Survival of reforms

WITH a fortnight to go for the general elections, the various reforms which have been in the incubator or on the anvil for long are being given effect in quick succession. Last Friday the cabinet approved the new labour policy as well as the freedom of information ordinance.

The sixth award of the National Finance Commission is being finalized in a hurry instead of leaving it to the elected leaders to come to a final decision on sharing the tax revenues between the centre and the provinces.

The privatization plan too is being hurried. While it will take some time for the sale of PTCL, Habib Bank, KESC and PSO, the sale of smaller groups of shares like the ten per cent shares of the National Bank of Pakistan and some of the ICP mutual funds is being speeded up.

We are now told the National Reconstruction Bureau proposes the abolition of five central service groups and the creation of two new audit groups. The Central Board of Revenue too has come up with a new tax system that may not come before the October elections. A new Pharma policy has also been approved by the Federal Cabinet.

Now the NAB has been given exclusive rights to deal with corruption and the Federal Investigation Agency wing dealing with corruption and economic crimes has been taken over by the NAB. The provincial Anti-Corruption establishment will continue to deal with corruption at the provincial level, but that does not mean that the NAB will not intervene in major corruption cases in the provinces as the provincial ACE’s have a very poor record over a period of time. Information minister Nisar Memon says that the NAB has helped to recover one hundred billion of embezzled funds. Until recently the figure mentioned was around seventy billion but now it has jumped to a hundred billion. We need to be given a break-up of the large sum and what has been done with it or where this fund has been used.

Along with such announcements has come the report that the FIA, which would now mean the NAB would not be allowed to act against government officials or publicize the charges against them. Does that mean that the enlarged NAB would act against only the politicians in office ?

Already there has been a major controversy in this area when it was announced earlier that the NAB would not investigate corruption charges against the members of the armed forces or the judiciary. All that restricts the scope of the NAB excessively. It is proper that the Auditor General‘s authority has been enhanced a great deal. The State Bank of Pakistan has also been made truly autonomous and the CBR too has been invested with enhanced authority to enable it to collect larger revenues. If simultaneously the authority of the NAB to investigate the corrupt practices of the armed forces or the judiciary or for that matter the bureaucracy the future anti-corruption drive will be greatly hampered.

It could not be argued that Admiral Mansoorul Haq was the only corrupt military official in Pakistan. If departmental vigilance or action could not stop him, there can be other causes of a similar kind. Now Mr Nisar Memon says there is no corruption at the top. His predecessor Mushahid Hussain had said the same in the days when Nawaz Sharif was ruling the country. What matters in this area is not the claims advanced by those in office but the hard realities that the people experience. When it comes to corruption there should be no exception and certainly not in the case of sections like the judiciary or the armed forces.

When it comes to corruption at the lower levels the best way to reduce that is to pay living wages to all government employees and the latter should be able to meet educate expenses of their children. It could be less burdensome to pay living wages if the employees were not too many. But the federal and the provincial governments together employ four million people. In fact more people are employed by the government than by the organized industry and it is not easy to pay all of them well.

A policeman under the law has tremendous authority but is paid very poorly so he misuses his authority to make money illegally and corruption thrives.

In the days of political rule, MNAs, MPAs, and senators were given a job quota and many of them sold them for large sums and those who bought these jobs began their corrupt practices from day one. Sindh in particular has been notorious for this mal- practice.

As a result instead of capable people serving the government, we came to have too many corrupt elements all over the place.

The practice of giving varied prerequisites to the officials increases the cost of the administration at one end and persuades those, not benefiting by the prerequisites, to take to corruption in a big way. It is common to see a provincial secretary to the government enjoying the benefits of three cars instead of one and a number of government employees serving him and his family.

At the political level we had speakers of the National Assembly with seven to ten cars maintained at government expenses without any valid reasons.

If all of them in public service are paid salaries in cash only which are enough to enable them to live well, the government will save a great deal of money. And there will be much smaller estate offices and transport departments in each ministry. And the government officers will have far more cash in their salary packets. Finance minister Shaukat Aziz agrees with this formula but says the government does not have money to pay them enhanced salaries in lieu of free housing, transport etc. And it would not know what to do with the surplus housing it would have and the surplus transport which if sold would not get much for the government. But the government has to move in that direction steadily with a five or ten-year target.

Now that President Musharraf has come up with some of his reforms, we do not know how many more are in the pipeline. He is sure the reforms will be very valid even after the elections. He has given assurances to the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank in this regard and their aid is dependent on the continuity of the reforms.

Gen Musharraf is confident that the reforms he has introduced will remain protected as long as he remains president and also chief of army staff and he has the national security council to promote and uphold those reforms. However, it is only after the elections that we will come to know which of the reforms remain valid and where he has to seek compromises with the elected leaders, who cannot simply endorse everything he has done or committed to do.

Courage to compromise

PAKISTAN’s singular preoccupation with Kashmir, subordinating it to all other priorities, has been self-defeating. Domestically, it has thwarted the country’s economic, social and political development.

Internationally, this single-point agenda has diminished the country’s stature and smeared its reputation. Even its spiritual development has been warped by the proliferation, popularization and increase in relative power — post-partition — of religious groups that represent an intolerant, militant and gender-biased interpretation of Islam.

More importantly, this involvement with Kashmir has prevented the acknowledgment, and hence resolution, of innumerable domestic problems, each more critical and bigger than Kashmir. A minimum of 19 Kashmir-sized problems in Pakistan are clamouring for attention. Consider for example:

Political rights: The 145 million people of Pakistan are crying for the right of self-determination of the 13 million people of Kashmir. Fair enough. There are strong historical, geographical and religious reasons for them to do so. Moreover, this issue is inexorably linked with the very idea of Pakistan. But what political rights have the people of Pakistan themselves have enjoyed over the past 55 years, or can expect to enjoy in the future?

The past has been (mis)ruled by generals, bureaucrats and politicians. The future under the best case will be a “managed democracy” where the sovereignty of its people and their elected representatives will be checked by an extraconstitutional body. Under the worst case, history will repeat itself, with the country swinging between fake democracy and naked dictatorship’. Either way, 145 million Pakistanis, equal to 11 times the population of Kashmir, will continue to be denied the rights enshrined in their own Constitution. Can Pakistan demand, with a straight face, rights for another people when it has consistently denied political rights to its own for over 50 years?

Poverty: According to SPDC, approximately 38 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line in 2000-2001 — that is 55 million people, equivalent to the population of four Kashmirs. Are Pakistan’s efforts to eradicate poverty, as measured by its budgetary allocations as focused and forceful as its efforts to keep the pot boiling in Kashmir? Did the ruling elite, whether civil or military, seek the consent of the 55 million impoverished people to find out if they voluntarily agreed to subordinate the alleviation of their poverty to Kashmir?

Education: The World Bank states that in 2000, 54 per cent of the population above 15 is illiterate. With the population of those above 15 years of age at 85 million, this yields an adult illiterate population of 46 million — over three times the population of Kashmir. This number excludes the millions under 15 who cannot attend school because of a lack of accessibility or affordability.

Is the benefit to Pakistan from the restoration of the political rights to 13 million Kashmiris so much greater than the cost and shame of raising an Islamic republic of 46 million illiterates? Did 46 million Pakistanis voluntarily agree to remain illiterate so that the nation could maintain a certain defence and foreign policy posture or pursue ‘development’ of the ‘Motorway and Convention Centre’ kind? Pakistan’s spending on education has stagnated around two per cent of GDP, while spending on defence ranges between five per cent and seven per cent.

Health care: Again, according to the World Bank, in 1999 the infant mortality rate was 126 per 1,000 live births for children under five years of age. In comparison, the figure in Malaysia was 10. How many deaths would have been avoided if Pakistan’s rate matched Malaysia’s? The arithmetic shows that over 403,000 children are unnecessarily dying in Pakistan every year for lack of investment in basic health care. At this rate as many Pakistani infants as the entire current population of Kashmir have died over the past 32 years.

What kind of country, let alone an Islamic republic, allows its infants to perish when the means to avoid this tragic loss exists? But this is what happens when budgetary allocations for defence take priority over human-capital development. Kashmir is important, but one is not aware of any war there in which over 1,100 children die every day.

Politicians hold rallies, marches and hurl threats at India when Kashmiris die. Fair enough. But why aren’t they outraged at the daily silent deaths of Pakistani children? How come the generals who are so keen to defend Pakistan against its external enemies have not declared war on the biggest killer of Pakistani children operating within Pakistan’s borders? This indifference continues with other pillars of society. Why are the ulema silent? Shouldn’t the HRCP be suing the finance and health ministries for misplaced priorities and poor implementation respectively? Shouldn’t the Supreme Court be taking suo motu action?

Based on this admittedly non-rigorous analysis, there are at least 19 Kashmir-size problems in Pakistan today; the exact number is probably higher. This is because the victims of unemployment, of the unavailability of potable water, electricity, sanitation and housing, of gender bias, human-rights violations, minority harassment and sectarianism have not been counted. This calculation also excludes the ‘stranded, Pakistanis’ forgotten by Pakistan. Remember East Pakistan?

Today’s Bangladesh, with a population of 134 million, is equal to 10 Kashmirs. It is ironic that Pakistan has been so mesmerized by Kashmir that it is willing to risk nuclear war over it, yet was insensitive and inflexible on the dialogue and political accommodation needed to retain East Pakistan, a province 10 times the size of Kashmir. History may repeat itself if the pursuit of Kashmir continues while ignoring other pressing national priorities like grievances of the smaller provinces.

The Pakistani leadership made a courageous decision after Sept. 11 by cutting its ties with the Taliban, and actively supporting the world coalition against terrorism. Whatever pressures may have been applied, the decision to abandon a failed and indefensible policy is justified simply on the premise that “Pakistan Comes First”.

The time has come for another momentous decision for the same reason. Pakistan should permanently cease its backing for any military action in Indian-controlled Kashmir. It should disarm all militants and disband all supporting camps and training facilities. However, Pakistan should continue to provide moral, diplomatic and political support to indigenous forces fighting for their political rights. This policy will reduce tensions with India and allow Pakistan to concentrate on conquering the dozens of internal Kashmir-sized problems.

It is the responsibility of Pakistan’s elite to inform, explain and reiterate these sobering truths to the people: First, that Kashmir cannot be liberated militarily — even Gen. Musharraf admits that. Second, India will make Pakistan pay a very heavy price for supporting cross-border militancy. If Pakistan believes it can play the nuclear card, it must also know that although a nuclear exchange may severely damage India, it will destroy Pakistan.

A poll conducted in Indian Jammu and Kashmir by the British group, Friends of Kashmir, revealed that more than 65 per cent of respondents wanted independence from both India and Pakistan as their final objective. But if that is what Kashmiris want, why are 145 million Pakistanis subordinating every national objective to a delusion?

Finally it is self-destructive for a $65-billion economy to get into a bleeding match with a $450-billion economy. This confrontation becomes suicidal when the larger economy has additional ‘force multipliers’ like three times the technical intensity, two times the savings rate, half the per capita debt, higher GDP growth rate and a robust democratic political system.

Gen. Musharraf should act upon the same advice he gave the people of Bangladesh recently when he said that the “courage to compromise is greater than to confront.” If Pakistan is willing to forgo confrontation, its youth at least have the prospect of transforming Jinnah’s vision into reality by the sunset of their lifetime.

The writer is a Pakistani-American who lives in Atlanta. His e-mail address:

aminlakhani@mirant.com.

Ritter versus the rest: SPOTLIGHT USA

ASK him for his phone number and he says he can’t give it out because of the daily death threats he gets in his e-mails. Still, they don’t deter Scott Ritter from continuing to appear on air and make waves warning the American public against Bush administration’s dangerous hard-line obsession to remove Saddam Hussein, a “defanged old dictator”.

Branding the Bush team “unilateralists”, Ritter says that they believe America has a unique position in world history as the “beacon which the world will follow,” and it is their “moral obligation to lead” and should they fail to lead, the world will dissolve into “chaos and anarchy.”

This allows them to say things about Iraq as and when they please. Currently hot on their list of things-to-do is a ‘regime change’ in Baghdad because 68 per cent of US oil comes from Iraq and the American oil companies are getting restless in their wait to take over Saddam’s oil wells once he’s ousted.

With congressional elections on the horizon and a faltering economy, the Democrats, led by Congressman Jim McDermott, echo Ritter’s reluctance to hand Bush a “blank cheque” to attack Iraq, citing the Kashmir issue: “Apart from wanting a regime change so they can get control of oil fields, America must not have the power to peremptorily strike at a country. Once you start down that road, where do you stop? Suppose India says, let’s go in and take Azad Kashmir back from Pakistanis. What moral ground will we have to stand on to say you can’t do that?”

Scott Ritter, UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, has today become a nuisance for the Bush administration. Characteristically a loose cannon, Ritter, who insists he’s a staunch American, first drew fire when he embarrassed the Gulf war hero General Schwarzkop while working as a junior military intelligence officer in the region. He challenged the general’s “tall” claims of destroying the Iraqi missile system.

Described as the “most famous renegade Marine officer since Oliver North” by the New York Times, Ritter has ratcheted up his vitriol against Bush bashing Saddam with an authoritative voice he has recently honed. Raising a loud and provocative protest against his country’s bid to convert the weapons inspection programme in Iraq into a spying mission, Ritter says: “The United States took advantage of the information we collected, and also used weapons inspectors as a Trojan horse, inserting a signals intelligence operation, which was used to collect information about the security of Saddam Hussein.”

Claiming he confronted America on an almost daily basis about the manipulation of the inspection process, the final straw that turned Scott Ritter’s rage into a battle royal with his boss Richard Butler, a swashbuckling Australian diplomat, was Butler’s espionage for the US. Accusing him of being a CIA agent who turned the UN-led control in Iraq over to the US, the programme, Ritter says, became a “tool to target Saddam, not Saddam’s weapons”.

Doubtless, Butler has ingratiated himself with America and is currently ambassador-in-residence at Manhattan’s elite Council on Foreign Relations. Still, Ritter’s proclamations on Iraq appear to be a cipher too: while he claims that Iraq admitted concealment of weapons during 1991-95, all its weapons today have been destroyed. “We had achieved a 90 to 95 per cent level of disarmament,” he says. Yet in 1998, Ritter egged on America over Iraq’s lethal weapons which Saddam Hussein kept concealed in his 30-odd palaces. An angry Saddam ordered Ritter and his team out of his country.

Back on Capitol Hill in 1998 for his testimony before the Congress, Ritter was hailed a “true American Hero” by the Republicans who wanted the then Clinton administration to take the heat for the Iraq imbroglio. Little did the Republicans know that they had been misled by Ritter when in 1999 he again did a turnaround and in a bombshell gave Iraq a clean bill of health, admitting that it was Richard Butler who had encouraged him to provoke Iraq by saying that it still had weapons so that the US could bomb the 120 sites that it did in its ‘Operation Desert Fox’. “And Iraq did not expel us, the US pulled out,” he now says.

Despite Ritter’s twists and turns, the murky interface between him and Richard Butler has now re-invented itself, leaving the latter licking his wounds. Bitten by the alpha dog (that’s how Ritter describes himself), Butler’s self-exculpation about being a CIA agent is finding few ears.

“He’s a liar”, sums up Scott Ritter. Stopping short of calling Bush a liar too, Ritter says: “Bush does not run the country, the people do; we don’t work for him, he works for us.” Bush and his inner circle, he says have betrayed the American people since 9/11. They have failed by taking political advantage of the upsurge of patriotic fervour to push for an extreme right-wing domestic, military and foreign policy agenda that has nothing to do with Sept. 11. John Ashcroft proceeded with some of the assaults on civil liberties. This is wrong and the American public will not fall for it for much longer.

Some call Ritter a “traitor”, “an arrogant weasel”, who should be in jail rather than be polluting prime-time talk shows. Others commend him. Nelson Mandela believes Scott Ritter’s claim that Iraq does not have dangerous and illegal weapons and questions why the US has double standards — one for Iraq and another for Israel, which already has weapons of mass destruction.

Paradoxically, the Bush team is not on the same page either. Secretary of State Colin Powell says “disarmament is the issue” and the reason for a regime change is to “make sure that Iraq is disarmed.” Vice-President Cheney says the opposite: “President Bush made it clear that the goal of the US is a regime change”. And National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice declares: “There is certainly evidence that Al Qaeda people have been in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists.”

In sum, Bush is acting like the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, whose logic — sentence first, verdict later — fits the Get-Saddam scenario perfectly.

anjumniazusa@yahoo.com

Baghdad poker

THE latest hand of high-stakes Baghdad Bluff Poker is really getting interesting. Here’s an update:

President George W. Bush: Just as the Texas Crusader was about to invade Iraq, ostensibly for refusing to admit weapons inspectors, the slippery Iraqis agreed to inspection. How dare Saddam cooperate! Fight fair, you Iraqi scoundrel! So now Bush says he will block UN inspectors from going to Iraq.

How confusing. If the US is now blocking UN arms inspectors, can Iraq go to the UN and get approval to invade the US and do a regime change in Washington DC, maybe putting the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the White House?

Bush just blasted Saddam for ‘undermining and weakening the UN.’ In his very next sentence, he vowed to ignore the UN Security Council and invade I-Raq, as he calls it, if the UN didn’t give him a green light to attack. Bush is determined to destroy a nation whose name he can’t even pronounce correctly.

No problem, however, with the supine US Congress. Special interests that have bought Congress demand war on Iraq. More important, Bush and Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike) fear the minute Iraq war fever subsides, they will be crucified over the gargantuan scandals engulfing Wall Street and Corporate America. The Clinton and Bush administrations and Congress all took huge donations from the super-crooks at Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing and their Wall Street co-conspirators, and were thus party to the most massive swindle in American history.

November elections are only six weeks away. Bush and Congress must keep voters terrified by the bogeyman of Baghdad or the folks in Peoria will exact revenge on the politicians who enabled the mother of all frauds.

Iraq: Saddam says...Bush is taking orders from Israel and wants to rob us of our oil. Meanwhile, trusted aides are burying a few old cans of chemicals and toxin deeper in the desert. Showing untypical diplomatic agility, Saddam has temporarily split the great powers and is busy offering oil deals to Russia, China, and France. However, on a down note, Iraqi Life Ltd just cancelled his insurance policy.

Britain: This week, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw accused the Iraqis of being ‘duplicitous.’ That’s a five-dollar word that means two-faced. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black. The British invented duplicity. In fact, double-dealing British imperialists created many of the world’s chronic problems. Thank the Brits for Palestine and Israel; Belfast; India, Pakistan, and Kashmir; Iraq; and the mess in Africa. London is determined to grab a share of Iraq’s oil once Saddam is overthrown. That’s why Tony Blair, known far and wide as ‘Bush’s poodle,’ is barking so loudly.

Russia: Well, says clever President Putin to unclever George Bush, maybe we’ll give you a green light to invade Iraq, but the price will be allowing us to invade Georgia and smash the Chechen independence-fighters, plus about $12 billion in cash, and a chunk of Iraq’s oil for our Russian oil companies. By the way, hearty thanks from my old pals at KGB for branding the Chechens ‘terrorists.’

France: The French are too clever to stand in the path of the charging American bull, so they are temporizing and hedging, trying to slow down the rush to war while making sure that if the US invades Iraq, French oil firms and arms producers will get a share of the plunder of Iraq.

Germany: In a stunning act of independence, Germany’s chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, while seeking re-election, has strongly opposed any US invasion of Iraq, a position supported by a majority of Germans. Never before has subservient post-war Germany stood up to Washington. Europeans are delighted; Washington is furious. Expect more Hollywood films about World War II.

Israel: Being very low key. But has put its mighty US lobby into high gear to press for a US war against Iraq...then against Iran, then Syria, then Lebanon, then Libya. Once the Arab states are shattered, Israel will dominate the Mideast. ‘The Israel-Iraq Oil Company’...now, that has a nice ring to it.

The Arab Rulers: Cowering in their palaces. Can’t decide whether they are more petrified of a run amok Bush administration or their own angry people. Most Arab leaders will come down against Saddam, since their personal protection and fortunes are assured by the US, and they know they’re next to be ‘liberated’ if they don’t obey.—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2002.

Mahathir’s speech and Pakistan society

ONE of Mahathir Mohammad’s most significant speeches has gone virtually unreported in Pakistan. In a lecture delivered to an audience of academics and diplomats, the Malaysian prime minister questioned the Muslim world’s priorities, asserting that its focus was on form and not on fundamentals.

This, he said, was one of the causes of Muslim decline. As quoted by international wire agencies, Mahathir specially lamented the Muslims’ preoccupation with less important issues such as women’s clothing.

“Not only did we miss the industrial revolution,” Mahathir said, “... we also missed the developments which followed with suspicion.” He asked pointedly, “Who decreed these dress codes which so occupy the minds of Muslims that they neglect those injunctions of Islam which are so important for their safety and security?”

Those who have visited Malaysia know that its society is far more liberal than anything we can conceive of in Pakistan for quite some time. In matters of dress specially, we see a bewildering variety in women’s dress. They are free to decide how they dress and are to be found in every sphere of public life. They may wear the traditional Malay dress, with or without a scarf, or the modern “pop” dress, but nobody objects.

Yet, unlike Pakistan, they are seen in large numbers in mosques, as indeed they are seen in Iran and Turkey. For some reason Muslim society in South Asia has laid so much stress on women’s seclusion that they have been prevented even from praying in mosques.

A comment on Mahathir’s speech in the larger context of the entire Islamic world is beyond the scope of this article; nor are we fully aware of what the ulema’s attitude toward women’s dress is in such countries as, say, Uzbekistan or Tunisia. But we can perhaps focus on the Pakistani situation in the light of the profundity of Mahathir’s remarks.

In the case of Pakistan, what strikes a common observer of the social scene is the total absence of mutual respect, love, mercy and forgiveness; instead, hatred is being spread in society as a virtue. This hatred is all perversive and cuts across ethnic, sectarian and class affinities.

At least partly, this hate phenomenon stems from decades of religious rhetoric — tacitly sanctioned by the state in the late seventies and eighties — in which someone who does not agree with one’s given interpretation of Islam is made to appear a public enemy who deserves to be meted out instant justice.

Regretfully, for a large number of over-politicized and vocal Pakistanis, Islam is first and foremost a political doctrine rather than a means of communion with God that would give bliss to individual and society. This is not to deny the existence of a large number of ulema who are serving the people quietly in the highest Islamic traditions and preaching without a jargon that could be seen as a threat to civil society.

But very surprisingly, in this harmless category fall the less educated imams, who are usually the butt of jokes and criticism. Yet it is exactly these imams who preach cardinal virtues with which no one should have any quarrel. Intellectual and “westernized” Muslims usually poke fun at them, for their sermons are devoid of what is supposed to be an intellectual content and sophistication. However, on a deeper analysis, it is these imams whose Friday sermons are generally free from venom and spite and who pose no threat to society. Their sermons may lack an intellectual veneer but they put emphasis on the right points.

They dwell on simple matters, like asking people to pray regularly, to keep Ramazan’s fasts, to give charity, and marry off their children early, and quite often they go into details of rituals, but one thing they do not do is indulge in politics. These imams go unnoticed (especially by those western intellectuals and think-tanks who have been focussing on Pakistan lately) because they have not become a nuisance or a source of mischief that goes beyond Pakistan’s borders.

The real problem concerns “intellectualized” clerics for whom Islam is first and foremost a political doctrine — an ideology — which needs enforcement with the use of the state’s coercive apparatus. Both as imams and as political leaders, they link the fate of Islam to such complex issues as joint versus separate electorates — the latter supposed to be Islamic, the parliamentary versus the presidential system, the virtues of proportional representation (because that would help some parties), the danger of political and military alliances with “infidel” West, the moral anarchy that would result from a campaign for population control, or the threat which NGOs pose to the nation by organizing walks, say, against smoking or for a cleaner environment.

With regard to working women, there is extraordinary inconsistency bordering on hypocrisy in our society. Women doing “lesser” jobs are looked down upon while those doing “higher” jobs and having a higher social position escape censure. For instance, a nurse is looked down upon but a lady doctor is held in high esteem because she earns more money, even though basically both serve the sick.

The same attitude pertains to purdah. Invariably, it is the middle class women that are supposed to observe purdah. If they do not, they are made to feel guilty. But women doing menial jobs — maasis, for instance, or those working on kilns and in fields or sitting on footpaths and selling their wares — are tolerated, strengthening those critics of purdah who link it to the class system.

The most important point missing in Pakistani religious leaders’ priorities is a love of the people and a call for harmony and brotherhood that should embrace entire society. Also, they are utterly indifferent to Pakistan’s economic development and fail to see the direct relationship between poverty and the people’s low morals. They talk so much about jihad, but forget that economic and technological developments are the real tools of a nation’s defence capability.

Regrettably, there is little difference between some religious parties and the so-called secular ones which at times give a call for “wheel jam” strikes in which burning vehicles and destroying private property are considered a legitimate means of protest against the government. They do not think it is haram to cause misery to the general populace and to terrorize them into staying indoors and shirking work.

This is a tragedy, because religious personalities command unquestioned loyalties of a large sections of otherwise dedicated, highly-motivated and often educated workers throughout the country. These parties are well-funded. If they want, they can achieve wonders in the social sector and transform the face of Pakistan if they could be a little less political. How loyal their followers are was evident during the Afghan war — from the Taliban’s wars against their rivals to the American attack in October. Thousands of young men went to Afghanistan — without informing their families — and were simply slaughtered: killed either in US bombings or, later, massacred by the Northern Alliance.

The same youth can do wonders if the ulema shift their focus from narrow politics to day-to-day problems and issues that torment people, and reorder their priorities and reinterpret Islamic values in a modern context.

One instance of the Pakistani nation’s obsolete attitudes is the question of taharat (personal hygiene). We believe only in personal taharat and do not consider it our religious duty to keep the entire city clean. The revolting scenes that one sees during Eid al-Azha is a true indication of how light years behind we are in grasping the totality of a cleaner environment in an Islamic setting and in enlarging the concept of taharat to include an entire neighbourhood, city or country.

The biggest ibadat (prayer) now seems to lie in organizing processions, conferences and “weeks.” The larger the procession, the greater its potential to paralyze a city, the greater the sawaab. It does not even occur to our religious leaders that these processions violate citizens’ basic rights — the right, for instance, to walk in the streets, to go to work, or rush a heart patient or a woman in pains to hospital. Once the head of a religious party organized a ghaibana namaz-i-janaza at the Lasbela bridge. This created a traffic jam for hours. To him, however, what mattered was a large crowd which the choice of the venue had made it possible to gather.

As a result of this fixation with processions, the ulema have indirectly conveyed a most unfortunate message to the people: violating laws is no crime in pursuit of Islamic rituals and rites. Haram and Halal stay in their place in their traditional sense; but what they have failed to tell the people is that it is equally sinful to violate a Pakistani civic law — like jumping a red light or cheating on taxes.

No wonder, the people collectively have begun practising exactly what the ulema are most opposed to — secularism. The average citizen now thinks observing Islamic rituals is one thing; violating Pakistani laws quite another.

This dichotomy is the root-cause of corruption. A woman’s dupatta should be in proper place: this is our priority. If it is not, then the entire society is in danger of sinking in a sea of lewdness and obscenity. Nothing else matters.

Mahathir’s remarks are quite relevant to Pakistan.