Will it make any difference?

THE state of emergency was finally lifted on Saturday and the Provisional Constitution Order revoked, but a blow has been delivered to the very concept of parliamentary sovereignty because the amendments made to the 1973 Constitution by the fiat of one man do not need parliament’s approval. As Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum told a foreign agency on Friday so triumphantly the amended articles — 41, 44, 193, 194, 208 and 270C — “do not need ratification from parliament”. The issue was settled on Nov 21 by the president through an executive order, which gave legal cover to all his actions, including the imposition of the emergency and all subsequent enactments and decisions. The emergency was imposed by Gen Musharraf in his capacity as Chief of the Army Staff, but later the power to impose and lift it was transferred by Gen Musharraf to President Musharraf. This way President Musharraf endorsed in practical terms President Ziaul Haq’s opinion that the Constitution was a piece of paper he could tear up any time. But even Ziaul Haq chose to go to the National Assembly in 1985 to give protection to the series of edicts he had made to alter the 1973 Constitution’s parliamentary character, besides a number of so-called Islamic laws. In 2002, President Musharraf, too, had the good sense to seek parliamentary approval of the Legal Framework Order, accepting some minor changes, thanks to the MMA, to have the Seventeenth Amendment passed.

The amendments made in the Basic Law since Nov 3 cannot be undone, except by a two-thirds majority, and all indications are that the Jan 8 elections will give us a hung parliament in which the opposition will find it impossible to garner that many votes. In other words, the lower house that will come into being next month will be presented with a fait accompli. What position the PML (Q) will have in the assembly is difficult to say, but it should not be beyond the president’s power to manage a two-thirds majority with the help of the “king’s party” and those willing to go along. That the president chose not to do this, and the amendments have already become part of the Constitution show he has decided not to give the assembly even rubber-stamp status.

The political parties now have only three weeks to mobilise their voters and convey their programmes to the people. In spite of this, there is no doubt, the election will be hotly contested, since emotions are running high and all mainstream national parties, with the exception of the Jamaat-i-Islami, are in the field. The main issue is whether the caretaker governments and the Election Commission will do all in their power to rule out the possibilities of manipulations and ensure a fair and transparent election. The crisis beginning since March 9 has done enormous harm to Pakistan: if there is any consolation it lies in the protest which the legal community and journalists have sustained to this day. This peaceful resistance must continue till Pakistan gets recognised as a genuine democracy and all that goes with it — an independent judiciary, equality of all before the law and a media that is truly free.

Bird flu in humans now

LAST year, when the H5N1 virus was first detected among poultry at two farms in the NWFP, it was feared that the emergence of avian flu in people in contact with diseased birds was not far off. With the confirmation of seven human cases of bird flu in recent days, that nightmare has come to pass. It has also been confirmed that bird flu was responsible for at least one of two recent deaths linked to it. More ominously, it is being investigated whether the deaths were cases of human-to-human transmission, especially as the dead men were related to two others suffering from bird flu. It is rare for the infection to spread in this way and so far there have been only three such cases worldwide. However, it is not impossible, and if this mode of transmission is confirmed, there would be good reason to fear that the virus is mutating to a point where people could catch the infection from one another quite easily. Such a situation would have horrendous implications for the spread of a disease which medicine cannot cure and that has caused more than 200 human fatalities globally since 2003.

Extreme precaution in handling birds at poultry farms, where most outbreaks of bird flu occur, coupled with an effective infection control strategy devised by the health authorities in consultation with international experts, is needed if the threat is to be warded off. Such a strategy should include easy and quick access (especially where vulnerable populations such as poultry workers are concerned) to antiviral drugs like Tamiflu which can reduce the severity of the symptoms and limit complications. Moreover, nothing should be left to chance, and even the detection of a single case among poultry at a farm should result in the culling of the entire stock. Obviously, commercial poultry farmers would feel the financial pinch of such a step and may not always report the infection. It is essential, therefore, for inspections and monitoring of poultry farms to be stepped up, and also to regulate their numbers. More attempts to create general awareness, without spreading undue alarm, remains a priority, and regular information on the subject will help people realise that bird flu may go beyond being merely an occupational hazard.

Islamabad’s art scene

ONE would like to view the opening last week of yet another art gallery in Islamabad, the fourth this year in the capital, as a reflection of the fast changing character of a city that was once known as a cultural desert. This new gallery may not have the kind of impact which the public National Art Gallery made when it was inaugurated in August, some three decades after the project was first conceived in the 1970s. Nevertheless, this new showcase of artistic expression adds to a growing number of art galleries in the capital which now has eight in all. They are being seen as a strong statement of a growing interest in the arts and an increasing appreciation for creative expression in the once sterile capital city. While previously art lovers and buyers were mainly confined to the diplomatic corps and the top bureaucracy, today there is a new burgeoning generation of young executives in the corporate sector who, not satisfied with just mere prints, are developing a preference for having original paintings on the walls of their drawing rooms.

Earlier, the National Art Gallery had been hailed as a triumph of the development of art and the freedom of expression of the human spirit in Pakistan. It was featured in major newspapers, magazines and television programmes abroad, giving the country a positive projection internationally. No doubt individual Pakistani artists have already been making their mark in the global art market by holding exhibitions in galleries abroad. But it is the capital city’s National Art Gallery with its towering black burqa-clad sculptural figures that stand at the entrance, its red brickwork building and its 14 galleries illuminated by natural light and showcasing some of the best jewels in local paintings, that has made the world sit up and take notice of the wealth of Pakistan’s talent in art.

Pakistan’s unsavoury past

PAKISTAN’s is a unique case in the twentieth century where a majority seceded from the minority to form a separate country. Secessionist movements across the globe are usually responses by some sort of minority against actual or perceived discrimination at the hands of a majority.

Quebecois separatists in affluent Canada, Kashmiri secessionists in India and Tamil nationalists in Sri Lanka are some well-known examples of minorities seeking separation.

Dec 16 marks the 36th anniversary of the majority in Pakistan quitting the country in 1971 after an uneasy union that lasted for almost a quarter of a century. How did this anomaly occur? Why couldn’t the idea of Pakistan hold the two parts together?

With polls due in Pakistan in less than a month, it is worth going back to the elections that were held in Dec 1970 and which turned out to be the beginning of the end of united Pakistan. By general reckoning these were the first free and fair elections held in the country. Of the 300 members in the house, 162 were to be directly elected from East Pakistan and 138 from West Pakistan.

The Awami League (AL) contested the 1970 elections on its ‘Six Points’ agenda. The party won 160 of the 162 seats in East Pakistan. The AL’s hugely popular Six Points were:

1. A federal government, parliamentary in form, would be elected through regularly held free and fair elections.

2. The federal government would control foreign affairs and defence only.

3. A separate currency and accounts would control the transfer of capital from the east to the west wing.

4. The power of taxation would rest with the provinces and the federal government would subsist on grants from the provinces.

5. Each province would be permitted to enter into trade agreements with foreign countries.

6. Each province would raise its own militia.

At first glance the above agenda would read like a kiss of death for Pakistan. That is precisely how Gen Yahya Khan, the military dictator at that time, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leader of the largest party in the western wing, perceived them to be. That is at best a half-truth. For the Awami League each point had a historical context.

The demand for a federal parliamentary government came against the backdrop of a near unitary government with the presidential form slapped on Pakistan by Gen Ayub Khan. Believing Pakistanis to be unworthy and incapable of directly electing their lawmakers, the self-appointed field marshal used thousands of Basic Democrats to get himself elected as president.

With the doors of political articulation through democratic institutions slammed on them, the people found the military and civil bureaucracy calling the shots from the mid-1950s onward. The Bengalis had to bear the brunt of this system. Points two, three and four were a response to this situation. Exports from the eastern wing exceeded those from the west. Foreign aid flowed to Pakistan but little of it was spent in East Pakistan. Per capita income in West Pakistan was a solid 30 per cent higher than in the other half.

For the Bengalis the two-nation theory came to signify the existence of two nations within Pakistan. On the one hand were the numerically smaller but economically affluent, politically dominant and culturally hegemonic West Pakistani elite. On the other were the more numerous Bengali masses who had little say in national decision-making.

The fifth and sixth points pertaining to every province enjoying the power to enter into trade agreements with foreign countries and raise its own militia figured in the AL agenda for different reasons. For those in power, the Kashmir dispute defined Pakistan’s relations with India. Acrimony over Kashmir meant uneasy trade ties with India. East Pakistan was surrounded by India on three sides which made India its natural and logical trading partner. Bengalis saw Kashmir more as an impediment to their trade ties with India than anything else.

The message for Bengalis of the 1965 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir was that their government would leave the eastern wing at the mercy of the Indians when devising war plans. The Pakistan military was almost exclusively fighting and defending the western borders. India wisely chose not to attack East Pakistan. The implication of this was not lost on the Bengalis.

In fact, the Six Points were floated in 1966 in the aftermath of the indecisive war between India and Pakistan. The following year, the top leadership of the Awami League, including Mujibur Rehman who was affectionately called Bongabondhu (beloved of Bengal), was implicated in the Agartala Conspiracy case.

A popular movement against Ayub Khan led to the withdrawal of the sedition cases against the AL leadership and an in-house change installing Gen Yahya Khan, who promised to hold fair and free elections and transfer power to a duly elected assembly.

While campaigning for the elections was in full swing, a severe cyclone hit East Pakistan in November 1970 and the federal government didn’t do much to help ordinary Bengalis. Elections were due the following month and the Awami League used the cyclone issue as an example of West Pakistani indifference to the agony of the Bengalis and the administration’s failure to respond adequately.

Contrary to intelligence reports predicting a hung parliament, the Awami League in East Pakistan swept the polls. In West Pakistan, Z.A. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party won 81 of the 138 seats. The AL demanded the transfer of power and pledged to implement its six-point agenda. Bhutto argued that the AL plans would destroy Pakistan as it was then, and as the representative of the western wing he would not be a party to such a catastrophe. A political and constitutional crisis ensued.

There was nothing preordained about the future shape of Pakistan at this stage. Mujib knew this was possibly his best chance to press for writing anew the rules governing the running of the country. The Awami League’s unprecedented electoral mandate was further reinforced by the street mood in Bengal.

On Feb 21, 1971 (remembered as the anniversary of the Language Day martyrs), Mujib addressed a huge rally at the Shaheed Minar reiterating his commitment to the Six Points. Feb 21 is popularly know as Ekushey in Bangladesh and commemorates the killing of protesting students in 1952 by security forces over the language issue. In 1999, Unesco designated that date as the International Mother Language Day.

On March 7, 1971 Mujib in his public speech called on the Bengalis to go for total non-cooperation with the Pakistani state and asked them to be prepared for a long struggle. By this time the Bengali leadership was talking in terms of sovereignty as it thought Islamabad was totally unwilling to transfer power to the elected representatives.

Yahya and Mujib continued their talks from March 15 until the fateful day of March 25 when Yahya left for Karachi and the Pakistan Army started what was euphemistically called Operation Searchlight. The region that is now Bangladesh declared independence the following day. Nine months later, the Pakistan Army formally signed surrender papers leading to the formal independence of Bangladesh.

This was the third time in the twentieth century that the South Asian region had undergone a major political redrawing of the map. In 1905 the division of the then Bengal Presidency was one of the reasons behind the creation of the All-India Muslim League (AIML). Almost half a century later the AIML led the movement for a sovereign state comprising Muslim majority regions of India in which East Bengal played the key role. The same region in 1971 became Bangladesh.

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OTHER VOICES - Indian Press

Wrong pitch

FOR all their hype … India-Pakistan Test matches have seldom produced edge-of-the-seat kind of contests …

With the stakes being always higher than what a sporting joust should entail, most captains had played safe and dull. In the ’80s, however, Pakistan under the charismatic Imran Khan held a marked sway over India, and this dominance ran well into the ’90s.

But … in the last few years, India has been consistently better than Pakistan. In this historical context, the just concluded series fits into the larger pattern, and the 1-0 result in favour of India is pretty appropriate. The BCCI … was not bothered by the fact that the state of the wickets was leading to even more disturbing write-ups … The dead pitches killed the game.

India, however, can take … heart from the outstanding show of Yuvraj Singh and … Sourav Ganguly. The prince of Kolkata is … living out a fairy tale. His strong and sensational show should be the story of Indian cricket … in 2007. Just over a year ago, his cricketing obituary was all but written. Now those very pens are writing a different script. Those who wrote him off then were not wrong … But Ganguly’s performance now retrospectively makes it so. — (Dec 15)

Rivers for all

THE proposal put forward by Union Minister for Water Resources Saifuddin Soz to identify major rivers as national ones is an important and courageous one.... Rivers are a state subject … and politicians have used them cynically to define regional identity … The Kaveri dispute is a prime example. It has caused hostility between two neighbouring regions in the country for over 100 years.

The opportunity costs of disputes like this are huge. The Constitution, incidentally, seemed to have anticipated this problem and had made provision to empower the centre to regulate interstate river waters. Not only will this help to keep the spectre of drought at bay by ensuring that the river’s waters benefit the largest number, it helps to expedite the building of dams.

In any case, the seven major river systems of the country cross too many state boundaries to be considered the property of a particular state. Take the Ganga river basin — it covers approximately 25 per cent of India’s land area. How can any one state lay claim to its munificence? The Brahmaputra contains the largest quantity of water of any Indian river. So how can it be seen as belonging only to Assam or Bengal? In fact a national approach to its management would also help mitigate some of the dangers. — (Dec 14)