political parties and politicians have migrated to cyberspace and the world of social media with unprecedented preparation and sophistication.
Most parties have dedicated social media teams comprised of educated professionals with excellent command of English and graphic design skills who engage party supporters with an unending cycle of colourful illustrations and fresh promotional content.
Parties have invested enormously to ensure that all their campaign meetings, rallies and press conferences are aired live on social media.
Reliance on traditional media has significantly decreased as followers remain glued to their parties’ social media feeds instead of scanning the papers for fresh stories.
These days, a party’s press secretary holds the key to all the social media accounts. They maintain a busy calendar to make sure activities are aired live, tweets are sent out and all social media pages are updated on time.
The press secretary’s role has evolved. They were once only responsible for writing press releases and dispatching them to newspaper offices. Now, they are expected to be all-rounders.
Never before have politicians and their voters in Balochistan have had such an intimate and uninterrupted connection.
* * *
When Abdul Quddus Bizenjo was elected as a member of the Balochistan Assembly in 2013 by winning only 544 votes out of the total registered votes of 57,666 in PB-41(Awaran), his victory was described as a “miracle.”
Political parties alleged that the election of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) legislator had become a textbook example of guaranteed victory if a candidate enjoyed the support of certain elements of the state.
Bizenjo had made history by obtaining the lowest number of votes ever in Pakistan’s history to be elected to a legislative chamber.
Bizenjo’s father, Majeed Bizenjo, had also served as a member of the Balochistan Assembly in the past, while the junior Bizenjo had himself obtained more graceful numbers of the vote in the 2002 and 2008 elections. The elections five years ago were indeed his most disgraceful electoral performance.
Widely viewed as an underdog, Bizenjo was surprisingly appointed as the deputy speaker of the provincial assembly in June 2013. He eventually resigned from the position in December 2015 after the speaker of the house, Jan Mohammad Jamali, resigned in the wake of a no-confidence motion.
Abdul Quddus Bizenjo (R) submits no-confidence motion against Zehri. —Online/File
As time passed, Bizenjo stunned everyone, emerging as a kingmaker and master strategist, playing a decisive role in the rebellion that led to the ouster of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Chief Minister Sardar Sanaullah Zehri in January 2018.
Analysts believed Zehri was punished for his loyalty to the ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Bizenjo, whose party had only six seats in the Balochistan Assembly against the PML-N’s 21, dumbfounded everyone when he, with the support of dissidents from the PML-N, replaced Zehri as Balochistan’s new chief minister.
Meanwhile, another development that marked the increasing influence of the ‘establishment’ on Balochistan’s politics was the election of an entirely unknown figure, Mir Sadiq Sanjrani, as the new Senate chairman .
Bizenjo, while capitalising on Balochistan’s backwardness and underrepresentation card, played a pivotal role in garnering support from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for Sanjrani's election as the Senate chairman. This was the harbinger of a major political storm in the province.
Enter Balochistan Awami Party
Two weeks later, Bizenjo went on to take several defectors from the PML-N and some from the PML-Q to form a new pro-state political party called the BAP.
The awkward acronym BAP in Urdu translates as ‘father’, drawing tremendous ridicule from opposition parties and on social media saying that the state had not only created a new king’s party ahead of the next general elections, but had also given it a suggestive name that highlights the consequences a disobedient child might face from a strict father.
Founded in March 2018, the BAP looks less like a political party and more a conglomerate of pro-Islamabad tribal notables and self-identified electable leaders who have historically remained affiliated with every party that has ruled at the centre.
While overtly supportive of the military’s policies in Balochistan and critical of the Baloch nationalists, the BAP has generated déjà vu in the province — it is reminiscent of PML-Q’s formation under General Musharraf ahead of the 2002 general elections.
With the BAP in the running, others see limited chances of a victory.
The BAP leaders deny the involvement of any covert hand behind its creation. In plain words, they say they have united to create a new front because they are fed up with the manipulation of the province and its mandate by the country’s two biggest political parties, the PPP and the PML-N.
The BAP’s most apparent weakness is this: it is not the result of a mass public movement.
Former Balochistan chief minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo hoists a party flag during a ceremony on Sunday.—PPI
It is only a movement of electables who would still have a strong chance of winning their respective seats regardless of the party that awards them a ticket. These powerful tribal chiefs have won elections from their strongholds for generations.
Thus, the BAP, in an effort not to irk the state, does not touch upon topics that could annoy Islamabad.
For example, the party does not raise the issue of enforced disappearances, torture and killings of political activists and it does not promise to hold talks with the Baloch insurgents after coming into power, which is extremely critical for any government in Balochistan to restore peace in the province.
In the wake of the BAP’s formation, political analyst Jalal Noorzai described it as an “unnatural party” that pretends to be speaking for the rights of the people of Balochistan.
“There is a long history of these people [leaders in the BAP] changing their political direction based on the dictations they get from the powerful quarters,” he wrote. “There is no dearth of such figures in Balochistan whose eyes are fixated on power and personal interests.”
Noorzai traced the history of Jam Kamal Khan, the president of the BAP, whose grandfather Jam Ghulam Qadir served twice as Balochistan’s chief minister while Kamal’s father, the late Jam Mohammad Yousaf, served as a staunch pro-Musharraf chief minister of Balochistan.
Notwithstanding the criticism of its origins and connections, the BAP is positioned to win the bulk of seats in the upcoming elections, paving the way for a pro-federation narrative and further isolating the Baloch nationalists.
The emergence BAP has worried all established political parties, particularly the Baloch nationalists because it is poised to grab more seats from Baloch areas as compared to Pashtun districts.
Consequently, the established political parties, such as the Balochistan National Party (BNP), are seen making desperate alliances with completely strange bedfellows, such as the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam.
With less than a week to go until polling day, last Friday’s terrorist attack that killed BAP leader Nawabzada Siraj Raisani will further turn the electoral tide in the party’s favour.
After the Mastung tragedy, the BAP’s legitimacy will get a boost as it will rise as the party that sacrificed a key leader and more activists and supporters than any other during the election campaign.
While the BAP is destined to get more sympathy votes, the Mastung carnage has made campaigning extremely difficult for the rest of the political parties because of the fear of another similar attack on a political rally.
A victim of the bomb blast being shifted to a stretcher after being brought to a hospital in Quetta. —AFP
The Mastung attack has dimmed political activity, but it has provided a glimpse of the challenges a future government in Quetta will have to grapple with, mostly concerning fighting and eliminating violent extremist groups.
Barring the unprecedented Mastung tragedy and a few other small violent incidents, the election campaign this year has, by and large, been filled with enthusiasm and higher public participation.
Unlike 2013, when political parties campaigned in the Baloch-majority districts, with the absolute fear of threats from Baloch armed nationalist groups, conditions for peaceful elections have relatively improved this time.
For the previous polls, the Baloch insurgents had urged the public to boycott the ballots. They warned public employees, such as school teachers and police officers, not to staff election booths and threatened voters to stay indoors.
Insurgents even went on to carry out attacks on several election campaigns. In one such attack on April 17, 2013, the son, brother, and nephew of the future chief minister and the provincial head of the PML-N Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, were killed.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a banned underground organisation, accepted responsibility for the attack.
On May 6, 2013, the president of the NP and the future chief minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch also escaped unhurt in a hand grenade attack in his native Turbat district. The abysmal law and order situation led to a poor voter turnout in most Baloch areas.
* * *
When Abdul Malik Baloch was elected as Balochistan’s first-ever chief minister from the province’s middle class following the 2013 elections, his rise to power generated unrealistic expectations in the troubled region.
Emerging as the head of the provincial government from a coalition between the PML-N, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and the NP, Abdul Malik promised to end the prolonged insurgency in Balochistan and initiate dialogue with disillusioned Baloch leaders, including those currently living in exile.
Despite some meetings with the Baloch leaders living abroad, Abdul Malik failed to achieve a breakthrough in his peace efforts because of a lackluster response both from the exiled Baloch leadership as well as the powerful elements of the state.
Instead, Abdul Malik’s credibility at the local level was tarnished so severely for the following three reasons that he is not running for reelection this year.
In this file photo Dr Abdul Malik Baloch (left) and former chief minister of Balochistan Sanaullah Zehri shake hands after the former resigned as head of the province.
First, to protect his position as the chief minister, he went overboard in rewarding his coalition partners in the PkMAP, particularly from Mahmood Khan Achakzai’s family, by giving them a free hand.
Hence, Achakzai appointed several family members on top government positions, including nominating his elder brother, Mohammad Khan Achakzai, as provincial governor.
Abdul Malik’s allies in the PML-N accused him of being too generous and soft on the PkMAP only in an effort to guard his own interests. He was also accused of nepotism and mismanagement during his term as the chief minister.
Second, Abdul Malik’s rivals accused his party members of “spying” for security services and allegedly sponsoring death squads that targeted activists of the Baloch nationalist movement.
Despite repeated rebuttals, Abdul Malik could not entirely dispel the public perception that his party was allegedly helping security forces commit extrajudicial killings of Baloch activists.
Once widely respected as a Baloch nationalist, Abdul Malik gained the reputation of a puppet and a collaborator.
Third, Abdul Malik came under fire for not adequately speaking up for Balochistan’s rights when the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was unveiled.
Although he insisted he had not been consulted on the multi-billion dollar project, opponents criticised him for not doing enough to ensure transparency on CPEC.
Another area where Abdul Malik’s government failed miserably was the recovery of missing persons.
While the aftermath of the 2013 elections initially saw the rise of a stable democratic alliance between self-proclaimed progressive Baloch and Pashtun nationalists, the end of the government after five years marked the beginning of severe differences between the two ethnic groups on issues of representation, allocation of development funds and control over the province's resources.
These differences escalated to an alarming and ugly level. Verbal fights between the Baloch and Pashtun leaders broke out inside the Balochistan Assembly and disputes over naming critical projects after Baloch or Pashtun figures led to a frequent exchange of abusive words.
The Pashtuns threatened to create their own province; the Balochs accused them of blackmailing the government. Hence, the Baloch and Pashtuns parties are no longer actively reaching out to each other for seat-to-seat adjustment and electoral alliances.
* * *
On June 1, 2018, Dr Allah Nazar Baloch, leader of the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), an underground separatist group, asked Baloch voters to boycott the general elections.
Citing the low turnout in the 2013 elections as a “victory” of his stance, Allah Nazar said the Baloch people had voted against the polls in what he described as a “referendum”.
But the influence of the BLF and other Baloch armed groups has gradually dwindled in the past five years.
The “hard” things left unsaid
The public participation in election rallies and corner meetings across the province is indicative of the fact that people are less afraid this time and not inclined toward another boycott. However, that does not mean that the political parties are also free to say whatever they want.
The space created for these parties seems to have come in return for an unwritten understanding between the Baloch nationalists and certain elements of the state that the former shall not cross specific policy red lines in their election speeches.
While an election year is an excellent opportunity to reflect on past performance and work for a better future, Balochistan is entering an election season where politicians are free to assemble, use social media and speak on “soft issues”, such as health and education, but are not allowed to discuss “hard issues” that pertain to the ongoing insurgency, counterinsurgency operations, human rights abuses, the recent political engineering of the Senate elections and reservations over CPEC.
Discussing the hard issues in election campaigns has become taboo because it may offend people in influential quarters. This fear of being punished and ostracised has compelled even the Baloch nationalists to soften their stance on critical issues.
For instance, the BNP, which once based its electoral agenda on the subject of military operations and enforced disappearances, has kept the demand for the release of missing persons as a very low priority in its election manifesto.
There is evident anxiety among the voters and their leaders on a host of issues, including on Balochistan’s share in CPEC, but not everyone feels safe to assert their reservations.
“The people of Gwadar must be the top beneficiaries of the CPEC project,” says Aslam Bhootani, once the Speaker of the Balochistan Assembly who is now running for the National Assembly seat in NA 272 Lasbela-cum-Gwadar.
Bhootani has said he is not a nationalist but would raise his voice for the legitimate rights of the people at all forums and would not mind if his views and struggle annoyed some people.
Only someone as politically powerful and loyal to Islamabad as Bhootani, formerly a staunch supporter of General Musharraf, could make such bold remarks.
Everyone running for office does not seem to enjoy the same level of freedom to openly speak up on Balochistan’s past, present and the future.
* * *
An election campaign without sufficient space to debate on the actual political, economic and security issues, and a promise of justice does not seem to guarantee a happier and a more stable future to the country’s persistently unstable province.
However, it appears despite the unfulfilled promises of the past, Balochistan is still willing to give a new democratic government the chance to take the province to the promised age of development and prosperity that has been promised to its people for the past seven decades.
I could never think of my younger brother as an adult. He was always the baby of the family. Today, I am told that he has children the same age as me when I was first put in jail 20 years ago.
I should have had children of my own by now. I should have had a life, a job, a family, a home. A small one, in Mandi Bahauddin. If my family did not have to sell off our land to keep me alive, perhaps there could have been more.
It is difficult to recount the things you could have had when you know there is a dim possibility of you ever getting them in the future.
I have been in jail since 1999, and on death row since I was 17.
I was not good at school. I could never follow instructions properly, and my teachers did not have the resources to dedicate the kind of attention I needed. Frustration gave way to idleness, idleness gave way to mischief.
My inability in school made me the butt of jokes but to save myself from being bullied, I found some people willing to accept me.
My friends and I would then skip off, and waste our time doing things that would make us feel like we were in control. That is what you do when you feel useless.
I was arrested a month later and taken to a secret location.
When we arrived, they tied my hands behind my back with a rope that was hung from a hook on the roof. They hoisted me up from my wrists. It felt like my shoulders were being ripped out from their sockets. That pain is blinding, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
When they undid the ropes, I thought they were done. But soon after they had put me on the ground, they forced me on my back and placed a long, thick bamboo rod on top of me.
Before I could even take my next breath, two police officers sat either side of the rod, weighing it down, as two other officers rolled it down my body.
I screamed through the excruciating pain. It did not matter. It’s like they’re trying to crush you into the ground and won’t stop until they do.
I lost track of how long this went on for.
My elder brother, Abbas, tells me he looked for me for two whole weeks. For half a month, I was detained without charge and tortured relentlessly. I would have said anything to make it stop.
If they told me to say I had killed someone, I would say it. If they told me to say I had not killed someone, I would say it.
They finally took me to a jail, and kept me there. Eventually, I was hauled into the police station for an identification parade. But this was not the first time that the victim’s family had seen me. I was trotted out before them several times before the parade. I knew they recognised me.
The investigation officer had approached Abbas, telling him that if he did not pay him a bribe, he would ensure that I would be tried in the Anti-Terrorism Court that all but guaranteed me a harsher sentence with fewer safeguards.
We had no idea what we were up against. We could not pay, and so I landed in the ATC.
The ATC sentenced me to die. They recognised I was 17. But this did not, to them, excuse me from the death penalty because they were no laws that would bar the sentencing of a juvenile.
The police wrote in the First Information Report and their testimonies that I was the one who fired the shots (a lie), and that’s why I should be given a higher sentence.
The five others who were co-accused with me for the same crime were given prison sentences (which they have now served and have returned to their families since).
I was the only one who was sentenced to death.
My lawyer argued in court that I was a juvenile and should not be sentenced to death. The court ordered a medical board, which in turn, carried out an ossification test that determined my age to be 17. But this evidence did not matter.
From the ATC, all the way to the Supreme Court, my age at the time of the crime was acknowledged — but then ignored.
In March 2016, they issued my execution warrant. In a panic, my brother reached out to the victim’s son. His desperation overcame any hubris he had.
Abbas went again. And again.The complainant’s anger slowly chipped away.
And one day, in his infinite generosity, he told my brother — that God has punished me. He said, “Allah teaches us to forgive our enemies,” and that is what he has done.
We took news of this compromise to the SC to stop my imminent execution. But even after listening to the heir’s statement, the court did not release me. It upheld the decision. Why?
Because my case had been tried under the ATA, which means my alleged offence was non-compoundable. My fate had been sealed by the bribe we could not pay years and years ago.
In July last year, they forwarded the request to issue my execution warrants again. By a miracle, through the intervention of Justice Project Pakistan and the National Commission on Human Rights, that request was withdrawn.
Being told you will die does not get easier the second time.
The journey through the country’s courts has been long, expensive and back-breaking for my family. Legal fees, commuting back and forth between court, home and the police station, caused us to lose everything we had. Our home was destroyed and we have nothing left.
My father died of grief after years of struggling with my case. I was not able to go to his funeral.
Whole lives have been lived and lost during my time in jail.
When the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance was passed in 2000, the president announced amnesty for all juvenile offenders on death row one year later.
Here I was, a proven juvenile but somehow unable to access the relief that I was entitled to and have been entitled to for 17 years.
Since then, they keep bouncing me from the sessions courts to the Presidency to the Home Department. They know they cannot execute me but they treat me like a file, not a human being.
A life sentence in Pakistan is 25 years. Most prisoners are out in 15. I have served 20 years in jail, and all the while, I was entitled to a remission. I could have been out, putting my life back together. But all I do is wait.
They concluded the age determination inquiry only this year. But I’m still waiting, lost for 20 years in the black hole of Pakistan’s bureaucracy.
Muhammad Iqbal told this story from his prison cell in District Jail, Gujrat to Muhammad Shoaib, who wrote it in the form of an article.
In March 2018, the Lahore High Court directed the provincial Home Department to conduct and conclude the investigation into Iqbal’s case within two weeks.
While this took place within the deadline, and the inquiry found him to be a juvenile at the time of the crime, the government of Pakistan is yet to provide him the relief that he has been entitled to for 17 years.
Maryam Nawaz’s face is unreadable. Her expression betrays nothing. Whether she plots her arrival in the Prime Minister House or plans which one of her Chanel bags to wear with her Fendi scarves, she looks exactly the same.
Perhaps, then, it was not the comfort of her business class airplane seat that brought such peace to her face. Maybe years of living in the lap of luxury teaches you how to look unflappable.
Her father, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the other hand, has aged. It’s been an interesting journey for him through the corridors of power in Pakistan.
To some, it did not serve him well. To others, it served him too well. When he was demonstrating against his ouster, he grimaced, he raised his voice, his emotions creating as many ripples in the crowd as they did for his frown lines.
Nevertheless, all roads that he has taken — whether on business class flights, private planes, helicopters — have taken him to Adiala jail. And he is not happy.
Since he has been there, there has been much outrage by his followers. Within hours of being incarcerated, tweets began circulating. How dare a three-time prime minister be subjected to such squalor? How could the first class Sharifs be kept in B-class cells? Where was the dignity? The respect?
Then we heard that the unflappable Maryam was complaining. There were too many mosquitoes in prison, and she was loathe to touch the prison slop that they served her.
The other prisoners do not have that luxury. They either starve or get used to the taste. But her privilege might now accord her a move to Sihala Rest House, where fresh flowers might be laid out, next to clean bedding and her own bathroom. She could even tweet from there. So really, the only prison she would be in is the one in her mind.
Nawaz is now facing complications from his damaged kidneys. Doctors have been called in, medical reports and recommendations are being prepared in haste. Before long, this might be cited as a reason for his shift to loftier accommodation as well.
Some prisoners, it appears, are more equal than others.
Last week, reports emerged that Nawaz's movements had to be restricted in jail. He was out for a stroll in the courtyard of his barrack early in the morning, possibly looking to clear his mind, or even walk off the jetlag from being in London.
But he had company. Company that was angry at him.
In their wildest dreams, the prisoners at Adiala Jail had probably never deemed possible the opportunity to confront Nawaz face-to-face. They were not going to pass up on it now.
You see, prisoners in Pakistan have reason to be very, very angry with the government(s) of Nawaz.
They lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in Pakistan, killing 494 prisoners to date. Many of them have been innocent, many have been mentally ill, others have been juvenile offenders. Some of them have died while waiting to be executed.
The Nawaz government knowingly sat atop a system that hangs the living and exonerates the dead, and the prisoners know this better than anybody.
Adiala has over 5,000 prisoners. It is designed to hold 1,900. This overcrowding, while criminal, is not unique to Nawaz's new home.
Lahore's Central Jail holds 2,332 more prisoners than it is made for. Central Jail, Faisalabad holds 1,828 more prisoners than capacity. In Sialkot’s District Jail, that number is at 1,384 and in Gujranwala, it is 1,840.
Naturally, this causes some shortages.
For example, a lack of privacy when using the bathroom. There are at least five prisoners to each cell, where they have to defecate and urinate in front of each other. Sometimes they’ll have a fellow inmate hold up a piece of cloth. There’s not much dignity that a thin sheet of cloth can provide.
It also dilutes the scant facilities that are available to prisoners, like healthcare, under-resourced rehabilitation facilities, counselling services or access to legal aid.
Disease is readily contagious; water quality is compromised. There are no fans in some jails. Dated prison architecture relies on cross-ventilation in 40 degree-plus weather.
Pakistan’s prison population currently stands at 78,160. That is not an insignificant number, and has been ignored by not one, not two but three Nawaz governments. Many inmates have been in jail for all three of his terms.
Kanizan Bibi, who has been in jail since 1989, has watched him go from prime minister to former prime minister, back again to prime minister then political exile and again prime minister to now inmate.
Her mental illness has not precluded her from being on death row. Being tortured into signing a self-incriminating confession has had consequences only for her. And if she could talk (her illness, resulting from torture has rendered her mute), she could show Nawaz the ropes on how to survive prison.
Muhammad Anwar was arrested as a juvenile offender in 1993, right around the time that Nawaz resigned for the first time. He was sentenced to death six years later, and despite the 2001 Presidential Notification (that would have entitled him to remission) continues to languish on death row to this day.
Nawaz would do well to trace his history, and remember that during that entire time, Anwar was struggling to obtain justice from the same government he led.
Pakistan’s 2018 general election campaign is over. And now, on this tampered playing field — assuming that voters are allowed to cast their ballots without interference on Wednesday — everything rests in the hands of the 106 million Pakistanis who have registered to vote.
As civic duties go, nothing tops the act of casting one’s vote. And in terms of self-interest, this is the one chance for ordinary citizens to elect not only their representative, but, in doing so, to help decide the policies that will affect them.
By casting a vote on the ballot, an ordinary citizen sets up the incentives that govern the behaviour of politicians: does one reelect the politician who brought in funding for a girls’ school, or the one who got a new road built?
Does one vote for the same politician every term even if they switch parties? Does one vote for the same party regardless of the politician running in the constituency? Does one vote for patronage, or for actions in parliament?
To take all these considerations into account is a lot to ask from a single vote. Voting, by its very nature, is a blunt tool. But it’s the only one every single citizen has — and this, of course, is precisely what defines a democracy.
A field of study in political science focuses on theory and uses empirical tools to understand how it is that voters actually vote in various contexts.
The theoretical literature gives us a range of assumptions and factors that could affect voting behaviour. It’s keeping that literature in mind that I’ve attempted to list some of the main factors that Pakistani voters need to juggle in their decision tomorrow.
First, in a parliamentary system, you, as a voter, do not vote for the prime minister directly.
You vote for the candidate in your constituency, who may belong to a party or be independent.
But you are aware, because you are a voter with some sophistication, that by voting for this candidate, you are affecting the probability that you get the government and the prime minister you want.
You may also take into account the votes of those around you, because that too affects the probability of your candidate and party winning. So, by definition, your vote is a mixture of candidate and party preference.
In general, if the ideologies of the political parties running are more or less convergent, candidate preference may trump party preference for voters.
But in a deeply polarised election — such as the current one — party preferences may become paramount.
The decision also depends on the individual voter’s preferences on national versus constituency politics — does one care more strongly about national politics and policy, which is influenced by the party in power, or about local politics?
If one’s constituency representative affects national policy, even a local preference may translate into national policy.
Second, beyond campaign promises and party manifestoes is a great deal of information about the actual behaviour of parties while in office, which tells you far more about how they will perform than their promises do.
At its core, voting is a principal-agent problem — you are the principal and the politician is your agent — and you can deduce the politician’s type (whether good or bad) and their effort (whether they work hard or shirk), albeit imperfectly, from their past behaviour.
You have this retrospective information only for candidates and parties who have been in power. Use it.
Third, voting is a blunt instrument on policy, because politicians and parties have policy platforms that are multidimensional. You are going to agree with some of their policies, and not with others.
Ultimately, the voting decision is based on your personal ranking of what policy issues matter most to you and the payoff you derive from each party’s policy on that issue.
You can’t choose each dimension of policy — for instance, the economy, delivery of social services, corruption, conservatism or liberalism, civilian supremacy and so on — according to your preferences, so choose what matters to you most, and choose the party and candidate whose policy platform maximises your utility.
Remember the bargain you strike — it will be with you for the next five years, should your candidate win.
Fourth, remember that voting, and democracy, is a process. If you consider yourself to have a set of bad choices, make the choice that is least bad.
If you would like better choices, vote in a manner that will encourage the introduction of a better choice in the next election: if you want more liberal choices on the ballot, vote for the most liberal choice in the set you have now; if you want all politicians to engage in less patronage and more legislating, vote for the candidate who focuses the most on the latter and the least on the former, and so on.
Voting is messy and imperfect. In Pakistan, there are further complications. One is horse-trading, which means the candidate-party match is (wildly) unstable.
Voters also find it difficult to discern the exact responsibility of their federal legislators — who tend to be rewarded not for their votes in parliament but for the patronage they provide their constituents, reflecting that voter confusion — versus their provincial legislators or local elected officials.
This is because the division of responsibilities for elected officials at various levels is not well understood, nor is how these responsibilities differ relative to the duty of bureaucrats.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that the 18th Amendment devolved a good deal of federal policymaking to the provincial level, and that provincial elections occur at the same time as the general election.
Ultimately, voting is visceral. In the United States, there is a sense that voters vote for the presidential candidate they most identify with (which, needless to say, may not make for the best of decisions).
But consider it the most sacred of civic duties — and the burden of information gathering, parsing and decision-making on all these dimensions rests on the shoulders of the voter.
Here’s wishing everyone luck and wisdom in making that decision.
Are you researching democracy in Pakistan? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com
It’s popularly believed that the strong grip of feudalism and the Bhutto factor are the main reasons why Sindh votes for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
This assessment isn’t entirely accurate.
There are two major political reasons behind voting for the PPP.
The PPP wins the nationalistic aspirations of people as it has historically tried to raise issues such as finance and water that otherwise would be taken up by nationalist parties.
A concomitant factor is fear and the ethnic divide — Sindhis fear that if they don’t vote for the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will end up dominating them and divide their province.
Asif Ali Zardari is hell-bent on ensuring that the party is still the leading force in Sindh after Benazir Bhutto’s demise.
This means that, apart from these two political reasons, there are three managerial reasons that give the PPP the edge.
First of all, elections are not a matter of three months. It is a continuous process of five years or so, and the PPP is the only one in Sindh involved in it consistently.
Analyst Naz Sahto explained it to me like this: after polling on July 25, the PPP will immediately start its campaign for the next elections. Unlike other parties, the PPP remains in election mode all the time and keeps on working accordingly.
The rest of the parties, including the ones that have a following in some districts, have not expanded into new areas to increase their voter base.
They do not even bother to formally review the polling results and evaluate mistakes made during the campaign.
Secondly, the local PPP leadership is a beneficiary of party’s corruption as it gets shares in jobs, contracts and commissions.
This is the development model that the PPP follows. It has the networking ability and it can satisfy some quarters by providing a few jobs, building some roads, and installing water pumps and electricity lines.
The third factor can be attributed to the party’s focus on biradaris and tribes. These arrangements help the party get votes. The so-to-speak non-political factor was introduced by Zia ul Haq and was matured by Pervez Musharraf, particularly in local bodies elections.
In addition, the absence of strong alternatives can also be considered a major reason behind the PPP’s continued success in elections in Sindh.
The only option
For alternatives to exist, the responsibility primarily rests on the shoulders of mainstream political parties such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.
The PML-N has remained uninterested in Sindh’s affairs since the Musharraf era. It has no organisational presence even at the divisional level in the province.
When the party needed a few members of assemblies to show that it was a national party, it could have chosen some influential anti-PPP elements who were readily available. Yet, the PML-N never opted to bring these electables into its fold en masse.
The PML-N can win power at the centre through sweeping Punjab, hence support from Sindh has never been a priority. At the most it might require the MQM, which is a different ballgame.
As far as indigenous alternatives are concerned, there are two possible options: some elites who are opposed to the PPP and, second, the rising middle class, which includes Sindhi nationalists, as it has happened in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and up to some extent in Balochistan.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) could be a potential challenger. The MQM could complement this formula, which it has been doing, albeit only in Karachi.
The PML-F had the potential to challenge the PPP and emerge as a strong party, but it remained a spiritual organisation, confined to a few districts. It did not even expand its organisational network as a political party and hence failed to become a popular front.
The party is the ‘B-team’ of the powers-that-be. It does not believe that people matter in politics, but rather that power can only be captured with the help of the manipulative elements of the state. The PML-F prefers waiting for that opportunity, for the establishment’s call.
As for Sindhi nationalists, they are divided into two major groups: those who believe in parliamentary struggle and others who prefer non-parliamentary politics. The former lack unity within their ranks.
Qadir Magsi’s Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party, Palijo’s Qaumi Awami Tahreek (QAT) and Jalal Mehmood Shah’s Sindh United Party are not on the same page and contest elections on their separate platforms.
The 18th Amendment, which provided autonomy and ensured more rights to the provinces, defused nationalist upsurge and left them with no narrative.
Since then, nationalists have stopped taking up issues like water and the National Finance Commission Award. This shift has aided the PPP.
The art of electioneering
Earlier, the anti-PPP rural elite were asked to make alliance with urban forces, which came out in the shape of an alliance between the PML-F and MQM. This was the state’s strategy to dismantle the PPP government via makeshift arrangements.
Similarly, in 2013, it was a mixture of rural nationalists and elites of Sindh, but once again it failed to yield results against the PPP.
Now, the Grand Democratic Alliance is in action with two parties — the PML-F and the QAT — plus some influential personalities.
But the PPP has the network and access that others do not. Take the polling day, for example:
There are more than 100 polling stations for provincial assembly constituencies. A candidate needs at least 10 people on the day at a polling station who can work as polling agents, persuade people to cast their votes, arrange for transport, etc.
Setting up election offices and holding public or corner meetings are added expenses. This requires organisational capacity and money.
This is a full-time job for the PPP’s wadera class, who earns from politics and reinvest in it. Those who only do politics as a part-time job find themselves on the losing side.
Out of the waderas’ frying pan, into the middle class fire.
Sindh has another drawback: the parties and groups that pose as alternatives are sometimes worse than the PPP. Those offering alternatives have no alternate programmes and strategies.
The fact is, the middle and upper-middle classes have benefited from state corruption, through government jobs, contracts and commission. A good number of people are beneficiaries of this directly or indirectly.
The middle class talks about the failure of the public sector in areas such as education and health, and highlights them through social media, but it doesn't try to become a direct stakeholder in the process to improving governance.
Sindh’s middle class is weak and its intellectuals are weak, and it is their inability that has resulted in the lack of alternatives to the PPP.
This why the PPP continues to be the winner.
Illustration by Mushba Said
Are you researching social or political transformation in Sindh? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com
Even with more women entering political leadership roles, life for women in Balochistan remains harsh, with more than half of the women over 18 years not registered to vote.
In the 2018 parliamentary elections, more women are running for office than ever before for both elected and reserved seats from Pakistan's largest province in terms of size.
With a relatively smaller population, 25 women campaigning for elected seats in the provincial and national assemblies, plus 58 for reserved seats, are decent numbers, but male candidates still outnumber women six to one as per the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP) data in Balochistan.
It has been proven that having more women in assemblies has changed how the legislative body works and how things can change on the ground for women.
But in Balochistan, even with more and more women taking such roles, rising to key positions to improve women’s lives continues to be a challenge.
Poor living standards for women
Unlike other issues affecting women — like workplace harassment, which is specific to working women — social underdevelopment and poor living standards impact women across the board.
Nearly 75 percent of women have never been to school. Proportion-wise, this is the largest population of illiterate women in the country.
Limited opportunity for education in most areas of the province is one of the drivers of illiteracy, along with social practices such as child marriage.
Nearly six out of every 10 young girls are married before the age of 20, meaning Balochistan has the highest percentage of child brides out of all the provinces.
These statistics, combined with the lack of healthcare facilities for women, ensure that Balochistan’s maternal mortality rate is the highest in the country at 785 deaths per 100,000.
Child marriage has already been criminalised in Sindh and Punjab. In an attempt to outlaw the practice in Balochistan as well, lawmaker Dr Shama Ishaq presented a bill this year — but it went unentertained by most (male) members.
Ineffective political representation
In the last few years, several reports regarding women’s issues have attracted public attention.
Balochistan passed a Domestic Violence Bill in 2014 and a Protection Against Harassment in 2016.
Perhaps if there had been more women in the provincial assembly, legislators could have accomplished more.
But many believe that even with the current number of women, things could have improved if women legislators had been more active.
Currently, only 20 percent of seats in the Balochistan Assembly are reserved for women – meaning each woman legislator effectively represents 358,292 women.
The number of women legislators in the provincial assembly has stayed constant over the last couple of decades. In the last assembly, there was only one elected woman while 11 were from the reserved seats for women and one from the reserved seats of minorities.
How well have these 13 women legislators represented Balochistan’s women and their issues in the assembly?
The argument presented by most intellectuals and activists, backed up by statistics from Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), shows that women in the assembly did not stand for the rights of women or other important issues as much as they perhaps should have.
For instance, during the last five years, women legislators only participated in one out of every 10 of the assembly businesses (presenting resolutions, adjournment motions and questions).
Although the speaker in the last assembly, for the first time ever, was a woman, it made no difference – women legislators headed only two out of every 10 committees and presented only few legislations throughout their five years.
Since women, according to one expert I spoke to, are selected to be in the assembly because of political reasons and not on merit, legislation is not their strong point.
Sumaira Mehbood, an activist from Balochistan, told me that most parties encourage women to join as members merely to fill the gender quota. They depend on their male counterparts for support in order to pass legislation.
This can also be seen in women lawmakers’ performance over the last five years. They only sponsored one out of every 10 resolutions independently; for the rest, they had to rely on the support of male lawmakers.
Fewer women legislators, little legislation
Over the years, the number of women parliamentarians has stayed stagnant. In the last provincial assembly, there were 13 women members and 12 in 2008-13 and 2002-07.
Even though some women have managed to make it into the provincial assembly, barely any are considered for the caretaker government. The current caretaker government has only one woman minister out of 11.
Apart from their limited representation in every setup, a major concern is their capacity. To this, activist and researcher Dr Fouzia Saeed says, “there are no forums for women or even men to develop capacity capabilities and learn what law-making or oversight of the executive is. They do not have the capacity to assess the consequences of a bill or law.”
One such example is the Domestic Violence Bill of 2014.
Dr Fouzia Saeed explained that “the women legislators were handed an old draft. They quickly took it to the assembly without any corrections and passed a bill that does not even criminalise domestic violence.”
Hard work for votes
According to statistics obtained from Gender Election Monitoring Mission report, there were about 20 polling stations in Balochistan where not a single woman voted in the 2008 general elections.
In 2013 general elections, only four out of every 10 women eligible to vote were registered. This does not appear to have changed in 2018.
To make voting easier, caretaker Minister for Information Malik Khurram Shahzad has called to provide women with all the facilities in selection of their nominated candidates in the 2018 general elections.
However, civil society members in Balochistan working for women’s rights, while concerned about the lack of facilities and vague statements by government officials about providing them, are more disturbed by women’s inability to register themselves.
There is clearly a long way to go before women can make a deeper mark on the electoral process and legislation in Balochistan.
At the time of writing these lines, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is leading in the poll count and is expected to make government at the centre. The PTI may also form government in the largest provincial assembly of Punjab.
Though, all this may only happen with the support from independents and other groups/parties.
But the PTI’s moment of joy may prove to be short lived if the allegations of rigging raised by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) turn out to be true.
The PML-N has gone to the extent of rejecting election results.
An important allegation raised by the PML-N is that their polling agents at (an unidentified number of) polling stations were not provided copies of Form-45.
This is a serious allegation as the information contained in this form is central to ensuring transparency of polls.
Form-45, as prescribed in the Election Rules 2017 (as amended to date), contains essential data of each polling station in any given constituency for both the national and provincial assemblies.
For instance, it provides, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, gender-wise disaggregated data of votes cast at every polling station.
Apart from this, the form is also supposed to list the following:
Names of contesting candidates
Number of valid votes polled in favour of each candidate
Number of valid tendered votes polled in favour of each candidate
Number of valid challenged votes polled in favour of each candidate
Total number of valid votes polled in favour of each candidate
Number of votes excluded from the count
But before Form-45 can be filled out, all the information has to be gathered.
For instance, under Rule 80 of the Election Rules, the presiding officer has to count separately, in respect of each contesting candidate, the ballot papers which are unambiguously marked in favour of that candidate and put each lot in a separate packet. These packets have to be signed by polling agents.
The same way, other requisite information (listed serial wise above) has to be gathered (by counting) and verified by signature on a packet containing relevant ballots by each polling agent present in the polling station.
The reference made to Form-45 signifies that there may be discrepancy between the actual count of the ballots (as described above) and the information fed on Form-45.
This puts a question mark against the whole exercise.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) cannot simply shrug saying that the polling agents left the polling station after they foresaw their respective candidates losing the contest.
Did the presiding officers get signatures of the polling agents on all the stipulated packets of ballots as prescribed?
If they did, then the contention of the ECP may carry some weight, not otherwise.
The ECP and its staff, especially the presiding officers, are under statutory and constitutional obligation to ensure transparency of the electoral process. Therefore, the ECP’s secretary’s public statement betrays lack of sense of responsibility.
Further, the law also prescribes that the presiding officers are also supposed to have independent election observers sign consolidated results.
Did the ECP specifically request independent election observers belonging to independent civil society organisations, domestic and international, to be present at the polling stations at the time of consolidation and distribution of Form-45?
The ECP’s explanation is far from adequate.
If past is anything to go by, it seems that the ECP may fail to resolve the controversy in a credible and acceptable manner.
Fairness and transparency are the most essential elements of a polling exercise. It stands questioned even before the declaration of results.
Just the mention of Multan conjures up an array of dreamy images in my mind. When I first came to Pakistan in 2006, it was Multan, not Lahore or even Gilgit-Baltistan, that I was most excited about visiting.
It had something to do with what had initially brought me to Pakistan; at the time, I was travelling around the Middle East and was particularly fascinated by the spread of traditions, faiths and philosophies in the region.
I was in Iran when I was reading about the spiritual preachers who headed eastwards in medieval times.
While the Western world was at one of its lowest points, a period that would later come to be known as the Dark Ages, the Muslim world was flourishing with theory and thought.
So much of that emanated from Persia, and Multan seemed to be the destination for so many influential thinkers of the time.
Haram Gate, Multan. —All photos by author
Musaferkhana under renovation
Interior of the musaferkhana
I knew that modern Multan wouldn’t be a gilded city of grand institutions — recent history has not been so kind to much of the Muslim world — but the history buff in me hoped that I could recapture some of the magic that once drew such notables as Bahauddin Zakariya, Shah Rukn-i-Alam, Syed Jalaluddin Bukhari, Lal Shahbaz Qalander and Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar.
Alas, it wasn’t until earlier this year that I got to explore Multan properly — illness and security concerns precluded me on my first two trips, and later trips were simply for work.
This year, however, I knew that I would have the city to myself — just me, the saints and their shrines, and a couple of good friends to pound the pavement with.
The day we chose to explore Multan was hot — like all days in Multan — and we began at Haram Gate, a stout brick structure which apparently dates back to the 16th century.
Its name is said to be a reference to the women’s quarters which were once in this part of the city.
Like much of the city’s architecture, it has been rebuilt over the years — Multan has been laid siege to more than once in history, and Haram Gate was most recently restored with the help of a team of Italian experts.
It was from this gate that we dove into the Walled City of Multan.
It was at once familiar and foreign — as a part-time resident of Lahore, Multan’s inner city reminded me of the frenetic streets of the provincial capital’s androon sheher; but in the same instance, it was different: less boisterous, unassuming, rural even.
We passed a small shrine on our right; pigeons were feeding from a scattering of seed thrown by a gatekeeper.
There’s something about spiritual sites everywhere in the world that seems to attract pigeons, and Multan is full of them. The mint green dome of the shrine was stained with the evidence of the local bird population.
Shrine of Shah Rukn-i-Alam
Shrine of Shah Rukn-i-Alam
Looking down the fabled streets of Multan's old city
Multan was already living up to its name as the City of Saints — men and women ambled in and out of the shrine before my eyes, some of them leaving an offering of flower petals, a lit candle or some money.
It was just the beginning of an afternoon of immersing myself in the culture of shrines and saints that characterises Multan. Just around the corner was the shrine of Sakhi Yahya Nawab, the son of Musa Pak Shaheed, a prominent 16th century Sufi saint.
The colourful brick structure seemed to appear out of nowhere — one minute I had my vision blocked by city walls plastered with posters, the next it was bathed by the green glow of twisted, gnarled trees and their boughs, beckoning me to enter the shrine’s doors.
Three men stood at the threshold of the shrine, and until I asked them permission for a picture, they seemed lost in their own worlds.
Tomb of Sakhi Yahya Nawab
Tomb of Musa Pak Shaheed
Inside, a man sat on the floor nodding gently, intensely focussed on his reading of the Holy Qur’an.
Further along, close to the shrine of Musa Pak Shaheed, we stumbled across an old musafirkhana which was being restored.
We got speaking with some of the workers who told us about the ongoing project to revive parts of Multan’s old city to their former glory.
The three-storey brick building features upper windows that face out over Sarafa Bazaar. The windows, all carved wood and stained glass, perfectly frame the view across the covered jewellery market outside.
The romance of the building and the bazaar was starting to cast its spell on me, but I was quickly snapped out of it once I stepped out onto the main street; the frenzied push and shove of traders and sundry jolted me back to the present.
Chowk Bazaar
Inside the Jain Mandir
Looking out over Sarafa Bazaar from the musaferkhana
We made our way towards the main Chowk Bazaar, and through the jigsaw puzzle of canopies covering the market, I spied the tapered tower of a Jain mandir; it appeared almost proud, as much of the foot traffic below continued on, seemingly oblivious to its presence.
Investigating, I came across the entrance to the temple up a flight of stairs. The eerily abandoned hall of the venue was dusty but in decent condition; it was covered in tiles marking out the central congregation area, and painted frescoes playing out fantastical, mythical stories of good and evil.
Peeling painted signs in English and Hindi script advised visitors of a list of items, including umbrellas, shoes and eatables, which were not allowed in the temple.
Back out into the bazaar, we approached the Hussain Agahi precinct which skirts the base of the hill hosting Multan’s two most famous shrines; those of Shah Rukn-i-Alam and Bahauddin Zakariya.
Sunset over central Multan
Street scene near Haram Gate
Tomb of Bahauddin Zakariya
A short rickshaw ride later, we were approaching the hill from the west, near Multan’s famous clock tower, from where the bulbous dome of Shah Rukn-i-Alam’s shrine first comes into view.
The ubiquitous pigeons fluttered around, occasionally scattering from the rooftop when startled.
After circumnavigating the building, it was time to enter; the inside was cool and dark, and filled with an air of reverence, as scores of men and women came forth to kiss the tomb and make dua.
A couple of pigeons cooed distantly from overhead. What struck me the most was the contrast from the chaos of the city outside to the solitude inside; it was as if the madness had melted away, and all that was left was surrender to the spiritual realm.
The still-hot and breathless air belied the shadows which were growing longer, and the fading light of the late afternoon sun; it was late in the afternoon by the time we continued through Fort Qasim to our final destination.
Bahauddin Zakariya’s shrine is, in contrast to Shah Rukn-i-Alam’s, conventional and even understated, but its gravitas is no less.
Here lies Shah Rukn-i-Alam’s grandfather, one of the earlier Sufi preachers in Multan.
An older structure, I won’t deny that I was initially slightly disappointed with its visage; I had somehow built it up in my mind to be much bigger and more elaborate than it actually is, but what it lacks in dazzling beauty, it makes up for with significance.
Tomb of Sakhi Yahya Nawab
Tomb of Musa Pak Shaheed
As someone with an interest in historic architecture, its importance is huge. This was the prototype design for Multan’s future shrines; its square base with a hemispheric roof, heavily carved wooden doors and mud-brick construction, while individually modest, combine to create something that is more than the sum of its parts.
It was no doubt the most appropriate way to end a day which had seen me delving into the depths of Multan’s historic old city, peeling back layers of history, in search of evidence of Multan’s glory as a beacon for those who wonder about what lies beyond this world.
The sun was about to set, and so I took up my position in the corner of the courtyard as the celestial ball of fire descended behind the shrine’s white dome.
The moon started its ascent into the milky twilight, as the azaan rang out over the city, before the hearty sounds of qawwali began to emanate from a group men near the entrance to the tomb — and I knew I had found what I came for.
Have you explored Pakistan's old cities? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com
One day, this country was going to look up from their phones, TV screens, internal migrations, pockets of deprivation, anxieties about their children, health expenses, being spoken down to instead of being spoken with, and decide: enough is enough.
Out with the old, in with the new, whatever, however, wherever.
For a country as conservative as ours, the abruptness with which the tables seemed to have turned is truly shocking.
Enough that most of us can’t come to terms with what has just happened, whether out of happiness or serious disenchantment.
As a result, I don’t know how to feel when I see us — and taking a cue from us, the rest of the world — reaching back into the annals of history for our most trusted, established (pun intended) explanation for what’s just happened in Pakistan: the military’s playing tricks again.
Of course. How dare the average Pakistani get up and cast a vote to let somebody in the corridor of power know just what is going through their mind and life right now?
How dare the average Pakistani have a go at democratic behaviour before attaining perfect education, roaming the world for leisure and examining all the conspiracies on which the country is premised?
How dare we believe that the common citizen may finally have voted against ‘their’ grain in favour of their brain?
America picked Trump; Britain exited the EU; ours must be more of the same misguided populist vote explained by crumbling infrastructure in heartland America, and that embarrassing ageing population in the UK, but only rigging of every form in ignorant, illiterate, belligerent, bigoted, emotional, adolescent, and above all, some-kind-of-military-anti-Western Pakistan.
Somewhere in all the headlines, buzzwords and grand narratives, we have missed the detail. The sort that quietly moves around in my dad’s kitchen as he helps us prepare heart-friendly meals for my 70-year-old father who has recently run into cardiac trouble.
Our new cook and his entire extended family and in-laws are Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) voters in Lahore because the tried-and-tested recipes just aren’t working for the children Basim bhai and his family members are endeavouring to raise as well-rounded human beings.
In the week leading up to the elections, Basim bhai spends all his free time fraternising with my father’s newly-hired driver, Atif bhai (an ardent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supporter married to a loyal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) voter) along with the domestic help around our neighbourhood, the two plainly clothed chowkidaars who sit at the end of our middle-class street, the fruit, vegetable, meat and atta vendors around Faisal Town and even the shopkeepers in this area.
I know from my own everyday forays into the areas around my home that the Christian community next to FAST University has historically swung in favour of PPP, with PML-N dominating amongst GOR-V and other middle-class blocks of Faisal, Johar and Model Towns.
PTI is a popular choice amongst students of the many institutions in this part of Lahore, and some of the adult, working or homemaking residents who want to see ‘clean’ leadership.
But on July 23, 2018, as he checks the daal for consistency and texture, Basim bhai relays to me that everyone in this area wants PTI; actually, he corrects himself, they all believe in Imran Khan.
I listen calmly; I was never one for political hysteria and what little I had has probably been laid to rest by nearly a decade spent in the UK.
The next day, I see from the corner of my sleepy eye the huge face of Imran Khan walking into our kitchen, sketched across Basim bhai’s shirt, and am jolted from slumber.
Somewhere in the fog of being educated, uber-analytical, always cautious and incredibly reserved, I seem to be struggling with the ability to see ordinary Pakistanis for what they are — unapologetic believers that something better this way comes, right here, on this land, their land.
My neighbourhood is part of NA-130, a recently re-marked constituency in the eastern parts of Lahore, home to all kinds of socio-economic classes, education and aspiration levels, occupations, markets, religions, ethnicities and lifestyles.
When I send my CNIC number to the Election Commission’s 8300 verification service, I keep being told my polling station is Forman Christian College even though it has previously always been somewhere in Faisal Town.
The rest of my family heads over to Cathedral School on our main road, and I have to go over to FC College along the Canal on election morning.
The trip starts off frustratingly. Already, the past fortnight has been a blur of tigers and bats plastered across every unmoving (and even some moving) surface(s) in the city, prompting me to wonder just what kind of campaign ‘regulations’ we’ve got in place.
In a newspaper supplement regarding the finance of elections, I have read about unmonitored cash spending on canvassing paraphernalia.
I find myself silently praying whoever wins develops the aesthetic sense and gall to curate more sensible rules for campaigning.
On reaching FC College, I am turned away twice from the gates, the guards swatting at me like a fly, telling me there are no elections here. I am both laughing and shaking my head. This must be the only non-election inch of the country, then.
Atif bhai and I drive around the area looking for some kind of electoral activity. When we finally find party booths along one of Main Gulberg’s roads, I am issued an incomplete token by a perplexed looking young woman, who cautions that she hasn’t actually found my name on her list of voters. I am then instructed to walk towards KIMS, where I can try to cast my vote.
His name is Shakeel. Or he’s wearing Shakeel’s uniform. His eyes waver gently as he approaches me with an outstretched hand waiting to receive the humble white paper clenched tightly in my palm, this unimposing ticket to my democratic right.
I study him nervously as his young forehead begins to crease, his mouth beginning to form the words I am dreading: this probably isn’t the right polling station.
Shakeel, the Army jawaan ushers me towards a kindly young woman who advises me to return to the party booth outside — I cannot vote here, she tells me with apologetic eyes.
I stare speechlessly back at her. Is my vote even safe, screams a panicky voice in my mind. It is hard not to think this way when tales of corruption weave the fabric of Pakistan’s (mis)fortunes.
Behind the polling officer, I can see another uniformed officer meticulously adjusting a jute drape blocking off other parts of the school.
My eyes return to the polling officer, this time with a mixture of gratitude and pride.
These are the honest Pakistanis trying to do their job correctly on this important day in our history, and I must respect their integrity.
Back outside in the heat, I approach the PTI booth to explain what’s going on. A party member mutters out of frustration that people have been complaining since the morning that FC College has been turning voters away.
A young man next to her perks up with the suggestion that this is deliberate behaviour — I immediately reprimand him with the observation that the guards do not know from one’s face which party one is voting for.
I am resolved to find my polling station. I have waited a decade to vote again, having been a student abroad in 2013 who petitioned the government at many levels alongside thousands of other overseas Pakistanis — we were ultimately denied the right to vote.
Atif bhai and I return to FC College. This time I get out of the car and refuse to budge until the guard tells me just what is going on.
There’s been a mistake by the Election Commission. It’s actually FC College school that they’ve forgotten to append to their 8300 service texts, a building with its own distinct approach and entrance further up Zahoor Elahi Road.
There are no signs anywhere on the main roads indicating where a polling station might be, and I find this incredibly distressing.
How many people may have returned home without a purple-inked thumb, not as vote-starved as myself?
Why is such basic service design lacking in the Election Commission’s execution? The polling approach is blocked off so I jump out of the car and walk towards the school.
Inside, I have to intuitively guide myself towards the back of the school for the women’s polling due to further lack of signage.
I join a queue that is partially in shade, partially in sun and expect a long wait, when suddenly, all of us are shuffling into the building.
What a pleasant surprise, I am just starting to think, when a police officer appears and an altercation ensues.
I do not want a fight to prevent any of us from finally having found the right place to cast our votes so I leave my place in the queue to ask the police officer what happened.
He gives me a look, and I clarify that I’m just trying to help on this stiflingly hot day.
His eyes soften as he admits it is likely his own mistake that he walked to the other end of this long school corridor for water, not having been provided a drop since the morning.
His eyes flicker slightly, but I see what they’ve gone towards. Thick black boots on his feet in 36 degree Celsius heat since 5am.
The instructions the police and army officers have been given are very simple: only four people at a time can queue outside the immediate polling room; everyone else must be stood at a credible distance (in this case, the entrance to the corridor), and only two people from the queue can be allowed to approach the voter verification table at a time.
Also, the police and army cannot issue any different instructions to each other.
The trouble seems to be that his request to the women at the head of the queue to remain in their places was not honoured.
In addition, there are now three elderly women, one in a wheelchair and a sick lady who are being asked to join the regular queue, no arrangements for such voters having been mandatorily pre-empted by the polling station.
I reason that as a citizen of Pakistan, surely I can ask the army officer to help me do whatever needs to now be done.
Within 10 minutes, we’ve managed to clear the way for the elderly and ill, convinced the swarm of cranky voters to resume their original queuing positions, and even humoured the women in this part of the building enough to crack smiles.
The ballot itself is extremely uneventful in comparison — which is probably a good thing.
I thank the presiding officers running the show at my polling station. As I leave, the policeman and army officer thank me for being such a caring and responsible citizen.
I am quietly elated.
Before I know it, I am walking back towards the car with a Piano blue line of ink carefully painted across my right thumb, my heart heavy with the news from Quetta.
All the way home, and for the rest of election day, I return to the rich purple stain on my digit: it glistens in the light, this intricate topography of spirals, uniquely spaced to celebrate my existence, my life, my voice, my opinion, documented not by any token, card, chip, database or socially-constructed record of qualification or location, but right here in the palm of my hand.
I was born with it, and I have been undoubtedly fortunate to have used it to let the state know what matters to me.
The evening of the 25th quickly turns childish for Pakistan on global television and social media. One by one, members of my family retire to their beds until I sit alone at 4am, glued to the television screen.
In that moment, it doesn’t matter to me who says what on the basis of what evidence. I return to my thumb — and to all the people, processes, thoughts, deaths, lives, sweat, blood, tears and words that allowed me to stain it purple today.
My thumb, your thumb, this magnificent symbol in our country, better than any bat, tiger, arrow, tractor or book.
This symbol of a human’s greatest achievement: the ability to come together to honour a difference of opinion, respect another’s rights, and find the dignity to keep working together towards a better future.
We may not do it perfectly yet, but celebrate it, Pakistan, because we’re on our way. Well done.
I was hired as a researcher (I am not a party member) to be part of the team that drafted the final version of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) manifesto before the 2018 general elections.
Many bright individuals assisted by brighter senior PML-N leaders gave the document the final shape.
Certainly, it was a tough race against time to produce a coherent and comprehensive manifesto that presented the party’s performance during its 2013-2018 tenure and promises for 2018-2023.
For my part, I worked diligently to quickly complete the chapters assigned to me and dedicated my spare time to discuss and understand what other team members and, most importantly, PML-N leaders, thought about the party’s narrative, campaign strategy and its electoral prospects.
It was widely thought that the pre-poll drive to subdue the PML-N could well work in the party's favour and that the disillusioned party voters would come out in large numbers on July 25.
It was felt that, somehow, the narrative of victimisation could supplement the narrative of delivering development and infrastructure projects in Punjab and that both the narratives would be presented simultaneously to woo voters.
It was also expected by some that there could be no manipulation possible on election day, that the PML-N would be able to secure Punjab and may also have a shot at the federal level in a possible coalition government.
This was my assessment around the end of June and the start of July.
It will be unfair to say that the PML-N leaders were unaware of the situation on the ground, where some candidates had started returning party tickets and the divergence between Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif’s version of the party’s narrative was creating more problems.
Both approaches had their limitations and appeal among voters. Even eloquent party leaders were having a tough time reconciling the two narratives on primetime TV talk shows.
Commentators and observers were reading the situation in terms of a rift between the Sharif brothers.
Of two minds
On July 5, when the PML-N unveiled its manifesto, it was the time to highlight the party’s performance and promises. This was Shahbaz’s moment.
However, the verdict in the Avenfield reference came the very next day and jail time was announced for Nawaz, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law retired Captain Safdar.
The new circumstances now clearly dictated that the slogan Vote Ko Izzat Do had to be adopted and Khidmat Ko Vote Do could just well be a sideshow.
At this point, it was foreseen that the PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif would put his foot down, unify disparate party camps by bringing clarity in the PML-N’s narrative and fill in the shoes of star campaigner Nawaz Sharif.
However, the younger Sharif did not adapt to the new circumstances and was possibly still hopeful that he could rely on the khidmat narrative.
With the Avenfield verdict announced on July 6, Maryam and Nawaz declared their return to Pakistan on July 13 in order to surrender before the National Accountability Bureau and file an appeal within 10 days.
Now, the electronic media, which had been partially muzzled before, had their microscopes set on Nawaz’s return. This was thought to be the PML-N’s moment of resurrection.
Although, the PML-N supporters and workers did not want to create a large-scale agitation in Lahore, they were still arrested in large numbers by an overzealous caretaker Punjab government.
The party had already been battered by targeted political victimisation and Nawaz’s return provided an opportune turning point to the new PML-N president to make the elder brother a cult hero and capitalise on it.
Instead, Shahbaz further disillusioned his party’s charged workers on July 13 — the day the Sharifs returned — by making a dreary show of power in Lahore and remained fixated on July 25. Further, the massive suicide blast in Mastung diverted attention away from Nawaz’s return.
Just as Shahbaz’s moment to highlight his khidmat was overshadowed by the Avenfield verdict, Nawaz's return was overshadowed by his brother’s miscalculation and the Mastung blast.
Essentially, opportunities came and passed, but the PML-N failed to shine on either of its strong suits.
Writing on the wall
On the day of the election, I volunteered for the Anti-Rigging System under Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, a dedicated team constantly in touch with party candidates for coordination and legal aid.
I spoke to candidates from Lodhran and Vehari. When polling time finished and counting of votes began, candidates reported that their polling agents were evicted from polling stations and results were being issued only on katchi parchi and not on the official Form-45.
July 2018 witnessed an unprecedented euphoria amongst the masses in Karachi. With utmost certainty and assurance, folks were found rallying around the green and red banners of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).
A casual conversation with many on the street would turn into a passionate debate with hope and optimism at the centre.
“Yes, the captain will win and shall be our new prime minister. He shall end all our miseries, especially poor governance, dilapidated urban services, lack of representation in the main echelons of power, lawlessness and insecurity, rampant corruption and all the ills that exist in Karachi,” a young lady in a university department beamingly remarked.
She was surrounded by many young girls who had affectionately painted the PTI flag on their faces a day before the elections.
The sentiments of the middle-aged and elderly were also not different:
“You will see. He will reform this city like no one else had done before….like the way he led his team to lift the Cricket World cup in 1992,” an elderly gentleman at a newspaper stall replied to my question as to whether he believed in Imran Khan’s leadership with special reference to Karachi.
Supporters of the PTI chant slogans during a sit-in demonstration at the Teen Talwar roundabout in Clifton in 2014.—Online
I tried to start an argument by laying down some of the stark realities related to the structure of our administrative system, allocation of powers and resources amongst the various tiers of government, and more serious and factual stuff.
No one was interested to go into details. When he will win, he will find a way!
And indeed, the sentiments translated into electoral reality. Out of a total of 21 national assembly seats, the PTI won 14.
It has also emerged as the second-largest party in the Sindh assembly with 23 seats.
But the present reality of our administration and governance is such that most matters related to everyday life of common citizens are managed by the provincial government.
Some residual services and tasks are also dealt by local government institutions.
For instance, water supply and sewerage in Karachi is under the control of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) — which is directly placed under the Local Government Minister of Sindh. The Sindh Solid Waste Management Board is also under the same provincial minister.
Construction activity, development of residences and other physical facilities are regulated by the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA).
Development works are done by Karachi, Lyari and Malir Development Authorities, all under government of Sindh.
Healthcare, management of environment, police, schools, colleges and public universities, fisheries, housing and women welfare, social development and population welfare, heritage and culture, labour and livelihood, land allocation and control, and many other sectors of performance are under the control of Sindh government.
Interestingly, the elected local governments bodies in Karachi function under the close tutelage of the provincial government. And the provincial government in Sindh is where no change has appeared.
With 77 seats from a total tally of 130 general seats, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is all set to continue its third consecutive term since 2008.
Two questions arise: how will the Karachi voters — who overwhelmingly voted the PTI into an effective position to form government at the centre — benefit from their choice?
And how the much needed development, governance and representation needs of the metropolis shall be addressed, given the fact the Sindh administration may continue with its water-tight control on decision making and financial allocation prerogatives?
Karachi’s many woes
Let us first look at some of the most pressing needs of the city. A comprehensive road repair and maintenance project is a foremost priority.
Daily experience of commuting shows that various categories of roads have been damaged to a serious extent.
Whether Nishtar Road, Shahrah-i-Pakistan, Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan or major roads in Orangi, Baldia and Qasba colony, the destruction is to the extent where even stronger vehicles get damaged to a non-functional level.
Lack of periodic maintenance, poor design and quality of construction, frequent road cutting and adjustments for other forms of buried infrastructure, overlapping of new development schemes such as ongoing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project and frequent spills of fresh and sewage water have been some causes that led to the present dilapidated conditions.
—Zofeen T. Ibrahim
Despite the Supreme Court-mandated judicial commission on water and sanitation issues in Sindh, the status of trash collection in the city is far from satisfactory.
Physicians and health care professionals inform that the scale and intensity of infectious diseases has increased manifolds during the past few years.
Karachi produces more than 12,000 tonnes of solid waste every day. The weight and volume is rising due to growing consumerism.
A tiny fraction of this waste is lifted and disposed away in an unscientific manner. The remaining portion of this vast volume is either left unattended or burnt from time to time — causing more health hazards.
Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, the provincial body for this task under Sindh government, has been severely criticised for its less than desirable performance.
Karachi requires many simple but firm strategic interventions. The increase in the number of CNG-fuelled green buses on city arterial roads can facilitate commuters to a great extent.
About 450 million gallons of untreated sewage per day is discharged into the sea. Development of small and medium-scale sewage treatment plants at the discharging ends of city nallahs can safeguard marine environment.
This enterprise shall also help produce recycled water for horticulture and irrigating public landscape.
The drains are unable to carry to water as they are choked and their size capacity reduced.—Amar Guriro
Water management must be improved to enhance efficiency and control theft and wastage. A water loss reduction project is desperately needed by city dwellers.
It is common knowledge that many of our water mains have completed their designed life and are impacted by water leakage and organised theft.
Proper fixing of the leaks shall help Karachiites benefit more from the already available water.
Rehabilitation of footpaths all along the major thoroughfares is a key intervention that must be done without delay.
Education and health care facilities, especially in the public sector, need complete overhaul.
The list can go on and on.
But almost all the tasks mentioned above fall under the control of the Sindh government, which shall act on its own accord, not at the behest of PTI legislators.
Healing the rift between Karachi and Sindh government
Will it mean that the entire frenzy and enthusiasm of PTI buffs shall go to waste?
A lot shall depend upon the political equation that evolves between the incoming federal government under Imran Khan, his affiliates and cronies and the Sindh government, aka the PPP leadership.
Many possibilities remain open to the PTI legislators from Karachi to make their presence felt in Sindh and Karachi affairs.
It may be worthwhile to study what their predecessors in the federal government — the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz administration — did in Karachi.
The spearheading of the Karachi operation in 2013 with political consensus of all the parties in the province was perhaps the most important initiative by the Nawaz administration.
Ably supported by the armed forces and the provincial government, the operation was able to efface extortionists, terror outfits and a hoard of criminal gangs — within and outside the ranks of many a political party.
While law and order was the top problem of Karachi in 2013, water supply and urban transportation are two significant woes faced by all and sundry in the metropolis.
A construction site for Green Line in Karachi.—White Star
The PTI will do well if it negotiates the timely operation and management of ongoing initiatives such as the BRT along with all its connecting and feeder services, the Circular Railway with extensions to designated neighbourhoods and construction of intercity bus terminals on the Super and National Highways.
But if the PTI legislators and their party are sincere to resolve Karachi’s issues, they must bear in mind that it cannot be done without a strong working relationship with the incoming Sindh government.
If these politicians are able to articulate their own bargaining points, it shall prove to be useful to establish this bond.
As the PTI is perceived to enjoy better links with the establishment and its leader is on a high horse through this cumulative advantage, it can serve as a useful bargaining asset when they sit down to crease their relations with the PPP-led Sindh government.
While a mutually beneficial, cooperative spirit could serve everyone well, including Karachi, any condescending attempt to preponderate the PPP leadership in Sindh may prove futile and ineffective.
Besides, the presently muted Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan mayor and his local government tier must also be kept on board in all such interventions.
Khan has been talking about directly-elected mayors for large cities during his political discourse.
Whereas some of the more drastic measures may prove difficult, the PTI can consider becoming a bridge between the Sindh and local government.
The metropolis and its hapless citizens cannot afford any further divisive politics for sure.
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At first blush, it’s easy to dismiss any notion of a struggling US-Pakistan relationship improving under a government led by Imran Khan.
This is, after all, a figure who has resorted to relentless anti-American messaging. He has threatened to shoot down American drones, and he has lambasted Pakistan for using “American money” to fight “America’s war” against terrorism.
He has opposed the idea of targeting terrorists with force, and he has expressed sympathy for the Taliban insurgency that America is fighting in Afghanistan.
A populist politician in Pakistan, once in power, can’t be expected to eliminate this rhetoric, which plays well on the Pakistani street but not in the corridors of power in Washington.
And yet, amid these obstacles, there lies an opportunity for US-Pakistan relations. And Khan is well qualified — perhaps even uniquely qualified — to capitalise on it.
For the US, relations with Pakistan are always seen through the lens of Afghanistan. One reason the US government hasn’t walked away from Islamabad despite all the tensions and frustrations of recent years is that it desperately wants Pakistan to help it pursue its goals in Afghanistan.
From Washington’s perspective, Pakistan hasn’t been terribly helpful, mainly because it has not addressed America's concerns about Afghan insurgents allegedly based in Pakistan. And for years, American troops have tried but failed to tame the militants that Washington accuses Pakistan of harbouring.
But now, a dramatic shift in US policy is underway. After nearly 17 years, US officials are finally realising that the war cannot be won militarily, and that seeking a negotiated outcome is the only viable Plan B.
America’s new Plan B for Afghanistan has always been Pakistan’s Plan A — or at least Islamabad has stated as much publicly. Until now, the two countries’ plans had never been in alignment.
Washington has now agreed to pursue direct, bilateral talks with the Taliban. A round of exploratory negotiations reportedly took place in recent days, when a US government delegation led by America’s top South Asia diplomat, Alice Wells, met with Taliban representatives in Qatar.
America’s top ask of Pakistan is now something on which Islamabad — and Khan in particular — can not only deliver, but will presumably be keen to deliver on. And that ask is to convince the Taliban that now is the time to formally commit to peace talks to end the war.
Khan would not support any action that could be construed as doing America’s bidding. And yet cooperation with Washington on Taliban reconciliation talks should be an easy sell for him, and for two reasons.
First, such a move serves Pakistan’s interests. It would represent a step toward ending a war that has destabilising spillover effects in Pakistan (from cross-border terror to refugee flows and drug trafficking).
And it could get Pakistan closer to one of its desired endgames in Afghanistan: a post-war arrangement under which the Taliban enjoy a degree of political influence.
Second, helping push for Taliban reconciliation talks would be in line with Khan’s own personal preferences. One of his consistent positions in recent years is that militants — in both Pakistan and Afghanistan — should be targeted with negotiations, not force.
Additionally, Khan has infamously telegraphed his sympathies for the Afghan Taliban by praising their fight as a “holy war” justified by Islamic law.
All of this should give Khan good standing among the Taliban, increasing the possibility that the insurgents would listen to his government.
In effect, Khan’s perceived soft side for militants, rightly considered by many to be a liability, can also be an advantage. The qualities that inspire the moniker “Taliban Khan” could actually help serve US and Pakistani interests in Afghanistan — and, in the process, help boost US-Pakistan ties.
None of this is to say that a Khan-led government cooperating with Washington on Taliban reconciliation issues would magically make the bilateral relationship warm and fuzzy.
Washington’s “do-more” drumbeat, its fixation on the Haqqani network, its unhappiness about the alleged presence in Pakistan of India-focused terror groups — and above all its allegations against Pakistan of sponsoring various US-designated terrorists — these will all remain major irritants in the US-Pakistan relationship.
But for now at least, the Trump administration has set aside those tension points. The Taliban peace talks issue —something on which both the US and Pakistan now see eye to eye — has been placed on the policy front burner.
And herein lies the opportunity for Khan: he can capitalise on one of the few shared goals in the US-Pakistan relationship and help reinvigorate a sputtering partnership.
To be sure, this could all come crashing down. The Taliban could well shrug off Pakistan’s requests. Yes, there’s reason to believe Pakistan’s outreach to the insurgents has already worked to an extent; the Taliban’s recent decision to declare and honour a brief ceasefire can be attributed in part to Islamabad’s efforts.
Still, at the end of the day, the insurgents have little incentive to seriously commit to peace talks to end a war that they firmly believe they’re winning. That incentive structure remains in place no matter who may try to convince them to step off the battlefield.
But, at this moment at least, Pakistan’s incoming prime minister has a golden opportunity to cooperate with America to help bring a bloody and interminable war in Afghanistan to a merciful end.
Time will tell whether he chooses to seize it, and, if he does, if such a decision will pay off — and bring some badly needed relief to a region where peace and stability have long been elusive.
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Now that the much-awaited elections have finally happened, it is crucial that we look beyond them and consider the kind of challenges the next government faces.
First and foremost, the economic crisis we are grappling with is staggering. Pakistan has never really faced this scale of economic problems, so the leadership coming to power is being dealt an unfair hand.
They are forced to refer to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as soon as September this year to seek a bailout to the tune of upwards of $15 billion.
This would be nearly double the amount of the last bailout package the country was on a few years ago.
The reason we are going on an IMF programme again is because our economy is not doing well enough due to our last finance minister bungling Pakistan’s fiscal and monetary policies.
So, even though the mess was created by the last government, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — along with its coalition partners — will be expected to address it immediately.
It will not be easy; going on the programme will require cutting subsidies on power and petroleum products, inadvertently increasing inflation.
Add to that the predicted rupee devaluation to at least Rs150 to $1, and the common person will be bearing the brunt of it all.
Factually speaking, it is not the fault of the new administration that these things will have to be done but, unfortunately, the public will perceive it as such anyway.
Secondly, the PTI must come up with a detailed economic plan, while also figuring out what to do with the federal budget and supplement the increased costs.
The economy is not growing as fast as assumed, lowering Pakistan’s competitiveness in the global market.
Any new government needs to start with seriously rethinking the approach of the last many regimes and concentrate on diversifying Pakistan’s exports, while cutting down on our unnecessary imports.
The diversification must look beyond textiles and cultivate industries with decent margins and without prohibitive start-up costs.
The IT industry is an option but seeing how far behind Pakistan is compared to its regional competitors, it won’t be easy. On top of this, the PTI also needs to enhance the tax base and increase foreign reserves quickly.
Essentially, the incoming leadership would need to hit the ground running with a comprehensive economic plan it has yet to create.
Thirdly, the law and order situation in Pakistan has improved significantly, but the PTI would still have to do a lot more to maintain progress.
Part of this will involve determining a way to deal with the rising tide of extremism, courtesy of the mainstreaming of fringe fanatical parties, as well as the silent rise of extremist views in the more educated and economically well-off segments of the society.
People tend to ignore the penetration of the fringe religious parties, but the ground level threat is real, the magnitude of which is evident with the Tehreek-i-Labbaik finishing third in many constituencies in Punjab.
Lastly, the successor government will have its hands full undoing the 18th Amendment if it is ever coerced into it.
The provinces will not give up easily; Sindh will put up a fight even if the other three provinces side with the government.
The PTI should instead focus on creating a framework where debt servicing is a communal process so provincial governments also contribute, instead of only the federal government.
It is unfair for the latter to be conducting debt servicing alone, when they only get 48% of the national kitty and must pay for the military as well as the functioning of all ministries at the federal level.
The provinces need to do more which is where the negotiations need to take place.
I hope the next government would also take up the issue of bureaucratic reforms seriously by introducing the kind of changes we need. But that seems to be wishful thinking.
For now, I truly hope the successors pull through on the economic challenges. At this stage, all we can do is wish the chosen well and hope things work out for the best because we have no other choice.
Are you researching Pakistan's economy and politics? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com
As election fervour morphs slowly into a nervous anticipation for Naya Pakistan, commentators are now shifting their attention away from the events of July 25 and looking to the future.
What has Pakistan’s experience with the IMF looked like? Why do we keep going back and who precisely is being ‘bailed out’? What are the lessons to be learned?
While the corruption motif could certainly find a place in the explanation, perhaps we should be looking beyond the apparent and instead towards the historical and structural imperatives that keep us going back for more.
Though Pakistan began its borrowing history with the IMF under Ayub Khan, its first Structural Adjustment Package (loans disbursed with added conditions of macroeconomic policy changes to ensure repayment) was accepted by Ziaul Haq in 1982.
Since then, various governments have accepted 12 conditional loan packages from the Fund, all of which have sung quite similar policy tunes: privatisation of state assets, liberalisation of the terms of trade, indirect taxation, subsidy cuts and an almost singular focus on reducing budget deficits.
Socioeconomic casualties at the hands of the IMF conditions have included social sector spending (most notably, health and education), employment and accessibility to essential items like oil and electricity.
The Fund’s macroeconomic prescriptions have been so consistent over the past three decades that, whether it be 1988 or 2018, it seems one can fairly confidently predict the contents of any loan package, without a single document in hand.
And though there are now claims emerging from both within and outside the IMF that it has moved away from any dogmatic adherence to the Washington Consensus, there is very little evidence to show for it.
In a March 2018 IMF Country Report on Pakistan, the Fund’s diagnosis of the country’s economic woes sounds familiar: insufficient exchange-rate flexibility, too many burdensome public-sector enterprises, not enough “growth-supporting structural reforms”.
Indeed, such an approach is not unique to Pakistan — Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and former chief economist at the World Bank, has criticised the Fund for its ‘cookie-cutter’ approach to conditional lending and structural reform, with countries as diverse as Argentina, Nigeria and Pakistan receiving virtually identical loan packages over the years.
This is important because if the government-elect does follow through on its intentions to approach the IMF, it is fairly clear what deal it will leave with. The question then is — will it work?
And again, there is little evidence to suggest that it will. A number of scholars and commentators have conducted empirical surveys of Pakistan’s macroeconomic experience under the IMF structural adjustment and the conclusions are worrying.
Tilat Anwar and Haroon Jamal have commented on the exacerbation of inequality levels and poverty during the 1988-1999 adjustment period.
Akbar Zaidi looks at the decade between 1992 and 2002 and highlights decreases in per capita income and per capita GDP, worsening the gap between rich and poor.
Professor of business policy and political economy Imran Ali has commented on rising inflationary pressures on the economy in the mid-to-late 2000s, highlighting oil and gas price rises and a decline in Pakistani manufacturing.
One study that analyses adjustment data between 1981-2001 confirms many of the observations made above. This includes an unemployment rate that “…increased from an average of 3.5 per cent in the 1980s to 5.7pc in the 1990s further to 6.7pc in 2000-01” due to an obsession with budget deficit reduction and dangerous increases in inflation and the prices of oil, gas and electricity.
In terms of per capita income, something the authors call “the most frequently used indicator of economic welfare”, the study finds an overall deterioration, linking it to the IMF-mandated increases in indirect taxes and subsidy reductions.
Overall, the study concludes that the Fund’s primary aim during this period — the stabilisation of the Pakistani economy — remained woefully unmet.
And so, we go back again, empty coffers in hand.
Who is responsible?
The many damning studies aside, it is that clear that the Fund’s formula is failing when, after 12 loan packages, macroeconomic stability remains a pipe dream and we are considering signing our 13th deal.
And as loosely as the dollars are disbursed, so too is the blame. Reactions ranging from anti-Semitic Jewish conspiracy-theory characterisations of the IMF to hand-wavy arguments about purely local incompetence and corruption dominate the discourse in Pakistan.
As is necessarily the case with false dichotomies, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
There is, of course, the fundamental problem of cherry-picked implementation of the Fund’s programmes and a number of excellent pieces detail just that.
One such piece explores this in detail, arguing that “the government often complies with some conditions and ignores others, using the leverage of international political environment and the IMF to push through only policies that benefit domestic elites and lobbies”.
That same piece, however, goes a step further — as we all should when analysing complex realities created through the interplay of a multitude of actors, institutions and motivations. It highlights the Fund’s own tendency to turn the other cheek — a noble act in many contexts, criminal in this one.
This includes the continual recalibration of benchmark deadlines, discretionary leeway as long as creditors are temporarily satisfied and the exaggeration of potential success with the concurrent downplaying of risk.
Nadeem ul Haq’s recent comment on the same tells a story of hastily re-negotiated mini-budgets, a resultant uncertain investment climate, the imposition of unanticipated (and coercive) spending cuts on the finance ministry, and much more.
The Fund is flexible — as long as some cuts are made, any reductions are chased, a bit of compliance shown. Haq’s conclusion is clear: “Pakistan has been the subject of a long-running experiment in austerity”.
Yet another factor blurs the boundaries of the dichotomy — the revolving door between the Fund and many former Pakistani state officials:
Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, finance minister from 2010 to 2013, served as director of economic operations of the World Bank (the Fund’s structural adjustment official partner) in Saudi Arabia throughout the 1990s; Mahbubul Haq, finance minister in 1998, was former director of the World Bank; Shahid Javed Burki, vice-president of the World Bank who implemented a number of structural adjustment initiatives during his tenure as de-facto finance minister in 1996. Former prime minister Raja Ashraf arbitrarily appointed his son-in-law World Bank alternative executive director in 2013 with little to no fanfare.
The point is this: the financial movers and shakers in Pakistan are either well-acquainted with or have more or less internalised the programmatic gist of IMF-lending and the logics of austerity economics that go along with it.
These are the same technocrats who are responsible for drawing up budgets, cutting or saving subsidies, jobs, welfare expenditures and more.
An awareness of this makes the trope of ‘us versus the Fund’ a tired one, the assignment of blame a complex process, and any attempt at a holistic understanding of the ideas and policies that underpin Pakistan’s perpetual debt crisis all the more urgent.
But…Asad Umar
So here is what we know so far — the Fund’s structural adjustment experiment in Pakistan has overwhelmingly failed, we are stuck in a loop of incurring new debts to pay off old debts, and if we go back, we will be served another dose of the same old medicine.
More optimistic (naïve?) observers will point out what they think will be a crucial difference: Naya Pakistan.
Surely Asad Umar’s business savvy, corporate know-how and real world experience will make him a more competent finance minister? Surely the negotiations with the IMF this time will be different?
Putting aside the fact that Pakistan’s former finance ministers have had equally impressive profiles, let us assume for the sake of argument that Asad Umar will approach talks with the Fund in a qualitatively different and fundamentally new way. What hope does the Pakistani economy have of securing a better deal for itself?
It becomes necessary here to examine the internal structure of the IMF itself and how that shapes any terrain of negotiation. Two elements are key: voting and drawing rights and the Fund’s internal chain of command.
Voting and drawing rights
The Executive Board of the IMF is responsible for the day-to-day administration of IMF country missions and it comprises 24 members.
Eight countries get to appoint their chosen director — the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. Every other member nation can collectivise in groups and nominate the remaining 16 directors.
When a country joins the IMF, it contributes a certain quantum of money — a ‘quota subscription’ — which forms the basis of the following: how much a country can borrow in times of need and their voting power. As McQuillan and Montogmery put it, “the richer the country, the larger its quota”.
A couple of interesting observations can be gleaned from the above. First, it is (at best) slightly odd that the Fund’s criteria for determining each country’s drawing rights (and in turn, each nation’s capacity to employ the Fund for domestic macroeconomic stabilisation) is contingent on that country’s wealth and economic performance.
This circular logic of capital accumulation permits stronger financial players a more meaningful say in deciding the rules of the game and might suggest that the Fund’s responsibility first and foremost is to the robustness of the global financial system instead of the health of individual economies. Asad Umar against the World.
Second, the fact that a majority of the world’s borrowing nations have little effective say in the number and terms of the loans disbursed is troubling to say the least.
Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, in Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank emphasise this inequity through the following example: “the group led by Rwanda, including 24 Sub-Saharan African countries and representing 225 million people, has only 1.39pc of voting rights”.
The equation between drawing rights and voting rights means that the majority of the developing world — the IMF’s most loyal customers — has an almost negligible role in shaping its own recovery.
As of right now, Pakistan votes with Afghanistan, Algeria, Ghana, Iran, Morocco and Tunisia, representing 2.2pc of the vote share. Asad Umar (plus seven countries with very little economic clout) against the World.
The chain of command
The IMF is a massive organisation, and therefore, houses a vast bureaucracy consisting of staff members that act as ‘international civil servants’ rather than national representatives.
How does this impact the dynamics of forging loan agreements between the Fund and member states? Again, two key elements will be analysed: the space for dissent within the IMF and the space for dissent between the IMF and Pakistan.
On the issue of internal disagreement within the Fund’s ranks as to loan prescriptions and conditions for member states, Paul Blustein’s 2003 book on the international debt crises of the 1990s, offers unique insights.
In it, he quotes a number of IMF employees and their experiences working at the Fund. One former IMF staffer, Michael Dooley, says:
“I can tell you for sure there are heated arguments. But they are resolved internally…you don’t want an institution like the Fund changing its mind every week about how to do things. Financial markets are watching. While you negotiate, Rome is burning”.
As far as staff missions to specific countries are concerned, Laura Papi (another former IMF staffer) says: “…there is a very clear hierarchy…(even when disagreements surface within a mission team) they will disappear…because the mission chief will say ‘I think X, even if you think Y…then he goes to the Front Office and says, ‘We believe X’”.
The result is an almost militaristic internal chain of command between staffers and their superiors at the Fund, one that not only narrows the parameters of critical inquiry but limits any possibility for creative re-imagination of what an economy can look like and who it should serve. We are left with societies carved out of cookie-cutters.
The rigidness in this chain of command trickles down to negotiations between IMF Mission Teams and member countries as well.
Though the Fund insists it seeks to uphold the spirit of freedom to contract with all lending nations, experience tells us otherwise.
Ben Thirkell-White, in his book The IMF and the Politics of Financial Globalization, writes: “for poorer, less politically significant countries with limited expertise…negotiations may be highly one-sided”.
“…the Fund often came to negotiations with fixed positions so that agreement was usually only possible through compromises in which the country negotiating teams moved to the Fund’s positions…the Fund too often simply imposed its will, was generally insensitive to genuine constraints in policy-making…and was too quick to dismiss policy options favoured by the government”.
This rigid, militaristic chain of command not only makes internal dissent a distant possibility but flexibility in negotiation an institutional anomaly.
And even though Asad Umar's infatuation with ideas of mass privatisation might mean negotiations go more smoothly than the Pakistani citizenry would hope, any and all points of contention that may be raised in order to preserve some semblance of fiscal sovereignty will be shrouded in the shadow of the Fund’s institutional coherence, rigidity and sheer power.
Repoliticising the Pakistani economy
Three decades and very little to show for it — it is clear that the Pakistani economy is far from stable after structural adjustment.
And yet, as this next government gears up for another go, there is nothing but the slow simmering of protest in a few think-pieces and opportunistic political challenges.
There is something alienating about economics. At its core, it is merely a framework through which a society decides how to divvy up the goods. These decisions should be socially-deliberated, stemming from a value-led, justice-driven consensus.
Instead, when the flurry of dizzying demand curves, maddening models and indecipherable equations are thrown at us in the hopes we will defer to the ‘experts’, we capitulate.
In recent times, Pakistan has seen lively debate on a number of difficult issues — civil-military relations, religious freedom, ethnic minority rights, and women’s protection to name a few. And though these debates may not always go as one hopes, there is still a conversation.
To quote Timothy Mitchell, Pakistan’s economy today is under the ‘rule of experts’ — sealed off from popular debate and couched in a vernacular so technical that we find ourselves accepting certain practices or arrangements unknowingly, deferring to authorities to act in our interest when we would otherwise prefer to act by ourselves.
Perhaps this is why government after government finds it so easy to knock on the Fund’s door.
It should not be this easy. Pakistan today faces a housing shortage of over ten million units and only 1pc of housing currently available is affordable for the poorest 68pc.
According to the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, the country may run out of water in 2025 — seven years from now — if things do not drastically change.
According to the United Nations Development Programme, almost 76pc of Pakistan’s youth drop out of formal education due to financial stress.
Those who do complete their education and enter the job market are unlikely to find decent jobs, with our youth unemployment rated estimated to be as high as 40pc.
A public health crisis weighs heavily on the population’s most underprivileged, with infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy rates at some of the lowest in all of South and South-East Asia.
IMF-mandated austerity has meant that we have long been prioritising abstract, perhaps even unattainable goals of economic growth over genuine human development.
If the next government truly wishes to create a new Pakistan, it will have to come to terms with a financial relationship with the IMF that has, at least in part, contributed to the mess we find ourselves in.
Are you researching Pakistan's politics or economy? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com
Meesha Shafi’s sexual harassment complaint against Ali Zafar was dismissed a week ago by the provincial ombudsperson and the Punjab governor on the basis that Shafi does not have an 'employment relationship' with the entity against whom the complaint was filed i.e. JS Events.
Shafi and her team will now take their appeal to the Lahore High Court (LHC).
What does the ombudsperson and the governor's rejection mean? Is it a wrong decision that should be set aside by the LHC?
The law under which the complaint was filed — Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act of 2010 — covers all forms of harassment in a workplace setting and imposes certain responsibilities on the employer to prevent, investigate and penalise instances of sexual harassment even if the person complaining of harassment is not an employee.
'Workplace' is defined very broadly under the harassment law to include “the place of work or the premises where an organisation or employer operates” and includes any place “where the activities of the organisation or of employer are carried out.”
The definition of the workplace is expanded even further to include “any situation that is linked to official work or official activity outside the office.”
While the 'accused' is defined to specifically mean an 'employee' or an 'employer' of an organisation against whom a complaint has been made, the definition of 'complainant' is not similarly restricted.
A person complaining of sexual harassment may be any “woman or man who has made a complaint to the Ombudsman or the Inquiry Committee on being aggrieved by an act of harassment.”
Further, the definition of 'harassment' does not limit the offence to actions taking place within the scope of employment.
It is defined as “any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal or written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature” that interferes with “work performance” or creates an “intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”
As stated earlier, the preamble of the law which sets forth the purpose of the legislation broadens the scope of the law to cover harassment that occurs in workplace settings without limiting it to harassment faced by employees.
It states that “it is expedient to make this provision for the protection of women from harassment at the workplace”.
The federal ombudsperson has used this line of reasoning when deciding a harassment complaint made by a student of Quaid-i-Azam University who was sexually harassed in 2012.
In that decision, the federal ombudsperson found that the harassment law is not limited to the employees of an organisation, and therefore even students in a university are protected by the law.
Even otherwise, the reasoning used by the ombudsperson and the Punjab governor to conclude that Shafi is not in an 'employment relationship' with JS Events is flawed.
They relied entirely on the literal terms of the contract itself to reach that conclusion, even though the harassment law should prevail over the contract in order to decide whether the harassment complained about is legally prohibited.
Neither an employer nor employee can relinquish their legal responsibilities under the harassment law through a contract.
If Shafi is found to be an employee as defined by the harassment law, her complaint would fall within the scope of the law in spite of a contractual clause disavowing an employment relationship.
In any case, whether or not she is an employee is not determinative, since the harassment law is not limited to harassment faced by employees only.
On a number of occasions, Pakistan’s courts have rejected employers’ claims that their contractual arrangements with employees absolve them from responsibilities under the law.
For example, in Enmay Zed Publications v. Sindh Appellate Tribunal (2001 SCMR 565), the Supreme Court held that a newspaper could not terminate its employee without good cause simply because its contract with the employee allowed it to do so.
Instead, the Court found that the requirements of the Newspaper Employees Act of 1973, which provides that an employee could be terminated only for good cause, prevailed over the terms of the contract.
The Sindh High Court has also held that “there is no concept of execution of agreement between workman and the employer by which the statutory rights of a workman could be diminished or taken away …” (Samiullah Sharif v. Fauji Oil Terminal and Distribution Company, 2007 PLC 464).
Legal precedent is clear that an employer cannot stand behind an agreement to deny employees rights guaranteed under the law.
The broad range of protections and remedies provided under the harassment law shows that it was intended to impose certain duties on employers to prevent sexual harassment in workplace settings.
Employers should not be permitted to circumvent their duties under the law by entering into agreements with employees who typically have much weaker bargaining power when negotiating such agreements.
Shafi claims that she was sexually harassed by Zafar while both of them were working for JS Events. If the alleged act of harassment took place in a setting where official work or activity was taking place in the course of a business run by JS Events, it falls within the scope of the harassment law.
As the employer, JS Events has the responsibility to investigate allegations of sexual harassment in such a setting, issue appropriate penalties to any of its employees who are found guilty of harassment and also take measures to prevent instances of harassment.
The LHC should find that the complaint falls under the scope of the harassment law and remand the case to the ombudsperson to examine the facts and decide the case on the merits.
On June 19, an Instagram blogger posted a picture of the Karachi United (KU) women’s football team on his account. Subsequently, the picture was shared by another account with access to a larger audience, Diva Magazine Pakistan.
Unsurprisingly, the comments section was a cesspool of negativity and hatred. Instead of recognising what an accomplishment it is for women to play football in a society knee-deep in patriarchy, people chose to focus on the girls’ attire.
The fact that the girls were wearing shorts, a universally-worn football uniform, drew much ire from commenters; the moral brigade deemed their uniform 'un-Islamic', while a few others concluded that the girls were porn stars.
Apparently, that’s all that it takes to become a porn star nowadays — donning on a pair of football shorts.
Though most people might marvel at the absurd nature of these comments, for me, sadly, they were not surprising.
A few years ago, I had the privilege to play as the goalkeeper on the KU women’s football team and hearing such comments was commonplace for me and my teammates.
During the time I played for the team, my family's primary concern was that I would tan in the sun. To them, it did not matter that I had an outlet for the pressure I faced during five stressful years of medical school. For them, the colour of my skin took precedence over my mental health.
When I fractured my ring finger, I was told that no one would want to marry a girl with a broken ring finger since the groom would not have a finger to put a ring on, as if my nine other fingers ceased to exist.
A recurring theme I faced during my time on the team was being minimised to one silly stereotype after another by society. I was either too dark or too masculine for liking football. Not a porn star though, since I chose to play in track pants.
Though, on a serious note, it’s frustrating to see my former teammates, all of whom are very talented athletes, being defined by their choice of clothing.
Yes, choice of clothing.
You see, while playing, we do not see ourselves as the sole example of how women should dress. We just choose what’s most comfortable for us to play in. That can be anything — a pair of shorts, track pants or even a burqa.
Furthermore, we do not choose to play football to draw attention to our bodies or seem more appealing to men who might look past our dark complexions and broken limbs. No, we play because of our genuine love for the game.
A lot of the girls who play for KU venture from different corners of the city on any mode of transport available to them, be it rickshaws, bicycles or motorbikes, to come to practice, and that too despite opposition from their families.
Like me, some of the women play to let off steam and release the pressures of work or studies. Others play simply to keep healthy, a chance afforded to them by the grueling bi-weekly practices and weekly football games against the men's side.
But for many, the drive to play comes from the qualities the game instills in us, be it the discipline that comes from rigorous practice, the confidence that comes from being a valuable member of the team or the social skills we acquire by working together as a group.
For a lot of my former teammates, football has evolved from just a hobby to better career and academic prospects.
Two of them have gone on to be accepted into masters programmes at Harvard based on their participation in the KU women’s football team.
The co-founder of the team recently became the first female footballer in Pakistan to earn a spot in the prestigious FIFA Masters Course, an exclusive programme that allows its graduates to study sport in three major cities.
Most of them have accepted these opportunities with their primary aim being to return to Pakistan to further expand the scope of women’s football, and to create a better environment for current and future female football players.
So, if the next time you see girls playing football and your first instinct is to criticise their 'morals' and 'values', here is a cheatsheet of things you can think of instead:
how hard those girls work
the uphill battle they have to fight just to play
how playing football allows them to become better functioning members
of society
how they can avail better career or academic opportunities through
football
If you’re still intent on criticising, then look past their clothing and see them as what they simply are — football players, and maybe discuss their game instead.
By doing so, together, we might be able to break the barriers that prevent women from progressing in our society, and maybe young girls in the future might be able to play football without worrying about what their uncles, classmates, parents or random people on the internet will say.
Have you ever faced discrimination in your profession? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com
It is early evening and Sally’s* beauty parlour in Rawalpindi is teeming with women undergoing their weekly or monthly beauty regimen.
Switching between Hakka and Urdu, with occasional interjections in Pothwari, the owner of the salon refers to herself as 'local Chinese' or Pakistani-Chinese.
These terms point to the profound ambivalence of Chinese ethnic identity shaped by the political, economic and historical contexts of South Asia.
Being Chinese is understood on multiple levels in Pakistan. Since the advent of projects introduced by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2013, the visibility of the Chinese in public spaces has not gone unnoticed in the main cities of the country.
Migrants, engineers and entrepreneurs arriving from diverse provinces in China are often thought of as a monolithic group related to CPEC and have come to dominate – numerically as well as in perception – other endogamous ethnic Chinese communities already present in Pakistan.
What is often missing is a more nuanced understanding of the long established community grouped under the term 'Chinese' or 'chini', as well as their unique trajectories that have accompanied Pakistan’s formation.
As a Taiwanese anthropologist who has spent a significant portion of her life outside of the Sinosphere, I am interested in comparative cultural issues related to migration and identity, particularly that of the most extensive and complex one of our modern world: the Chinese diaspora.
Thus began a research project that took me across various cities in Pakistan, where a declining minority of ethnic Chinese families shared with me their lives and experiences that were intimately linked to the development of modern Pakistan.
It is not popularly known that some of the earliest Chinese in South Asia emigrated to Kolkata (then Calcutta) during the British era; in fact, as early as the 18th century.
While successive waves of migration from the provinces of Guangdong, Hubei and Shandong have been traced by contemporary historians, the subsequent trajectories of these migrants in Pakistani territories are rarely examined.
In the wake of the partitioning of India in 1947, the India-China War in 1962 and later the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, ethnic Chinese families found themselves dispersed in different parts of South Asia, gaining recognition and contributing to the economies of each of their localities through restaurants, dentist clinics and beauty parlours.
Moving with Pakistan
The events that unfolded after Partition were a constant home-making project for the ethnic Chinese of Pakistan. While doing field research, I befriend a small Pakistani-Chinese family that has grown up in Rawalpindi and specialises in manufacturing and selling leather shoes.
Much like the majority of Chinese migrant communities in India and Pakistan, they are Hakka – also known as Kejia in Mandarin Chinese – a distinct ethnic and linguistic group dispersed throughout southeastern China, and through their diasporas to Southeast Asia, South Asia and other parts of the world.
Considered to be members of the majority Han Chinese rather than members of an ethnic minority, they speak a Hakka dialect rather than Mandarin Chinese, the lingua franca of the Sinosphere.
For many other Chinese born in India-Pakistan, 'home' has several meanings within this family. Jason’s grandfather, for example, lived in Kolkata in the 1940s, moving to Lahore at the time of Partition.
After opening his first shoe store in Rawalpindi, the indomitable Indian-Chinese entrepreneur proceeded to opening another shop in Murree in 1949. More shops soon branched out through the growing family.
His grandson, whom I’ll call Jason, is part of a generation of young Pakistani-Chinese with a heterogeneous sense of belonging and distant ties to the Indian-Chinese in Kolkata.
Their family members are geographically mobile, sometimes to the extent of traversing across Indo-Pakistani borders in pursuit of marriage with Indian-Chinese, or joining the second and third generation of Pakistani-Chinese in Canada.
When I ask about 'home', individuals within the same family refer to different cities, but always within South Asia.
In Karachi, a dentist of Hubeinese descent narrates leaving his birthplace of Kolkata shortly after the India-China War in 1963. “Like many others [Chinese] who came after, we moved from India out of fear”, he says.
It was a time when persecutions of ethnic Chinese by the Indian state were authorised and many were deported or sent to internment camps.
After graduating in dentistry from Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry, he opened his own dental practice in Saddar, where his clinic stands alongside other formerly Chinese-owned clinics.
“Despite how others outside might view Pakistan as a result of instability and bombings, we are very happily settled here. This is our home”, he tells me.
In Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, a similar migration story and business acumen is echoed amongst restaurant owners of a distinct type of Chinese (Hakka) cuisine best typified by the term 'desi chini khana' that caters largely to South Asian tastes.
Several other of my interlocutors were born in East Pakistan to families that commonly ran tanneries and restaurants in both Dhaka (then Dacca) and Chittagong.
Many were witness to the armed conflict in the former Pakistani province. Stories of brutal repression are recounted solemnly to me by those seemingly at the fringes of South Asian history.
One individual born in Dhaka recalls the bombing of his restaurant by 'freedom fighters' and the fleeing of family members and friends en masse from East to West Pakistan.
The major events that led to the contemporary formation of Pakistan as lived by Pakistani-Chinese involve leaving their home and losing their businesses, properties and communities, to begin their lives anew in West Pakistan.
A Pakistani-Chinese born in Abbottabad, however, has a more optimistic take on the conflict. “It took us [Pakistan] to lose East Pakistan for me to find my wife”, he says to me.
As a result of the mass migration of Chinese from East Pakistan, he met his wife, also a Pakistani-Hakka, of 45 years, in Rawalpindi.
For a long period of time, a mixture of Urdu, English and Hakka was spoken in their Pakistani-Chinese household.
Preserving the Hakka language is not only useful for daily interactions between majority of the local Chinese, it also reflects their intimacy and identity with a particular place: Meixian, the ancestral village of their parents or grandparents in Guangdong province in China.
The influx of Chinese migrants after CPEC, however, has meant that the local Chinese have had to address what many see as a handicap — the inability to speak Mandarin Chinese.
The grandchildren of my Abbottabad-born interlocutor are now learning Mandarin Chinese in an effort to salvage what is deemed an important part of their identity other than being Pakistani.
This phenomenon, taking place among the Chinese diaspora in other parts of the world as well, is also related to the rise of China as a leading economic power.
Older Pakistani-Chinese families are now but a dwindling fraction of the larger Chinese population that has been ushered in by the increasing economic cooperation between Pakistan and China.
When I ask whether the Pakistani-Chinese feel Chinese, the answer is often conflicting. On one hand, some say that they called themselves Chinese as that was what Pakistanis explicitly refer to them as. On the other, a more Pakistani identity is embraced amid the younger generations.
In one incident, my interlocutor in Rawalpindi was driving his scooter back home one afternoon when confronted by two Pakistanis asking, “yeh Chinese idhar kyun goom raha hai?” (“Why is this Chinese roaming around here?”), to which his jocular response was, “kahan hai Chinese? Yahan par toh sab Pakistani hain” (“Where’s the Chinese? There are only Pakistanis here”).
These interactions, in fact, express the paradox of being ethnic Chinese in Pakistan, against the backdrop of CPEC and the rise in expatriates, migrants and labourers from China.
Reflecting on practices, heritage and understandings of 'home' amongst minorities opens to redefining what counts as 'Chinese' but also 'Pakistani' today.
And even if it doesn’t, knowing these communities broadens an understanding of China-Pakistan relations, as one not only subsumed under CPEC and its developments, but revealing a much more connected history.
All interlocutors have been given pseudonyms to protect their identity
Do you belong to a diaspora community in Pakistan? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com
When I was a child, during every monsoon, the Chenab — the river of love — would break free from its banks and flood agricultural fields around it.
While crossing a bridge spanning the river in Punjab, I remember feeling a strange sense of helplessness to see water as far as the eye could see. It was hard to tell where the river ended and the flooding began.
The floodwater used to be spread over kilometres, destroying everything in its wake, but also leaving behind it seeds of life — fertile soil — as the water receded.
Now as I pass over the same bridge, the mighty river of the past flows meekly under the bridge. Its banks are at least a couple of kilometres wide. Long gone are the days when it would break out of its confines and occupy a greater expanse of land.
With ample rain, the river just about manages to fill its banks.
Pakistan’s river cities
Environmentalists have been talking about Pakistan’s shrinking rivers for many years now. All of Pakistan’s major rivers, including the Indus, enter the country from India.
Many nationalists claim dam building projects across the border limits the flow of water into Pakistan. This narrative gained further credibility when in November 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened to cut the supply of water flowing into Pakistan from India.
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 divided the shared river network between India and Pakistan. While India was given rights over water from the Beas, Sutle, and Ravi rivers, Pakistan gained rights over the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus.
Soon after this treaty was signed, the Beas and Sutlej, which once flowed into Pakistan, disappeared. Their dried beds, which survived for a few years, were taken over by the ever-increasing population.
The Sutlej has given birth to several cities that have survived decades, centuries and even millennia in some cases.
For example, just where the Sutlej enters Pakistan is the historical city of Kasur, the city of the Mughal-era Punjabi Islamic philosopher and Sufi poet Bulleh Shah.
According to legend, the city was founded by Kush, the twin brother of Lav, who founded the city of Lahore. In Hindu mythology, they are the children of Ram and Sita.
Historical records suggest that Kasur was established in the 16th century by Afghan migrants who came with the forces of Babur the Mughal.
A little further south is the city of Kanganpur, named after a mythological Hindu princess, Kangna. Her father, the king of this region, was defeated by the forces of Arab general Muhammad Bin Qasim.
According to legend, Kangna’s brother, Maha Chawar, was taken back to Arabia by Qasim when the defeated king could not pay a war indemnity. The young man converted to Islam there.
When Maha Chawar returned home, his new religion was unacceptable to his father. The king and his advisors subsequently planned to murder him.
But Kangna found out about the plan, warned her brother and fled with him along the flow of the river. The king’s men intercepted the princess and the prince close to a village called Mandi Borewala, where they were murdered. A shrine to commemorate the early martyrs of Islam came up here later.
Along the way, on the disappeared bed of the Sutlej river is the city of Pakpattan, which sprung up around the shrine of Baba Farid Shakarganj.
The city’s name — meaning a “sacred ford” — is derived from the river. Born out of this lost river of Punjab, the city continues to grow as the shrine of the 12th century Sufi saint is a major attraction.
The Ravi and Lahore
West of the Sutlej is the Ravi, which enters Pakistan close to Kartarpur Sahib, the final resting place of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.
Here, Guru Nanak tended to his agricultural fields for 17 years. Locals still believe that the Ravi floods its banks every few years to pay homage to the shrine of Guru Nanak.
Ravi also gave birth to Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan. Once known as the city of gardens — laid out by numerous Mughal kings, queens, princes and princesses — Lahore became the centre of power for Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) as he laid the foundation of the Khalsa Empire.
Under the colonial regime it became the symbol of the empire. It still is Pakistan’s most important political centre.
About 200km from Lahore are the remains of Harappa, one of the most important cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation. While another city, Mohenjodaro, came up around the fertile lands of the Indus river, it was Ravi that gave birth to Harappa.
Without these rivers, there never would have been an Indus Valley Civilisation.
Rivers of life
A quick glance at the map of Punjab shows that all the province’s major cities exist in the shadow of one of the five mighty rivers that flow through the plain.
A little further south from Harappa, is Multan, the city of saints, the city of Hiranyakashipu and Prahlad. It is located on the banks of the Chenab river. Many local historians conjecture that Multan, along with Peshawar, might be the oldest living city of Pakistan.
Also on the banks of the Chenab is Sialkot, the city of Raja Salwan and his son Puran Bhagat.
Gujrat, the Mughal city that became the gateway to Jammu, lies on the other side of the river.
Further south is the village of Takht-Hazara, from where it is believed Ranjha — of the Heer-Ranjha legend — originated. Traveling along the river, Ranjha reached Jhang, the city of Heer, where today both of them rest in one grave, their shrine visited by hundreds every day.
River Jhelum divides Potohar region from Punjab. It is on the banks of this river that Alexander of Macedonia fought with King Porus in 326 BC.
Over 1,800 years later, the Pashtun king, Sher Shah Suri, constructed his strategic Rohtas Fort west of the Jhelum river. There is also a Sher Shah Masjid in the ancient city of Bhera downstream of the Jhelum.
This city was once the hub of Buddhist learning in the region and continued to be a major political centre for long until it was overshadowed by other cities in Punjab.
Further west, all these rivers merge with the Indus one by one, as if paying homage. Indus is what gives India its name. It is the grandest river that leaves several cities in its wake — Mianwali, Dera Ismail Khan, Sukkur, Larkana, Sehwan, Hyderabad.
Thus, several cities in Pakistan owe their existence to the mighty rivers of Punjab. These rivers are the reason this civilisation exists and has existed for thousands of years.
What then would happen if one day these rivers cease to exist, as is being predicted? Pakistan is a water scarce country. Its rivers are drying up.
How long would these cities survive if their very source of origin dries out?
The article was originally published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.
The year was 1796. Punjab was fragmented among the 12 sovereign clans of the Sikh Confederacy called misl and two Pathan fiefdoms.
Across the Indus on Punjab’s western border, Shah Zaman was threatening to invade again. After acquiring the Afghan throne, he had vowed to regain the lost empire of his grandfather, Ahmad Shah Abdali.
In two previous incursions into the region, Zaman had captured several cities from the Sikh chieftains without much resistance, only to lose them as soon as he returned to Kabul, his capital. These cities were far in the west, though.
This time, Zaman was threatening to march deep into Punjab, and possibly onto Delhi.
The majority of the Sikh chieftains who assembled to assess the lurking threat were of the opinion that they should abandon their people and flee to the mountains, to return when the Afghan tide receded.
Observing the situation from the east, the British felt that Punjab was too divided to be able to ward off the Afghan army.
One Sikh chieftain disagreed. Sada Kaur had become the leader of the Kanahaya misl after her husband, Gurbaksh Singh, died fighting the rival Sukerchakia misl, headed by Maha Singh.
Since Gurbaksh Singh was the clan’s only male heir, his father thought it best to wed his son’s daughter, Mehtab Kaur, to his killer’s son, a boy named Ranjit Singh.
The marriage served to unite the two most powerful misl. After Maha Singh’s death, Ranjit Singh became the head of the Sukerchakia misl. He was all of 10 years.
Sada Kaur, with help from Ranjit Singh’s uncle Dal Singh, soon started exerting considerable influence over her young son-in-law. In time, her guidance played a pivotal role in transforming Ranjit Singh from the chief of a fiefdom to the Maharaja of Punjab.
So when, at the meeting of the chieftains, she argued for confronting Zaman, she was supported by her son-in-law. Inspired by their courage, the other chiefs decided to stand and fight. They mustered a combined force and made Ranjit Singh its leader.
The force promptly launched raids to harass the Afghan army. Zaman was soon forced to return to Kabul as his brother attempted to usurp his throne. He was to return a year later.
Again, the Sikh chiefs felt it was prudent to take refuge in the mountains. But Sada Kaur, supported by her son-in-law, insisted that she would fight and not run away.
Again, her resolve swayed the chiefs and they assembled a force and appointed Ranjit Singh its commander. The force’s guerrilla war denied Zaman a victory until his brother’s renewed attempt on the throne forced him to withdraw.
Ranjit Singh’s reputation soared.
Making of an empire
The young chieftain now nursed a new dream: to create a pan-Punjab empire. However, the unity among the Sikh misl created by Zaman’s invasion was history.
So, he went to his chief patron, his mother-in-law. He combined her forces with his own and marched triumphantly into Lahore, which was to become the capital of his empire, with Sada Kaur by his side.
She was with him also when he took Amritsar from the Bhangi misl a few years later, and supported him fully when he declared himself the Maharaja of Punjab.
During the complicated negotiations with the British that resulted in the Treaty of Amritsar in 1809, Sada Kaur, going against popular opinion, suggested making peace with the colonial power, advice that Ranjit Singh eventually heeded.
While the treaty severely limited Ranjit Singh’s ability to expand his empire, it also ensured its longevity. It is likely that the fate of the Khalsa Empire would have been similar to that of the Marathas had they engaged in an open conflict with the British.
Perhaps, the talented Ranjit Singh would have established the Punjab empire without Sada Kaur’s support, but it cannot be denied that her military support and tactical advice expedited the process.
At the age of 18, Ranjit Singh conquered Lahore. At 20, he was anointed the Maharaja of Punjab.
The marriage of convenience did not last long, however. Ironically, what eventually ended it was another marriage. While Ranjit Singh was close to his mother-in-law, his relationship with his wife, Mehtab Kaur, was far from perfect.
In 1798, two years after his first marriage, he had married Raj Kaur, the sister of the chief of the Nakkai misl. It was Raj Kaur and not Mehtab who bore Ranjit his first son and, thus, successor to the throne, Kharrak Singh.
Mehtab Kaur did eventually bear Ranjit Singh sons, one of whom, Sher Singh, briefly became the Maharaja after the death of Kharrak Singh and his son Nau Nihal Singh.
Ranjit Singh’s relationship with Sada Kaur eventually soured when she began to complain that the Maharaja was bestowing all his wealth on his eldest son and leaving nothing to her grandchildren. Agitated by her constant protests, Ranjit Singh took away her property and gave it to Sher Singh.
Sada Kaur, knowing there was no turning back, decided to make a run to the British territory, to garner their support against her former ally, but she was caught and thrown in prison, where she remained until her death in 1832.
Ranjit Singh died seven years later, on June 27, 1839. His empire soon disintegrated.
The article was originally published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.
