Business Recorder Column December 26, 2023

Exacerbating the problem

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The state’s penchant for turning a molehill into a mountain has been on ‘glorious’ display in Islamabad these past few days. The death in the custody of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Balochistan of a young man, Balaach Mola Baksh, aroused the anger and indignation of his family, the families of other missing persons and right thinking citizens to such an extent that, after holding protests in Turbat, they decided, under the lead of the Baloch Yakjehti Council to undertake a protest long march to Islamabad against the persisting phenomenon of enforced disappearances, torture in custody and extra-judicial ‘kill and dump’ disposal of suspected militants since the fifth Baloch nationalist insurgency broke out in 2002. The route of the long march took them to Quetta, then via the Marri area (Kohlu), Barkhan, D G Khan, D I Khan to Islamabad. Along the way, the long march protestors were harassed by armed men (identity not revealed), local administrations’ blocking of roads to prevent the marchers moving forward, cancellation of transport by the authorities and several arrests on the charge of raising anti-state slogans. All these efforts of the state, however, proved unable to halt the long march, which finally arrived in the federal capital.

This is neither the first nor, if present trends and practices persist, likely to be the last of such protests against enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings (often after severe torture) in Balochistan for the last two decades. What is unique about this march though is that it is being led by women. This punctures our presumption of Balochistan as a backward tribal society. Earlier, Gwadar’s Haq Do (give us our rights) movement too was overwhelmingly led by and composed of women. This relatively new trend in Balochistan is owed to two factors. One, when men attempt to protest against the same crimes of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, they face extreme harassment and worse. Second, since the overwhelming majority of missing persons in Balochistan are men, those left behind are their women to take up the banner of seeking justice against such illegal and unconstitutional repressive actions by the state. The women of Balochistan have earned the respect and trust of the people of Balochistan through their principled, uncompromising stand. Two, unlike similar protests in the past led by Mama Qadeer, et al, support for this protest long march has spread across all the provinces both because ethnic Baloch living in areas outside Balochistan are being visited by the same unwanted attentions of the state, and because the just and rightful nature of the protest has aroused the indignation and anger of all communities throughout the length and breadth of the country.

Having said all this, one cannot but hang one’s head in shame at the treatment meted out by the police in Islamabad to these peaceful protestors. Women, children and even the elderly were not spared water cannons, heavy batons beatings and roughing up before being bundled into police vans to be taken…no one knows where. The IG Islamabad received a rightful dose of scorn and derision from the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court when he unashamedly and blatantly lied through his teeth in claiming that the women protestors arrested had ‘chosen’ to be taken to and enjoy a sojourn in Islamabad’s police stations. Undeterred by the rocket he received from the bench, the IG then claimed some arrested women had been taken to a women’s hostel, a statement that still awaits credible affirmation. Perhaps the IG’s training in dissembling with the truth, and that too before the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, leaves something to be desired.

The unnecessary and brutal treatment of the peaceful protestors left the caretaker government with egg on its face. It then attempted a damage control exercise through appointing a committee led by caretaker minister and former bureaucrat Fawad Ahmad Fawad to ‘negotiate’ with the protesters and somehow defuse the highly embarrassing situation for our ‘care’ takers. This committee then held a press conference with the same IG sitting cheek by jowl with them to make tall claims about the release of the protestors while sneaking in a word or two about the local troublemakers who had allegedly sneaked into the protesters’ sit-in and were held responsible for sparking the police response by throwing stones. The problem with this mountain of half-truths, untruths and plain and unvarnished lies is that today’s world is no longer dependent on ‘official’ information. If the mainstream media, already under the censorship cosh, covered these events in a restrained manner, social media laid bare the ugly visage of the state’s brutality against the peaceful protesters. In today’s world gentlemen, in case it has escaped your notice, it has become impossible to hide or distort the truth.

While some protestors have been released, at least 100 are still ‘missing’ (ironically having thus joined the ranks of those they stood up for in the first place!). But why single out the Islamabad police and caretaker administration. Balochistan has been dealt with exclusively with brutal force since the day Pakistan came into existence. The grievances of the Baloch are of a political nature (which of course includes economic and social issues) but have always been dealt with by the use of brutal force and bloody suppression. If this trend, exemplified once again by the events in Islamabad adumbrated above, continues, the state will have no one but itself to blame for driving more and more of the people of Balochistan into the arms of the nationalist insurgents who, having despaired of the state’s ability or intent to deal fairly and politically with their grievances, are increasingly declaring themselves for the right of self-determination, including independence.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The December 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The December 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Charles Amjad-Ali: Anti-semitism – A Hypocritical Epithet to cover Israel's Apartheid – IV.

2. Rafi Pervaiz Bhatti: The Muslim Identity in India – II: The disruptive effect of Orthodox Islam on Muslim identity.

3. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – IV.

4. Vijay Prashad: A new mood in the world will put an end to the global Monroe Doctrine.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook). 

Business Recorder Column December 12, 2023

 As written by me:

Nawaz Sharif: prospects, problems

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The view of most analysts is that Nawaz Sharif is poised to become Prime Minister (PM) for the fourth time as a result of the general elections in February 2024. But while this consensus rests on solid grounds where the political equation of the main parties’ prospects in that election go, there may still be a slip or two between the cup and the lip. First the positives.

All other things being equal (which, some might object, is seldom the case in Pakistan), Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) still enjoys its considerable traditional constituency in the largest by population (and therefore seats in parliament) province, Punjab. If that reading is correct, a further smattering of seats from the other three provinces should see the PML-N home and dry. The party leadership has been reaching out to Balochistan, Sindh, and even the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party of Jehangir Tareen et al and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) of Chaudhry Shujaat in Punjab for seat adjustments. These manoeuvrings are the traditional stuff of our electoral politics, where principle and ethics always run a poor second to pragmatic (if not opportunist) accommodations with parties not hostile to each other. If any province so far shows signs of benign neglect by the PML-N, arguably it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). On the other hand, the only potential rival to the PML-N in Punjab, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) is under the hammer and unlikely to receive the ‘level playing field’ it has been baying for since at least the tentative date of the general elections became a near certainty. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has yet to recover from its political decimation years ago in Punjab. It is once again likely to secure its stronghold in Sindh, but precious little else.

Now the obstacles to the seemingly logical return of Nawaz Sharif to power. The PML-N seems worried by the snail’s pace at which the appeals against conviction of Nawaz Sharif appear to be moving. The party’s concern is Nawaz Sharif may be left hanging in the air and unable to himself fight the election if he is not cleared of all the charges and prison sentences he was graced with to accompany his ouster in 2017, ostensibly on the basis of the revelations in the Panama Papers, but in fact through the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) legerdemain in pronouncing him not sadiq and ameen (truthful and honest) and therefore disqualified because he had not declared the unclaimed salary from his son’s company abroad. At the time the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa’s SC pronounced the verdict, I had described the decision in the vernacular as “Khodia pahar tay niklia chooha” (A mountain was dug up but all that was found was a mouse). Such pronouncements have unfortunately besmirched the fair face of the judiciary in our history with monotonous regularity. It remains to be seen if CJP Qazi Faez Isa’s SC will carry through on its promise to clean up these Augean stables of the judiciary’s past. But even if the glacial pace (inherent and sometimes deliberate) of our judicial processes keeps Nawaz Sharif out of the February 2024 electoral fray, would anyone be in any doubt who would call the shots in the next PML-N government even if it is from behind the curtain? Naturally the PML-N would prefer the legitimacy a Nawaz Sharif-led government would enjoy. But if push comes to shove, the party can and perhaps should prepare a Plan B for a belated occupation of the PM’s chair by their unchallenged leader Nawaz Sharif.

Now to what a Nawaz Sharif-led (immediate or belated) PML-N government is likely to do and the immense, unprecedented challenges it would confront. First and foremost, as Nawaz Sharif has himself declared the other day, he reiterated his favourite theme of improving relations with all Pakistan’s neighbours, especially India. This is significant because arguably, it is Nawaz Sharif’s consistent efforts in this regard, outreach to India, that led to his three previous dismissals and ousters from power. Why then, would he tread on such slippery ground again, even before the outcome of the polls? The context of this conundrum is that Nawaz Sharif represents that considerable section of the Pakistani bourgeoisie that has consistently maintained that it is in the country’s paramount interest to turn the corner and normalise relations with India. As justification for such a stance, this section of our industrial and commercial classes point to the unarguable benefits that potentially await in opening up bilateral trade, investment, and movement of goods and services bilaterally as well as onwards to Central Asia and beyond (our very own Belt and Road Initiative!). Of course peace and normalisation with India implies centrally compromise over Kashmir, which, if the history of overt and covert bilateral dialogues on the issue are any indicator, would mean no exchange of existing territory held by either side in the long suffering state, accompanied by mutual demilitarisation of the Line of Control (LoC) and rendering it a soft ‘border’ to allow the two-way movement of goods and long divided Kashmiri families. It is one of the ironies of history that the author of the Kargil misadventure, late General Pervez Musharraf, after he had grabbed power through his military coup in 1999, followed it up with a journey to the Agra summit with Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, where precisely these contours of a Kashmir solution came within a whisker’s breadth of being clinched.

Why Nawaz Sharif may feel he is on firmer ground this time in returning to his favourite theme of peace and normalisation with India is the strategic shift in the military’s thinking on the issue. Starting with former Chief of Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the muted signals emanating from the military indicate that the premier defence institution has arrived at a reality check on the prospects of war and conflict with our eastern neighbour. Although the nuclear deterrent arguably (despite, and perhaps because of the Kargil experience) militates against an all-out war between Pakistan and India, even if the nuclear deterrent is ignored for the sake of argument, a conventional all-out war is to be avoided because of Pakistan’s lack of strategic depth and sufficient wherewithal to wage a protracted war. If this assessment is correct, Nawaz Sharif’s idea of rapprochement with India may well have won the day, in the process weakening the concerns of the past that it might lead to negative political consequences here.

While this is a hopeful scenario, a lot depends for the moment on the 2024 general elections in both Pakistan and India, the outcome probably birthing a Nawaz-Modi re-engagement. That would indeed be a positive and hopeful scenario for both countries, the region and the world. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

As published by the paper:

Nawaz Sharif: prospects and challenges

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The view of most analysts is that Nawaz Sharif is poised to become Prime Minister (PM) for the fourth time as a result of the general elections in February 2024. But while this consensus rests on solid grounds where the political equation of the main parties’ prospects in that election go, there may still be a slip or two between the cup and the lip. First the positives.

All other things being equal (which, some might object, is seldom the case in Pakistan), Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) still enjoys its considerable traditional constituency in the largest by population (and therefore seats in parliament) province, Punjab. If that reading is correct, a further smattering of seats from the other three provinces should see the PML-N home and dry. The party leadership has been reaching out to Balochistan, Sindh, and even the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party of Jehangir Tareen et al and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) of Chaudhry Shujaat in Punjab for seat adjustments. These manoeuvrings are the traditional stuff of our electoral politics, where principle and ethics always run a poor second to pragmatic (if not opportunist) accommodations with parties not hostile to each other. If any province so far shows signs of benign neglect by the PML-N, arguably it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). On the other hand, the only potential rival to the PML-N in Punjab, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) is under the hammer and unlikely to receive ‘a level playing field’ it has been baying for since at least the tentative date of the general elections became a near certainty. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has yet to recover from its political decimation years ago in Punjab. It is once again likely to secure its stronghold in Sindh, but precious little else.

Now the obstacles to the seemingly logical return of Nawaz Sharif to power. The PML-N seems worried by the snail’s pace at which the appeals against conviction of Nawaz Sharif appear to be moving. The party’s concern is Nawaz Sharif may be left hanging in the air and unable to himself fight the election if he is not cleared of all the charges and prison sentences he was graced with to accompany his ouster in 2017, ostensibly on the basis of the revelations in the Panama Papers, but in fact through the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) legerdemain in pronouncing him not sadiq and ameen (truthful and honest) and therefore disqualified because he had not declared the unclaimed salary from his son’s company abroad. At the time the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa’s SC pronounced the verdict, I had described the decision in the vernacular as “Khodia pahar tay niklia chooha” (A mountain was dug up but all that was found was a mouse). Such pronouncements have unfortunately besmirched the fair face of the judiciary in our history with monotonous regularity. It remains to be seen if CJP Qazi Faez Isa’s SC will carry through on its promise to clean up these Augean stables of the judiciary’s past. But even if the glacial pace (inherent and sometimes deliberate) of our judicial processes keeps Nawaz Sharif out of the February 2024 electoral fray, would anyone be in any doubt who would call the shots in the next PML-N government even if it is from behind the curtain? Naturally the PML-N would prefer the legitimacy a Nawaz Sharif-led government would enjoy. But if push comes to shove, the party can and perhaps should prepare a Plan B for a belated occupation of the PM’s chair by their unchallenged leader Nawaz Sharif.

Now to what a Nawaz Sharif-led (immediate or belated) PML-N government is likely to do and the immense, unprecedented challenges it would confront. First and foremost, as Nawaz Sharif has himself declared the other day, he reiterated his favourite theme of improving relations with all Pakistan’s neighbours, especially India. This is significant because arguably, it is Nawaz Sharif’s consistent efforts in this regard, outreach to India, that led to his three previous dismissals and ousters from power. Why then, would he tread on such slippery ground again, even before the outcome of the polls? The context of this conundrum is that Nawaz Sharif represents that considerable section of the Pakistani bourgeoisie that has consistently maintained that it is in the country’s paramount interest to turn the corner and normalise relations with India. As justification for such a stance, this section of our industrial and commercial classes point to the unarguable benefits that potentially await in opening up bilateral trade, investment, and movement of goods and services bilaterally as well as onwards to Central Asia and beyond (our very own Belt and Road Initiative!). Of course peace and normalisation with India implies centrally compromise over Kashmir, which, if the history of overt and covert bilateral dialogues on the issue are any indicator, would mean no exchange of existing territory held by either side in the long suffering state, accompanied by mutual demilitarisation of the Line of Control (LoC) and rendering it a soft ‘border’ to allow the two-way movement of goods and long divided Kashmiri families. It is one of the ironies of history that the author of the Kargil misadventure, late General Pervez Musharraf, after he had grabbed power through his military coup in 1999, followed it up with a journey to the Agra summit with Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, where precisely these contours of a Kashmir solution came within a whisker’s breadth of being clinched.

Why Nawaz Sharif may feel he is on firmer ground this time in returning to his favourite theme of peace and normalisation with India is the strategic shift in the military’s thinking on the issue. Starting with former Chief of Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the muted signals emanating from the military indicate that the premier defence institution has arrived at a reality check on the prospects of war and conflict with our eastern neighbour. Although the nuclear deterrent arguably (despite, and perhaps because of the Kargil experience) militates against an all-out war between Pakistan and India, even if the nuclear deterrent is ignored for the sake of argument, a conventional all-out war is to be avoided because of Pakistan’s lack of strategic depth and sufficient wherewithal to wage a protracted war. If this assessment is correct, Nawaz Sharif’s idea of rapprochement with India may well have won the day, in the process weakening the concerns of the past that it might lead to negative political consequences here.

While this is a hopeful scenario, a lot depends for the moment on the 2024 general elections in both Pakistan and India, the outcome probably birthing a Nawaz-Modi re-engagement. That would indeed be a positive and hopeful scenario for both countries, the region and the world. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Health bulletin 4

I have been diagnosed with prostrate cancer. The doctors think it can be controlled with medicine, which I have started. Please keep me in your thoughts.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column December 5, 2023

Israel bent on genocide

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Only the naïve could have imagined that Israel would continue the truce that allowed the exchange of some of the Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. As soon as the week-long truce expired, Israel not only went on the offensive again, it expanded its scope to southern Gaza, which it had earlier touted as a safe zone for the residents of Gaza city and northern Gaza to relocate to since the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) intended to occupy northern Gaza in the wake of its brutal military offensive. As things stand now, not only has Israel militarily captured most of northern Gaza, it has turned its bloody gaze towards southern Gaza, where it claims the Hamas leadership and the remaining Israeli hostages are located. It should not be forgotten that Israel’s earlier demand that northern Gazans move south to so-called ‘safe zones’ did not prevent it from attacking the columns of Palestinians streaming south. Now they once again face the prospect of being displaced with nowhere left to go.

The renewed Israeli attack on now the whole of Gaza so far has yielded 400 attacks and 700 Palestinians killed. As a result the total of Palestinian casualties since October 7, 2023 has reached more than 15,500, of whom 70 percent are women and children and 280 medics. While well-meaning international organisations such as Doctors Sans Frontieres and the International Court of Justice appeal to the world’s conscience to stop Israel in its barbaric tracks, not much can be expected from these appeals and condemnations so long as the US’s total support to Israel continues. This includes the inability of the UN Security Council to bring any sort of meaningful pressure to bear on Israel, given Washington’s veto power in that august but toothless body supposedly enjoined to keep the peace worldwide. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk says hundreds of thousands of Gazans are being squeezed into smaller areas in the south, resulting in no safe place anywhere in Gaza. If he had been a little more truthful he would have unequivocally stated that Israel intends to drive as many as possible if not all Palestinians out of Gaza and occupy the Strip indefinitely to avoid the territory ever again being used for the kind of attacks staged by Hamas on October 7, which exposed the so-called impenetrable defence of Israel as overstated and hollow.

Some 1.8 million Palestinians have been displaced to overcrowded, unsanitary shelters in the south, resulting in chaos of an unimaginable degree. Meanwhile the IDF claims to have found 800 tunnel shafts in the north, of which it claims to have destroyed some 500. This, however, has still not prevented Hamas and Islamic Jihad from launching rockets into Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, in a show of defiance and resilience that is a smack in the face of Israel.

The Zionist entity now faces a dilemma of unprecedented proportions. Its brutality, which cannot in today’s world be hidden from view in an unprecedentedly interconnected world, may be (according to it) bringing military advances but in the process is losing it the war of narratives, with enormous political implications for the future. Even US President Joe Biden may well lose the 2024 presidential election because of the backlash at home against his unqualified support for Israel’s genocidal campaign. That campaign is not confined to Gaza. In the West Bank, 60 Palestinians are the latest count of detainees. They can be added to the 3,000 detained since October 7. During the brief truce, as many Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank as were released in exchange for the Israeli hostages. Israel’s atrocities continue unabated and in typical lying, hypocritical fashion. Israel is now threatening to eliminate Hamas leaders in southern Gaza, Lebanon, Turkiye, Qatar and anywhere else they can be found. The more repressive and barbaric the Zionist entity’s actions, the more it is cutting the ground from under its own future.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, an experienced top US military commander, has warned Israel that if civilians are not protected and the Israeli settler and security forces’ violence against the West Bank Palestinians not avoided in the kind of urban warfare being waged in Gaza, Israel risks turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat. He bases this view on the US’s experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, given the US administration’s position, he felt obliged to trot out phrases about the US remaining Israel’s closest friend in the world (amongst a dwindling few), but his words are a cautionary message to Israel not to push the civilians into the arms of the ‘enemy’, which would ensure their radicalisation and prolong the war. Austin is being naïve if he thinks Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza has not already wrought the result he is warning against.

Logic suggests on the basis of Israel’s previous military forays into Gaza that its stated goal of eliminating Hamas is unrealistic. That implies the war will be a long one, and if the Houthis’ attacks on Israeli and US shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea and the almost by now daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israel on the Lebanon border in the north are any indication, a wider one. Perhaps premature, but the same logic points in the direction of the beginning of the end of the Zionist entity. And not a moment too soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column November 28, 2023

Fallout of the Gaza war

 

Rashed Rahman

 

One and a half months after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, and despite the temporary truce allowing an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, the war between Israel and the Palestinians seems poised to continue. Under US, western and hostage families’ pressure, Israel agreed to the pause in fighting to allow the exchange of some of the hostages in two installments in exchange for the release of some of the almost 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s ‘security custody’. Israel’s belligerence towards the Palestinians and Arabs however, shows no signs of lessening. While the pause was in effect in Gaza to allow the exchange and some (inadequate) humanitarian supplies to relieve the suffering from thirst, hunger and medical requirements of the suffering people of Gaza, Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank continued their attacks on Palestinians, killing eight in 24 hours in Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus. Aggressive Israelis once again invaded Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and, with the help of the Israeli security forces, prevented Palestinians from worshipping there. Syria’s capital Damascus suffered its second bombing by Israel and cessation of flights within one month. This toll can now be added to the almost 15,000 killed and 1.7 million displaced in the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, sparing neither hospitals nor schools nor non-combatant civilians. The biggest irony or macabre joke was when Israel asked the Palestinian residents of Gaza city and the north to move to southern Gaza for safety, only to bomb them en route and when they arrived in the south.

The temporary truce may end soon (some extension notwithstanding), but the Israeli-Palestinian war now seems a long term affair. Some context. Since the time when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) indulged in plane hijackings in the 1970s, leading eventually (after Black September) to the expulsion of Palestinian fighters from Jordan and the later (1980s) expulsion from Lebanon (where they had relocated) at the hands of the Israeli invaders and their local fascist collaborators (the Falange, et al), the Palestinian armed resistance was left without a base of operations from which to strike at Israel. Yasser Arafat, leader of Al Fatah, then decided to plumb for diplomacy and, with US blessings, signed the Camp David and Oslo Accords that promised a two-state solution that never saw the light of day. The diplomatic/political push by the Palestinians ended up as a damp squib, with, after Arafat’s murder through poisoning by the Israelis, leaving the Palestine Authority (PA, created under the Oslo Accords) housed in the West Bank ineffective and, over time, reduced to a virtual ‘sub-contractor’ of the Israeli state.

By 2007, Hamas rose to challenge the PA in Gaza and has effectively controlled the Strip ever since. Israel’s current foray into Gaza is not the first. Since Hamas was now the only effective armed resistance left in the field, Israel has repeatedly tried to scotch it by invading Gaza, each time to no avail. This time too, Hamas is waging urban guerrilla warfare that is taking a heavier toll of the invaders than they have dared to admit so far. On the other hand, the nascent public opinion the world over that had begun to see through Israel’s propaganda shield of trotting out memories of the Nazi Holocaust in Germany to label the Palestinians anti-Semitic (the irony of course being that Palestinians and Arabs are Semitic too), has grown before our eyes into a flood of sympathy for the beleaguered Palestinians as a result of Israel’s genocidal war. In this respect, seeing the huge turnouts of pro-Palestinian protest around the world, including the west, one is reminded of one’s youth in London in the 1960s when an entire generation turned out against the Vietnam war. Today, as in 1968 (the year of till then the largest protest demonstration ever in London)), the people, particularly youth, are at loggerheads with their governments in the west, blindly supporting Israel and trying to suppress pro-Palestinian voices.

Hamas’ October 7 attack has irrevocably changed the equation, not only for Palestine, but for the region and the world as a whole. The Oslo Accords, two-state solution, possible rapprochement between more and more Arab countries and Israel, all this has been duly dumped in the trash can. The Muslim world, as usual, is betraying its spineless, toothless character, in hock as most of it is to the US-led west. There is unlikely to be any peaceful political solution now to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Iran will back Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to continue the armed resistance against the expansionist, settler colonialist Zionist entity. When that entity is finally brought to its knees, only then perhaps can one hope for a reconciliatory dialogue between the victims and their oppressors, the Palestinians and Israelis, provided of course the latter are prepared to acknowledge their historic wrongs against the former and prepared to contemplate a different reality that shuns apartheid, discrimination and oppression in favour of a very different Palestine that may include Jews who have shunned Zionism.

Too much to hope for? History is witness to stranger outcomes.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The November 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The November 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Vijay Prashad: The Palestinian people are already free.

2. Birzeit University Union of Professors and Employees, Occupied Palestine: We are all Palestinians.

3. Charles Amjad-Ali: Anti-Semitism: A hypocritical epithet to cover Israel's epithet – III.

4. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – III.

5. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: Indian Electoral Politics: Implications for diplomacy and options for Pakistan.

6. Fayyaz Baqir: Silent Revolution in Pakistan.

7. Dr Maqsud Nuri: Far Right Populism: Present situation and likely trends.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

 

Book Launch at RPC

 Research and Publication Centre (RPC) invites all friends to the Book Launch of Dr Tariq Rahman's "Pakistan's Wars: An Alternative History" at RPC, 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom) on Saturday, October 28, 2023, 4:00 pm.

Speakers:

Faqir Aijazuddin, author, columnist.

Rahim ul Haq, academic.

Rashed Rahman, Editor/journalist.

Dr Tariq Rahman will respond to the speakers' contributions.

Tea will be served after the event.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column October 24, 2023

The Palestinian resistance

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The ongoing Israel-Gaza war began with the spectacular attack by Hamas into Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas succeeded in knocking out Israel’s electronic monitoring system on the Israel-Gaza border, thereby taking the Israeli army completely by surprise, killing over 1,700 Israeli settlers and soldiers and taking over 2,000 hostages. The land breach of the border was accompanied by 5,000 rockets being fired into Israel, motorised parachutes used to infiltrate Hamas fighters into Israeli-occupied territory and even sea-borne incursions. Israel has since retaliated by pummelling Gaza into rubble, sparing neither civilians, hospitals, nor even the south of Gaza that Israel itself ordered Palestinians to move to in order to escape Israeli bombardment of the north of Gaza. Over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed so far (and counting), with a heart rending number amongst these children.

Before we assess the likely outcome of Israel’s intent to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, it bears recollecting how we got here. The Zionist movement emerged in Europe in the late 19^th century as a response to the long standing persecution of Jews in the continent. The looming defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in WWI provided the British and French with the opportunity to divide up the potentially oil-rich Arab colonies of that empire through manoeuvres such as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The post-WWI British Mandate over Palestine opened the floodgates to Jewish immigration from all over the world. WWII’s Nazi Holocaust against the Jews provided the justification for an UN-mandated partition of Palestine between an Israeli and a Palestinian state in 1948 (the original two-state solution). However, through terror and force, the Zionists captured more territory than they had been accorded by the partition plan and drove the Palestinian population out (the Naqba). That is how the colonialist-imperialist plan to plant a dagger in the heart of the Middle East as a reliable outpost for their interests transpired.

The early Palestinian resistance to this catastrophe remained largely confined to radio broadcasts from Cairo. The shattering defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 war, which yielded the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria (since illegally annexed by Israel), and the Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt (Sinai having been restored to Egypt after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war) left the Arab world reeling in depression. That is when Al Fatah emerged to lead an armed resistance against the expansionist Zionist settler colonialist enterprise. But very early on, Al Fatah’s leader Yasser Arafat pinpointed the major problem of the Palestinian armed resistance. This was the lack of a reliable, safe base area of operations against Israel. Jordan, where the Palestinian resistance (including other groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – PFLP – Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine – PDFLP – and others) was based, in spite of, or perhaps even because of the fact that Jordan housed 40 percent Palestinians, led to an uneasy coexistence with the King Hussein regime. This was certainly not helped by the extreme left adventurism of the PFLP operating with the motif: “The road to Tel Aviv lies through Amman.” To attract international attention to a perceived ignored Palestinian cause, PFLP indulged in a series of heroic but eventually damaging air hijackings, culminating in the ‘Black September’ hijacking of two airliners to Amman airport, where they were blown up on the ground. This proved the last straw for the King Hussein regime, which launched its army against the Palestinian fighters as a whole and against their refugee camps. In the latter enterprise, (then) Brigadier Ziaul Haq unleashed his tank brigade against the Palestinian refugee camps. If there was any saving grace from this Pakistani ignominy, it was the presence of a Pakistani guerrilla contingent training with the PDFLP, which fought against the Jordanian army side by side with their Palestinian comrades and brothers.

King Hussein’s massive crackdown against the Palestinians resulted in the Palestinian resistance being expelled to Lebanon. However, it did not take long for their expulsion from there too at the hands of an Israeli invasion assisted by the fascist Lebanese Falange, the latter credited with the Sabra and Shatila massacres. This time the Palestinian resistance was expelled to Tunisia, far from the battlefield. At that juncture, Yasser Arafat plumped for diplomacy, an effort that ended with the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords 1993, whose central recommendation was a two-state solution (again). However, the Oslo Accords were ill-fated since the Israeli leader who signed them, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by an extremist Zionist, and Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death by Israel. Since his passing, Al Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which it heads, have been reduced under Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership into a toothless phenomenon, not the least because of the rise and coming to power of an extreme right Israeli government/s led by Binyamin Netanyahu, which have tossed the Oslo Accords in the dustbin of history by extreme repression of the Palestinians, promoting Israeli settler expansionism in the West Bank, violating the sanctity of one of Islam’s holiest sites, the Al Aqsa Mosque, and reducing Gaza to the largest open-air prison in the world. Resort by the PLO to several rounds of Intifada have failed to budge the Zionist entity from its genocidal intentions.

These were the circumstances in which an Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, emerged in Gaza as the alternative to Al Fatah and the PLO, the latter by now largely confined to the West Bank. Initially, Israel played dirty by supporting the rise of Hamas, hoping thereby to divide the Palestinians and weaken the flailing PLO even further. But, as Pakistan too has learnt to its cost vis-à-vis the Afghan Taliban, proxies eventually tend to turn on and bite the hand that feeds them. Hamas became the only Palestinian group conducting armed resistance to Israel. The latter has conducted four wars before the present one in Gaza without being able to crush Hamas. Whether it will succeed this time is also a moot point. Guerrilla resistance in Gaza is predicated on an ouster of past Israeli intelligence penetration of Hamas ranks and resort by the latter (in the absence of any other natural cover) to tunnel warfare. As the Americans experienced in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War, this can be a deadly riposte to conventional armies, no matter how powerful.

While Hamas prepares to defend itself and the Gaza Palestinians against the impending Israeli ground invasion, the Arab and Muslim world is, as usual, reduced to pious statements for a ceasefire, allowing aid for Gaza, and a peaceful two-state solution to the conflict that fall on deaf US-led western ears. The people across the world however, are rising in solidarity with the Palestinians, reminiscent of the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement. An Israeli ground invasion of Gaza could lead to a widening of the war, including the taking up of arms by the West Bank Palestinians and Hezbollah. Whichever way the final confrontation with Israel plays out, this war has put paid to the incremental sell-out of the Palestinians by the Arab world, the latter being nudged by the US under the rubric of the Abraham Accords towards normalisation of relations with Israel.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Book Launch at RPC

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) invites all friends to the Book Launch of Dr Tariq Rahman's "Pakistan's Wars: An Alternative History" at RPC, 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom) on Saturday, October 28, 2023, 4:00 pm.

Speakers:

Faqir Aijazuddin, author, columnist.

Rahim ul Haq, academic.

Rashed Rahman, Editor/journalist.

Dr Tariq Rahman will respond to the speakers' contributions.

Tea will be served after the event.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The October 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The October 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rafi Pervaiz Bhatti: The Muslim identity in India.

2. Vijay Prashad: On January 1, 2024, the world's centre of gravity will shift.

3. Charles Amjad-Ali: Anti-Semitism: A hypocritical epithet to cover Israel's apartheid – II.

4. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – II.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook). 

Health bulletin 3

 Both my eyes have now been operated on. Healing process in motion. I am back at work but with reduced capacity because of eye strain. Thanks to all the friends who have so solicitously asked after me, wished me well and a speedy recovery. This response shows all is not lost. Humanity, empathy exists, and must provide the foundation of an effective progressive struggle. 

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Health bulletin 2

 My right eye cataract operation seems to be healing well. The left eye is now scheduled to have the same operation on September 26, 2023.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Health bulletin

 I have had cataract surgery on my right eye and am resting at home. If the healing process unfolds as expected, I may have similar surgery on my left eye next week. Friends wishing to contact me can do so on my cells: +92 302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) or +92 333 4216335 or on email: rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column September 5, 2023

Have the people risen?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Arriving on the back of backbreaking inflation across the board, the increased tariff in electricity bills has proved the proverbial last straw. Citizens, joined if not led by traders, have been protesting the inflated electricity bills through the length and breadth of the country. Fortunately, despite the seething anger in the protestors’ hearts, barring one or two incidents of DISCOs offices and personnel being subjected to rough treatment, the protests have been peaceful. And impressive. One has only to glance at the pictures in the media of city after city resembling the quiet of a graveyard as far as its usually bustling, bursting at the seams markets are concerned.

The protesters’ demands make eminent sense. Electricity tariffs have gone through the roof, taxes imposed through electricity bills now constitute 40 percent of the total, and the popular perception is, backed by expert studies, that consumers are being made to pay through the nose for long standing misgovernance, inefficiency (exorbitant line losses, electricity theft, etc), and, the crowning glory – installed capacity payments to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) enshrined in their contracts irrespective of how much electricity is actually generated and bought from them. Those railing against free electricity quotas for power workers and other privileged sections should reflect on the matter to gain some perspective. Even if all the free electricity quotas are withdrawn (through monetisation, etc), this will only result in a relatively paltry saving of Rs 24 billion per annum. Contrast this with the estimated capacity charges expected for 2024 of Rs two trillion (Rs 1.3 trillion of this earmarked for idle power plants), and the true nature of the crisis will become apparent.

The power sector too has fallen prey (as has the industrial sector) post-1977 to the clamour for privatisation under our embrace (along with the world at large) of the neoliberal paradigm that militates against the public sector as inefficient, riddled with corruption, etc, as opposed to the new knight in shining armour: the invisible hand of the market. In Pakistan’s case though, the ‘invisible’ part does not apply since the results of this new fundamentalism in economic thought are transparently before us. Wholesale privatisation from General Ziaul Haq’s military regime onwards has resulted (with only a handful of exceptions) in the privatised industries being disposed off by selling the plant and machinery as scrap and using the land to develop real estate. This de-industrialisation process has continued since 1977, to the detriment of industrial progress since not a single large industry has come up in all these years.

The privatisation mantra has not spared the power sector either. WAPDA was reduced to managing hydel power and the distribution of electricity was handed over to DISCOs (Karachi Electric was privatised wholly). In the early 1990s, during the second Benazir Bhutto government, the undeniable power supply deficit, reflected in extensive load shedding, was sought to be overcome by inviting private power producers to set up generation plants with guaranteed capacity payments irrespective of the actual offtake of electricity. Critics who tried to draw attention to the adverse consequences of such guaranteed capacity payments irrespective of electricity offtake were fobbed off with the contention that Pakistan not being an investment destination of choice because of our internal and regional instability, there was no other way to attract private capital for the power sector. By 2007, because of the neglect of the changing supply and demand equation in the power sector by the General Pervez Musharraf military regime, load shedding returned with a vengeance. The solution, till 2015, was sought in a wholesale garage sale to IPPs, seemingly without any clear idea of likely demand over the mid- to long term. The result today is that installed capacity is at 40,000 MWs while the decrepit, rundown, neglected transmission system cannot handle more than 22,000 MWs at its peak. No effort followed the second IPPs surge with upgrading of the transmission network. Hence we are in the unenviable position today of having almost double excess installed capacity.

Ironically, as the ideas of environmental care and the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy sources took hold in the world in recent years, Pakistan too began (haltingly) to develop such alternative energy resources. We were already familiar with hydel, but now wind and, even perhaps more importantly, solar power began to excite the imagination of the powers that be. So much so that private solar power producers (including domestic) were incentivised by allowing them to sell their excess solar power generated to their respective DISCO through reverse metering. While on paper and as a concept the idea is very appealing (especially for a sun drenched country like ours), it had an unanticipated effect in our circumstances. For every unit of solar power sold to a DISCO by a private source, its demand from the IPPs is reduced. This means in effect that reverse metering solar power adds to the loss being incurred by the unjust capacity payments clause in the IPPs’ contracts. This cannot be described as anything but cutting off your nose to spite your face. Of such anomalies and contradictions is our governance chockful.

Citizens and traders have cried ‘Enough!’ and taken to the streets amidst strikes in the markets all over the country. The caretaker government now finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Its good intention to offer relief to consumers is dependent on the IMF’s go ahead. At the time of writing these lines, that go ahead was still awaited. Optimism on this score needs to be tempered by the track record and thinking of the IMF. If no relief (apart from the suggested staggering of charges) is available, will the people’s anger transform into civil disobedience or more according to some pundits? It is difficult to say but the lack of a political leadership for the protest movement, with a wider programme of necessary change, suggests the protests may not be sustainable. But, the jury is still out.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The September 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The September 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Charles Amjad-Ali: Anti-semitism: a hypocritical epithet to cover Israel's apartheid – I.

2. Fayyaz Baqir: Forms of exploitation and struggle in Pakistan: some reflections.

3. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – I.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column August 22, 2023

 Descent into madness, barbarism

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The events of August 16, 2023 in Jaranwala have evoked an unusual chorus in harmony of condemnation. And so they should. But let us attempt a balance sheet of the good and the bad during and after the mayhem visited upon the Christian community on yet another dark day in our history.

First and foremost, it is well to remind ourselves that the horror of August 16 came just two days after we celebrated, with the usual pomp and show, the 76^th independence anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan. And what was this Jinnah’s Pakistan? If his August 11, 1947 speech to the Constituent Assembly is anything to go by, he argued Pakistan would be a religiously tolerant state in which all would be free to go their places of worship and practice their faith without any discrimination by the state. However, with hindsight it can also be argued that the fate that met that speech (it was suppressed for years) and the events that transpired soon after the Quaid’s passing point to the different, if not opposite direction the state of Pakistan has traversed.

First, soon after the Quaid’s passing, came the Objectives Resolution, which, in placing religion at the heart of the state effectively negated Mr Jinnah’s stated objective of what the state of Pakistan would be like. That event opened the doors, incrementally, to steering the ship of state in the direction of a religious majoritarian polity, which effectively left the religious (and ethnic and other) minorities at its mercy. Whatever space for their rights and protections survived this trend was effectively wiped out by General Ziaul Haq’s fanning the flames of religious dogmatism and extremism, whose perhaps unintended effect enveloped not just the religious minorities, but minority Muslim sects such as the Shias in its malign embrace.

That distorted Pakistan sculpted by General Ziaul Haq is what we have inherited today, and whose negative fallouts we cannot prevent nor change course in the direction of the religiously tolerant society Mr Jinnah envisaged.

Jaranwala is neither the first such atrocity against religious minorities, particularly Christians, nor, given the state of things, likely to be the last. The evil forces of bigotry and other much more mundane worldly agendas such as revenge and seizing property illegally fan the flames of forces all too ready to take ‘advantage’ of our draconian blasphemy laws. If the long Afghan wars fanned the flames of religious extremism inside Pakistan, they relied overwhelmingly on the Deobandi (minority Muslim) sect in Pakistan. But towards the closing chapters of that monumental, long running war in our immediate neighbourhood, with its unintended radicalising fallouts in the shape of our own version of the Taliban (the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP), we experienced also the rise of the majority sect, the Barelvis, as a major player. It is this sect, or rather its extremist manifestation the Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that was responsible for the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in 2011 for defending a poor Christian woman entrapped in prison on a patently false blasphemy charge. It is also the organisation whose name more frequently than not pops up whenever an alleged blasphemy issue arises. If a report from Lahore of August 21, 2023 is to be believed, they have now expanded the circle of their unwanted attentions to members of an already beleaguered non-Muslim sect.

If all the above seems too negative, let us also look on the bright side. Following the Jaranwala outrage, there has been more than the usual ritual condemnation from the highest to the lowest in the land. Protests against the burning of churches and Christian homes in the immediate aftermath of announcements from mosques to ‘take the blasphemers and their community to task’ have taken place all over the country, but sadly exhibit the character of scattered protests, the unity on display between Muslims and Christians notwithstanding. What, one wonders, is the attitude of the overwhelming majority of citizens who are silent? Do they feel the pain of the victims and the sensitive or are they beyond such empathy by now, having been subjected to the barbarism of extremist terrorist violence in its many forms for longer than one cares to remember? Have they resultantly suffered an exhaustion of sympathy, an emptying of spirit, or a self-preservatory retreat into confining oneself to things that affect one directly, not those that affect, even brutally, others?

There are no clear answers to these vexed questions about the state Pakistanis have been reduced to after all the traumas we have suffered for longer than one cares to recall. But wait, not all is black and worthy of mourning. Muslim neighbours of the Christian households under attack or fearing its impending arrival, sheltered their Christian friends and neighbours from the madness of the mob of fanatics that arrived to wreak vengeance for the alleged blasphemy, especially women and children. This suggests all is not lost as far as humanity, rationality and good sense are concerned. Even during the madness and barbarism on display during the communal riots and massacres attending Partition, there were many such stories of friends and neighbours sheltering their threatened ‘other’, even at risk to themselves.

On this bleak juncture in our lives, can such examples lift our spirits enough to confirm our resolve to overcome the malign inheritance of General Ziaul Haq and ensure our society and state are cleansed of such manifestations of madness and mob vigilantism, an inherently irrational phenomenon? Because if we do not, even at this late hour, purge our state and society of religious extremism, terrorism and all its other effects such as intolerance, no one will be able to stop our seemingly inexorable and steep descent into barbarism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

My discussion on Special TV

 Link to my discussion programme on Special TV: https://youtu.be/6RlyJQ3wleU

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

My interview with Arif Main on YouTube

 Link to my interview with Arif Main on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IEbTL6CK6HE

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column August 15, 2023

Legitimacy crisis

 

Rashed Rahman

 

On this 76^th independence anniversary of Pakistan, the heart is sorely charged, the spirit wilting and the mind under the overwhelming shadow of the uncertainty the future holds. Anwarul Haq Kakar, no doubt for his redoubtable services to the establishment in creating the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) as the vehicle for a continuing undemocratic and repressive order in Balochistan, has been anointed caretaker Prime Minister (PM). Criticism of the appointment of a political figure to the role, envisaged as an impartial arbiter of the electoral exercise and day-to-day manager of the business of government, no doubt prompted Kakar to resign from his party and Senate seat. Whether this will be sufficient to remove the doubts about his impartiality remains to be seen.

Akhtar Mengal, chief of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), has put to rest the argument about the appointment of a caretaker PM from a smaller (in population) province being aimed at placating the grievances of the people of Balochistan by stating in a message to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif (in self-imposed exile by now) that the appointment of Kakar without any consultation with allies has caused dismay and further widened the distance between the BNP-M and PML-N. He goes on to say that the appointment of a man from a rival party to the BNP-M as caretaker PM, which has closed the doors of politics for us, is cause for lamentation at the actions of politicians approaching the establishment for the solution of every problem instead of resolving issues politically. He then warns Nawaz Sharif that the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM’s) coalition government has once again weakened democratic institutions by legislating hurriedly in the dark without involving its allies. In a prophetic tone whose message is borne out by past experience, Mengal tells Nawaz Sharif that legislation contrary to human rights will probably be used against him in future. A flurry of Bills strengthening the arbitrary powers of security and law enforcement agencies was rammed through parliament in the dying days of former PM Shahbaz Sharif’s government. Last but not least, Mengal laments the fact that the Pak-China Gwadar University was being built in Lahore instead of Balochistan and Gwadar Airport was being named after former (late) PM Feroze Khan Noon whose name most people in Balochistan might not even be aware of. Another dissident voice regarding Kakar has been heard from the Awami National Party’s Aimal Wali Khan, who does not expect Kakar to be a fit candidate to conduct impartial, free and fair elections.

In the last days of his government, Shahbaz Sharif had taken to describing himself as the ‘blue-eyed boy’ of the establishment. At first one thought he was simply stating the obvious, despite his reminding us that he had been incarcerated by both Musharraf and Imran Khan, since it is no secret Shahbaz was always prone to compromise with the establishment, unlike his elder brother Nawaz, even at the worst of times. However, perhaps belatedly the idea sank in that this repeated statement was not only being taken literally, but may well be feeding into pre-existing public perception. Hence PML-N’s troubleshooter former Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb was trotted out to put the spin on Shahbaz’s repeated statements that he had said it ‘satirically’. Perhaps, Ms Aurangzeb, but that is not how the public sees it, especially when Shahbaz advocates a ‘hybrid system’, which, stripped of its cover, simply means a military-dominated setup.

On Independence Day, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir sought to rouse the people of Pakistan to their patriotic duty vis-à-vis the country and reject the doomsayers, all and sundry. As Independence Day speeches from army chiefs go, this was neither exceptional nor exceptionable. However, one was surprised to read the COAS quoting Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to the effect: “There is no power on earth, which can undo Pakistan.” Perhaps this is a reflection of our collective amnesia regarding the events of 1971. Jinnah’s Pakistan was undone then by our own mistakes. The failure to remind ourselves of that painful fact means we have not, and are unlikely to, learn the appropriate lessons from that disaster.

Meanwhile the military’s economic role, already a considerable and growing phenomenon, has been further enhanced through its involvement in the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) and corporate farming, without even, in the case of the latter, a glance at the needs of landless and smallholding farmers in our unequal society.

As though the uncertainties surrounding the date for the general elections, exacerbated by the last-minute decision of the Council of Common Interests that the next elections be held on the basis of the 2023 census, were not enough, the tussle between the judiciary and parliament continues, with the Supreme Court (SC) having ruled, only one day after the dissolution of the National Assembly, the SC (Review of Judgements and Orders) Act 2023 null and void and an interference in the constitutional jurisdiction and powers of the judiciary. Since the Act, some say, was intended, amongst other considerations such as the right of appeal, etc, to help Nawaz Sharif challenge his disqualification (since reduced to five years, which are up), the Senate’s eight parties have reacted by terming the SC ruling ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘interference in the ambit of parliament’. Thus the old conflict between these two pillars of the state seems bent to continue indefinitely. Naturally, this places a further cloud of uncertainty over future political stability, the minimum condition for Pakistan being able to wriggle out of its enormous economic problems, the resurrection of the IMF-Saudi Arabia-UAE-China begging bowl notwithstanding.

One cannot in all honesty offer any good news or optimism, even regarding the near future, since so many imponderables and unknowns are rendering the country’s horizons cloudy and obscure.

Happy Independence Day.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The August 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

 The August 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: An article with no takers.

2. Saulat Nagi: Without economic content, democracy becomes tool of ruling class.

3. Longway Foundation: Socialism 3.0: The Practice and Prospects of Socialism in China.

4. Ghazala Mufti: Women and Pakistan.

5. Fawzia Afzal-Khan: Pakistinian-Palestinian Border Crossings.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column August 8, 2023

A tired merry-go-round

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Imran Khan’s conviction in the Toshakana case on August 5, 2023 and subsequent imprisonment in Attock Jail may only be the beginning of a new round of political contention, tension and instability. The former prime minister has been sentenced to three years imprisonment, a Rs 100,000 fine, failure to pay which would mean an additional imprisonment of six months, disqualification from holding public office for five years and, arguably, will soon find himself removed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from the position of chairman of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI). The manner in which the Additional District and Sessions Judge Humayun Dilawar applied closure to the case and announced the verdict may not entirely be due to impatience with the obvious delaying tactics Imran Khan and his legal team had been using in this and all the other cases against him in various courts all over the country. Although that impatience is understandable given that Imran Khan only attended, despite notices, three of the 40 hearings of the case and his lawyer failed to appear on the day despite repeated calls by the judge. Finally, at least on the surface, the judge decided enough is enough and went ahead with the sentencing. Legal eagles, not just those aligned with or sympathetic to the PTI and its leader, were quick to point out that the judge had not proceeded in the correct manner before the sentencing since the correct procedure would have been to call for the defendant’s attendance, failing which he could have been declared a proclaimed offender and then arrested. However, while the facts of the Toshakana case clearly go against Imran Khan, appeals to the superior courts may rely upon the procedural lacunae leading to the final verdict, with in some circles’ view, relief being available.

Interestingly, Imran Khan’s appeal to his followers to hold peaceful protests in case he is arrested seem to have fallen on stony, rendered infertile ground, given the extent and depth of the repression against the PTI since May 9, 2023, the subsequent flight of opportunists from the party’s leadership and ranks, and the reigning fear amongst the remaining workers in the light of the repression unleashed against them. As a result, scattered, small protests emerged here and there, but nothing like what happened earlier, particularly on May 9, 2023. This reflects the objective state of affairs of the PTI at the present conjuncture.

For those familiar with this country’s history and how political leaders fallen from grace are treated, the entire scenario resembles nothing but the same old tired, predictable script. One view is that the punishment in neither Nawaz Sharif’s (Iqama) nor Imran Khan’s (Toshakhana) case fits the crime. After all, the Supreme Court (SC) in its wisdom convicted the former on grounds that had nothing to do with the Panama Papers case. In the latter’s case, the fact that the judge imposed the maximum punishment suggests not just pique but some bigger plan. While Imran Khan cools his heels in Attock Jail, there may be further bad news in store for him. Judging by past experience and the plethora of cases against him, some of a far more serious nature than the Toshakhana one, there may be more misery in store for him. The ‘plan’ therefore reeks of a total ‘technical’ knockout of the contender. Will this be any different from the similar ‘technical knockouts’ delivered by the ubiquitous establishment against Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, to take only two examples from our relatively recent history? Only time will tell, but experience seems to indicate that political leaders and parties are seldom demolished by such judicial manoeuvrings.

More important, if Imran Khan is out of the running, and even if a depleted PTI is allowed to participate in the upcoming general elections, what will be the credibility of whatever government emerges from this familiar merry-go-round? The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has declared through Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif that the next PM will be Nawaz Sharif. This is of course only possible when the path for Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country is cleared through judicial review of his conviction. The timeframe in the government’s mind may be after the retirement of incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial. The government may be harbouring hopes the subsequent SC setup may look more kindly on Nawaz Sharif’s fate.

To get there however may require some time. Lo and behold, help and succour in this regard has been offered by the ‘unanimous’ decision of the Council of Common Interests endorsing the 2023 digital census, which by a remarkable coincidence, has arrived at the conclusion (after ‘corrections’ of the original population figures) that all the provinces of Pakistan have seen more or less equal growth in population since the 2017 census, obviating any need to change the number of National Assembly (NA) seats for any province, which would require a constitutional amendment, a venture made impossible by the fact that no party can at present muster a two-thirds majority in the present, incomplete (PTI absconding) NA. How fortuitous, how convenient! All that remains therefore is the few months the ECP needs to rejigger the NA constituencies within each province according to the 2023 census and the elections will ensue, possibly in spring 2024. By that time, whatever more is in store for Imran Khan and the PTI will probably have come to pass and there will be few if any obstacles for the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement coalition parties to romp home in a one-sided election exercise.

Welcome to Pakistani democracy.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com