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Zahid Hussain
IT seems like an endless journey to nowhere. We keep moving in circles with no hope of coming out of the rut. The prevailing uncertainty is now becoming more and more unbearable. It’s not just about the sordid political power game ripping the country apart, but also the looming shadow of authoritarianism taking every bit of freedom away.
Even the country’s judiciary is now under attack. The alleged ‘enforced’ decision by the Karachi University syndicate stripping a sitting high court judge, who dared to speak out against the establishment’s interference in judicial matters, of his law degree is the latest example of efforts to curtail rule of law. What happened in Karachi last week has exposed the growing brazenness of the powers that be.
It was a Kafkaesque moment for Dr Riaz Ahmed when he was picked up by police on his way to Karachi University. For the next several hours the professor was taken from one police station to the other. He was finally let off in the evening after public outcry on social media. In a country where enforced disappearances are a common phenomenon, such brief illegal confinement would not have raised an eyebrow.
But it was the reason behind his detention that made the incident scandalous. It was meant to stop the outspoken chemistry professor from attending the university syndicate meeting that was to decide on a “fake degree” case against an Islamabad High Court judge. Just days before the syndicate meeting he had claimed that external pressure was being used to get a desirable decision.
And that is exactly what happened. The fate of Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri as a judge seems to have now been sealed. He was one of the six IHC judges who had signed the letter to the Supreme Court chief justice about the pressure and harassment they have been facing from the intelligence agencies. The action against Justice Jahangiri seems to be a warning to other judges who refuse to toe the line.
The spectre of despotism is looming large over the political spectrum.
It’s now also a test for the chief justice to defend the independence of the judiciary and protect the judges from such revengeful actions. The pressure on the judges is also growing with the apex court increasingly becoming the battleground for resolving political and constitutional disputes as parliament is becoming increasingly redundant.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that every effort is being used by the government to divide the institution and curtail its power. The Supreme Court’s ruling on redistribution of reserved seats may have deprived the ruling coalition of the two-thirds majority in parliament required for a constitutional amendment in the pretext of judicial reform, but the current dispensation has not yet given up hope for reversal of the majority decision.
The next few months seem very critical for the country’s future political course. The spectre of despotism is looming large over the political spectrum with an increasingly fragmented civilian setup struggling with legitimacy questions and resorting to draconian measures. The attack on the independence of the judiciary and the clampdown on freedom of expression are part of the moves to strengthen despotism.
Setting up firewalls and downgrading internet services are not going to work for the dispensation mired in deep muddy waters. The challenges are too serious for a government lacking public mandate to deal with, and take the country out of, the morass. Its increasing dependence on the security establishment has removed even the pretence of civilian rule. The establishment’s hold is evident in all aspects of decision-making.
While the political forces are engaged in a bitter fight worsening political polarisation, it has led to further shrinking of democratic space. With no side willing to take a step back and come to the negotiating table, there is little hope of the political tension reducing. The politics of confrontation and the growing assertion of power by the security establishment have distorted the entire political system.
Most worrisome is the crumbling of state power that has endangered the country’s unity and survival. What is happening in KP and Balochistan, the two strategically located provinces, presents the biggest challenge to the country’s internal security. The increasing terrorist attacks in both provinces taking a huge toll on the security forces is alarming. According to reports, last month witnessed the highest number of terrorist attacks with almost all of them happening in the two provinces.
The worsening security situation is directly linked with the growing political instability in the country. The situation in Balochistan is particularly grave with the growing alienation of the population from the state. It’s the state repression and deprivation of fundamental democratic rights that has caused loss of public faith in the system and pushed the youth to militancy.
But unfortunately, the state is still not willing to listen to their cries for justice and address their grievances. Instead, it insists on controlling the province with the help of cronies. It continues to rely on the politicians brought to power through manipulated elections. Even those Baloch leaders who opted to participate in mainstream politics are being systematically sidelined, forcing them to leave politics.
Given this situation, it was not surprising that Sardar Akhtar Mengal, chief of his own faction of the Balochistan National Party and a former provincial chief minister, has resigned from the National Assembly. In a letter to the NA speaker, the veteran Baloch leader has cited the “lack of representation in this Assembly for the people of Balochistan” as the reason for his decision.
“It has become increasingly clear that our attempts to speak or protest are met with hostility, our people are either silenced, labelled as traitors, or worse, killed,” he further stated. Like other Baloch leaders, he also seems to have lost hope in the state. It certainly does not bode well for the future of a shaky federation. The situation is also fast deteriorating in KP with the continuing confrontation between the centre and the PTI-led provincial government.
But nothing seems to bother the ruling coalition and the establishment. The state’s policy of repression and politics of confrontation may push the country to a point of no return.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2024
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{On illegal emigration of Pakistanis and hords of Pakistani beggars in Saudi Arabia and UAE}
Rafia Zakaria
WHEREVER in the world you go, you are bound to come across Pakistanis in various states of despair.
These days, travel to any European capital — Athens, Rome or Paris, for example — and you will see groups of immigrants huddled together on the streets and in the alleys, bleary-eyed and haunted. If one walks by them slowly enough, it is possible to catch bits and pieces of Urdu and Punjabi. That’s how you know they are from Pakistan. These are the ‘lucky’ ones — the ones who have made it to Europe alive. Many more like them never make it.
A new report on human smuggling in Pakistan, published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last week, outlines the journey of one such migrant from Hafizabad in Punjab. Like hundreds of thousands of others, he paid an agent to smuggle him out of the country. The report details how a person is passed from agent to agent until they manage to get to the EU or North America.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Pakistani migrants have been discovered in such faraway places as the Darién Gap — the only land bridge between North and South America, through which a dangerous route runs between northern Colombia and southern Panama and ultimately leads to the United States border areas. From there, migrants often make a run for what they imagine will be a better life.
In Europe, Pakistani migrants can often be found languishing in places like the island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Italy. Many of them arrive there via Egypt or Libya, where smugglers put them on boats with a promise to get them to the Italian coast. It was smugglers like these who had lured the 20 Pakistanis that died last summer off the coast of Greece, when a migrant vessel holding hundreds of people was allowed to sink by the Greek coast guard.
As an aside, it seems worth pointing out that the case is still languishing in Greek courts, and there is no indication of whether the surviving migrants or the heirs of those who died will ever be able to get any justice. That is how much a migrant’s life is worth these days in the developed world.
In a century that promises to herald unprecedented human displacement owing to global economic and climate-related crises, it seems a given that more and more Pakistanis will take to wandering the earth in the hope of finding sustenance and a chance at a better future, even if that means rebuilding their lives in a foreign land. However, when one sees Pakistani men huddled together on the streets of Europe, looking hungry and miserable, one wonders whether they still consider being in the EU as any kind of guarantee of a better life.
Pakistani migrants have been discovered in such faraway places as the Darién Gap — the only land bridge between North and South America.
Most of these men are low-skilled workers who do not even know the languages of the countries to which they wish to migrate. This means that they are usually relegated to jobs such as washing dishes at the back of restaurants and other menial tasks that provide, at best, a difficult and hardscrabble existence. The bulk of the money that they do make goes towards paying off the debts they took on to pay the smugglers who brought them there in the first place. The “better life”, they must soon realise, is just a fantasy they were promised by smugglers just so they could be lured into leaving Pakistan at an exorbitantly high personal and financial cost.
Not all Pakistanis who land up in foreign lands through dubious means suffer equally. One industry in Pakistan that seems to be very organised and has been quite successful in ensuring that its recruits have plenty to do is the begging industry. It is such a successful venture that it has now decided to start exporting to, and expanding in, other countries.
Unlike the desperate, low-skilled workers toiling in the smoke and stench-filled backrooms of restaurants and shops in Europe, these beggars do not need human smugglers to get them into foreign lands. Instead, they prefer to utilise pilgrim visas to places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, etc. As many Pakistanis may have seen for themselves during Haj, these beggars set up shop outside the holy places in Makkah and Madinah, where they harass foreign pilgrims for money just as they do shoppers in markets across Pakistan. They are relentless, master manipulators who know how to pull at their victims’ guilt and get them to part with their money.
The beggar problem has become such a nuisance that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken it up officially with Pakistan. A new agreement was signed recently between the two countries under which Pakistan promised to try and curb the export of beggars to Saudi Arabia. The very fact that we had to do such a thing should be reason enough to feel embarrassment and shame at a national level. However, when our leaders themselves feel little shame in extorting money from this or that wealthy country, it is no wonder that our beggars, too, feel entitled to capitalise on the guilt of others to enrich themselves. Working hard and doing things the right way does not seem to be a strategy that has occurred to either leader or beggar in Pakistan.
As many have pointed out, this bizarre picture of desperation on one hand, presented by low-skilled migrants, and entitlement on the other, as portrayed by pesky beggars, forms a miserable image of Pakistan and Pakistanis in the minds of people who live abroad.
The Pakistani government not only fails to curb human smuggling, it also does little to try and help those poor migrants who find themselves homeless through the Pakistani diplomatic missions abroad. The only reason Islamabad has been forced into taking action to curb the export of beggary is because both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have reportedly threatened to stop handing out visas to Pakistanis altogether.
Meanwhile, the millions of Pakistanis who have no intention of paying human smugglers to get them out of the country and who could never consider resorting to beggary are stuck at home with their green passports. Because the actions of some wrongdoers have created the impression that Pakistanis cannot be trusted to tell the truth at all.
Hence, legitimate travellers, students and workers who apply for proper visas must suffer the extra scrutiny at foreign embassies and frequent denial of visas. The bad acts may be committed by a few, but their costs are inevitably borne by all.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2024
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Tasneem Noorani
AS the mayhem of Aug 26 in Balochistan unfolded through news channels, one forgot the woes of electricity bills, hide and seek of the government with courts, the rhetoric of political parties and the shenanigans of our begging bowl.
There was a sinking feeling as if one was watching the implosion of the country. Having been conditioned to believe the state media, one wanted to believe the strong response being claimed by the government and the stern statements of the powers that be, including those of the chief minister and interior minister.
While one heard promises of ‘sending miscreants to hell’, there was very little talk of reconciliation and introspection. The same was the tone and tenor of retired officers appearing as experts on the media.
There is an instinct to kill and obliterate those who take up arms, rather than to probe the reasons behind their extreme steps and find solutions. The state has been fighting insurgencies in Balochistan for decades with an ‘iron hand’ and disappearances, but at the end of this lifetime we continue to have violent outbursts by the dissidents.
How will more of the same in Balochistan help for the future?
How will more of the same help for the future? If you look into the story of any Baloch dissident, whether he is following a peaceful or violent path of protest, you will come across a common strain. Some near or dear one has allegedly been killed or disappeared by the state. The more you kill, the more terrorists you make.
If the strategy of total annihilation and subjugation of dissidents through brute force were to work, Sheikh Hasina would still be Bangladesh premier.
We talk of separatists funded by RAW. But are we convinced that the ordinary Baloch wants to separate? Isn’t he protesting because he wants attention?
Why would he want to become a colony of India? Haven’t they just seen what the Indians have done to Bangladesh? As for a superpower wanting to take over their land, I am sure the Baloch know about such geostrategic games.
People who have served in Balochistan (my experience is as secretary interior for a prolonged period) will tell you that the Baloch are an honourable and simple people, proud of their traditions, interested in making a living, like any other ethnic group.
My current experience, however, is revealing. I set up a boarding school near Faisalabad with the help of friends, for boys from deprived homes so that talented ones can get the same quality of education that the children of the elite get, by paying only a token fee per month. We initially planned the school for Punjab but there was such an immense interest among boys from Balochistan that we opened our doors to all provinces.
Currently 66 boys, which is 22 per cent of our school strength, are from Balochistan. All belong to families earning Rs30,000 per month or thereabouts. Surprisingly, these boys from Loralai, Dera Murad Jamali, Zhob, Naseerabad, Barkhan, Quetta, Qila Saifullah, Dera Bugti and Musakhel are the healthiest and amongst the best students in the school, both in academics and sports, and very disciplined.
For our last entry we received 1,100 applications online from all over Pakistan, out of which 700 were from Balochistan. Does this appear to you to be a people who want to secede? On the contrary, I see a hunger in them, more than boys from Punjab, to get educated and progress.
Try putting yourself in their shoes. If you were a Baloch, would you like someone to come and take over your port, where you don’t even have the right to enter? To add insult to injury, you even make off limits areas where local fishermen used to fish or ban them totally, without giving them anything in return.
The mode of business of some foreign investors does not help either because they want to do everything from cooking to high-tech jobs, from civil works to fabrication themselves, so locals get no jobs or business. The pull of foreign investment is for the wise men of Islamabad to count and boast about. It means nothing to the local Baloch, who is understandably seething with anger.
We in our usual mindset continue to brand emerging leaders like Mahrang Baloch as ‘agents’ rather than trying to understand what they are saying.
Balochistan is a vast and difficult terrain to defend against internal strife. The only option is to talk to them, kindly and genuinely. Give them a piece of the cake, even if the state has to step back and talk to the investor.
Respect the results of the elections so that genuine representatives, who are owned by the masses, come up and make the task of the state easier.
The writer is a former civil servant.
Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2024
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