RPC Guest in Town Lecture Series

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) invites all friends to a talk in our Guest in Town Lecture Series by Abdul Khalique Junejo on "The Nationalist Movement of Sindh and Sindh-Punjab Relations".

Abdul Khalique Junejo has an association with G M Syed for 25 years (1970-1995). He is currently Chairman Jeay Sindh Mahaz, which stands for a sovereign, autonomous, prosperous Sindh. He is the author of 15 books in Sindhi, Urdu and English.

Abdul Khalique Junejo's Lecture will be held in the Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom) on Saturday, April 20, 2024 at 3:30 pm. 

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the Lecture and Q & A session.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column April 16, 2024

As written by me:

Iran-Israel Russian Roulette

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The expected has happened. After Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, 2024 killed seven personnel including three senior Iranian commanders, Tehran launched a 300-strong missile and drone attack on Israel. This is a first, Israel territory being attacked by an adversary state. Although Israel claims 99 percent of the missiles and drones were shot down, it has admitted an air base in southern Israel allegedly used to launch the Damascus strike suffered minor damage. To those exulting in Israel’s incredibly efficient Iron Dome anti-missile defence system, a word of caution. Iran’s response to the Damascus atrocity was a carefully calibrated retaliation to ensure its honour would be salvaged but not lead (hopefully) to an escalation of hostilities. This is borne out by subsequent statements from Tehran that it considered the tit-for-tat ended, warning nevertheless that if Israel chose to strike back at Iran, a more resounding slap awaits it.

Escalation of the unprecedented exchanges between Tehran and Tel Aviv is something the entire world, including Israel’s main supporter the US, is trying to avoid. Relying on the fact that Tehran conveyed its intentions to launch the attack on Israel 72 hours earlier to Washington through indirect means, and which allowed the US, UK, and shamefully, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help Israel shoot down the missiles and drones, it seems obvious that Iran bowed to internal, regional and worldwide pressure to respond, but had no intention that this appropriate response should go any further. The fly in this ointment, as usual, is the aggressive Zionist state led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right government. They have already put their heads together to work out how to hit back at Tehran. This would be a piece with its original intention to hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus to trigger a wider war, in which Netanyahu hoped to drag in the US-led west. Washington has conveyed its ‘steer clear’ stance in any such scenario, but that still may not stop madman Netanyahu. However, perhaps we should take a step back and examine Netanyahu’s motives, which on reflection may not appear as crazy as at first glance.

Netanyahu and his reactionary government were caught with their pants down by the Hamas raid into Israel on October 7, 2023. Much has been made in the west and elsewhere of the ‘brutality’ visited on Israelis living and working in the kibbutzim near the breached Gaza border. However, some of the more sensational initial claims have not been found truthful, such as raping women and slaughtering children. What, you may ask, was Hamas up to, what did it hope to achieve, and how far has it succeeded, at what cost? First, some context. The Israeli state was preening for many years, having reduced the once reputable Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to a perceived ‘sub-contractor’ of the Israeli state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. The repeated intifadas of the occupied Palestinians having failed, the resulting ‘lull’ was taken advantage of by the US to float the so-called Abraham Accords to open the door to acceptance and recognition of Israel by surrounding and even relatively distant Arab states. Some of these johnnies such as the UAE have already moved in that direction, others such as Saudi Arabia were poised to proceed. If successful, this trend would have accorded Israel its triumph and encouraged its moves to deny Palestinian existence, let alone any (dead in the water) two-state solution. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank would have swamped whatever remains of the Palestinian inhabitants, Gaza would have remained the biggest open-air prison in the world under more or less direct Israeli rule. In other words, a complete and total annihilation of the Palestinian people, with the very real possibility of wiping them off the surface of the earth.

Given this context and trend, Hamas planned its brilliant tactical move of October 7, 2023, in which a lightning raid into Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza border was carried out by first disabling the Israeli electronic eyes and ears installed on the border fence, and, before the Netanyahu government or famed Israeli Defence Force (IDF) could react, retreat with Israeli hostages back into Gaza. Since then, despite partial exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during short lived pauses in the genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Netanyahu’s status has been blown out of the water. To save his political skin therefore, he has insisted on continuing the Gaza slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians and come under pressure from the families of the still held hostages demanding an end to the Gaza war and safe return of their loved ones, not to mention vast portions of Israeli opinion castigating him for a monumental blunder of being caught with his pants down on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, hence his obstinacy in continuing the Gaza slaughter, knowing when and if the war stops, he is a goner. Of course the cost of his political ambition to remain in power is being paid by the Palestinians, mostly in Gaza, but increasingly also in the West Bank. Israel has never been as isolated in the world as it is today. Its actions from hereon may be likened to the dying throes of a desperate regime, quite possibly in the long run, the Zionist state itself. Ne’er a moment too soon, one might add.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

As printed by the paper:

Iran-Israel Russian Roulette

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The expected has happened. After Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, 2024 killed seven personnel including three senior Iranian commanders, Tehran launched a 300-strong missile and drone attack on Israel. This is a first, Israel territory being attacked by an adversary state. Although Israel claims 99 percent of the missiles and drones were shot down, it has admitted an air base in southern Israel allegedly used to launch the Damascus strike suffered minor damage. To those exulting in Israel’s incredibly efficient Iron Dome anti-missile defence system, a word of caution. Iran’s response to the Damascus atrocity was a carefully calibrated retaliation to ensure its honour would be salvaged but not lead (hopefully) to an escalation of hostilities. This is borne out by subsequent statements from Tehran that it considered the tit-for-tat ended, warning nevertheless that if Israel chose to strike back at Iran, a more resounding slap awaits it.

Escalation of the unprecedented exchanges between Tehran and Tel Aviv is something the entire world, including Israel’s main supporter the US, is trying to avoid. Relying on the fact that Tehran conveyed its intentions to launch the attack on Israel 72 hours earlier to Washington through indirect means, and which allowed the US, UK, and shamefully, Jordan to help Israel shoot down the missiles and drones, it seems obvious that Iran bowed to internal, regional and worldwide pressure to respond, but had no intention that this appropriate response should go any further. The fly in this ointment, as usual, is the aggressive Zionist state led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right government. They have already put their heads together to work out how to hit back at Tehran. This would be a piece with its original intention to hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus to trigger a wider war, in which Netanyahu hoped to drag in the US-led west. Washington has conveyed its ‘steer clear’ stance in any such scenario, but that still may not stop madman Netanyahu. However, perhaps we should take a step back and examine Netanyahu’s motives, which on reflection may not appear as crazy as at first glance.

Netanyahu and his reactionary government were caught with their pants down by the Hamas raid into Israel on October 7, 2023. Much has been made in the west and elsewhere of the ‘brutality’ visited on Israelis living and working in the kibbutzim near the breached Gaza border. However, some of the more sensational initial claims have not been found truthful, such as raping women and slaughtering children. What, you may ask, was Hamas up to, what did it hope to achieve, and how far has it succeeded, at what cost? First, some context. The Israeli state was preening for many years, having reduced the once reputable Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to a perceived ‘sub-contractor’ of the Israeli state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. The repeated intifadas of the occupied Palestinians having failed, the resulting ‘lull’ was taken advantage of by the US to float the so-called Abraham Accords to open the door to acceptance and recognition of Israel by surrounding and even relatively distant Arab states. Some of these johnnies such as the UAE have already moved in that direction, others such as Saudi Arabia were poised to proceed. If successful, this trend would have accorded Israel its triumph and encouraged its moves to deny Palestinian existence, let alone any (dead in the water) two-state solution. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank would have swamped whatever remains of the Palestinian inhabitants, Gaza would have remained the biggest open-air prison in the world under more or less direct Israeli rule. In other words, a complete and total annihilation of the Palestinian people, with the very real possibility of wiping them off the surface of the earth.

Given this context and trend, Hamas planned its brilliant tactical move of October 7, 2023, in which a lightning raid into Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza border was carried out by first disabling the Israeli electronic eyes and ears installed on the border fence, and, before the Netanyahu government or famed Israeli Defence Force (IDF) could react, retreat with Israeli hostages back into Gaza. Since then, despite partial exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during short lived pauses in the genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Netanyahu’s status has been blown out of the water. To save his political skin therefore, he has insisted on continuing the Gaza slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians and come under pressure from the families of the still held hostages demanding an end to the Gaza war and safe return of their loved ones, not to mention vast portions of Israeli opinion castigating him for a monumental blunder of being caught with his pants down on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, hence his obstinacy in continuing the Gaza slaughter, knowing when and if the war stops, he is a goner. Of course the cost of his political ambition to remain in power is being paid by the Palestinians, mostly in Gaza, but increasingly also in the West Bank. Israel has never been as isolated in the world as it is today. Its actions from hereon may be likened to the dying throes of a desperate regime, quite possibly in the long run, the Zionist state itself. Ne’er a moment too soon, one might add.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The April 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The April 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: Revolutions in the Third world today.

2. Rafi Pervaiz Bhatti: The Muslim Identity in India – IV: The Ascendency of Liberal, Mystic, Ascetic Islam.

3. Changez Ali: The 21st century proletariat.

4. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – VIII: The Frontier Corps (FC) and ground reality.

5. Fayyaz Baqir: My life and struggle – II: The years of resistance.

6. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: Shab Khoon (Night Assault).

7. Fayyaz Baqir: Elections and Democratic Politics in Pakistan.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column April 2, 2024

‘Frosty’ exchanges

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Perhaps it is appropriate that these lines are being written on April Fool’s Day. What lends this credence is the exchange of letters between US President Joe Biden and Pakistan’s Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif. Before we get to the content and tone of this exchange, it would be well to remember that things have been frosty in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad for more than two decades. This is because, after 9/11, the US used muscle bound pressure on Pakistan to align with Washington’s declaration of the ‘War on Terror’ and help its intent to invade Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, in the process to punish the Taliban regime of Mulla Omar for hosting bin Laden and refusing to hand him over to the US. Pakistan’s help and support for the Afghan war was critical since the landlocked country could only, for both geographical and geopolitical reasons, be accessed through Pakistan. Thus Pakistan, then ruled by military dictator Pervez Musharraf, provided an air and land corridor for the US to invade Afghanistan and subsequently keep its troops in that country supplied. In return, Pakistan was provided money for ‘services rendered’. However, neither Washington’s heavy pressure nor its money could dissuade the Pakistani military under Musharraf from playing a double game, supporting at one and the same time the US’s campaign (targeting exclusively al Qaeda) and the Taliban’s resistance, the latter through the provision of safe havens inside Pakistan and logistical and other support.

This double game helped the Afghan Taliban maintain their guerrilla resistance to the US occupation for 20 years and finally paved the way for their victory and the ignominious retreat of the US from Afghanistan. In between, US intelligence surmised that Osama bin Laden, whom they had been unable to capture in the early days of the invasion in the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan, was holed up in a compound in Abbottabad, a stone’s throw from the military’s Kakul Academy. When then President Barack Obama decided to approve a US Navy Seals operation in May 2011 inside Pakistan to capture or take out bin Laden, the outcome of the raid was that bin Laden was killed while offering armed resistance, with his face blown off, making it difficult to identify him. However, the Seals confirmed his identity from the length of the body and his ears. The body was then taken away in the Seals’ helicopters and dumped far out at sea so to prevent any burial site becoming a bin Laden shrine to his followers (cf. Mumtaz Qadri). Obviously, the discovery of bin Laden in near proximity to Pakistan’s ‘West Point’ did not endear the country to Washington. In fact there were reams of speculation and suspicion about the role of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services in hiding bin Laden inside Pakistan for 10 years. Although the US celebrated its ‘revenge’ on bin Laden for 9/11, this was one of the few successes it could boast of in this war. The rest, including the Ashraf Ghani regime and the much vaunted Afghan National Army (ANA) created, trained and armed by the US, disappeared like a puff of dust before the triumphal entry of the Taliban into Kabul and the chaotic departure of the US, leaving many of its collaborators behind to face the tender mercies of the Taliban.

Washington obviously harboured a great deal of resentment and anger at Pakistan for its ‘betrayal’ in Afghanistan. I had predicted in a write up in these columns after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in 2021 that our relationship with the US would henceforth be extremely rocky, since empires have long memories and they do not forgive or forget. I predicted then that the US did not have to do more than use its hold over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make life difficult for Pakistan. That, at least, has come to pass and is continuing even as we speak. Washington, in the aftermath of its humiliation in Afghanistan, decided to at the very least keep Pakistan at arm’s length from here on. This explains why President Biden never contacted Imran Khan while he was PM, never congratulated Shahbaz Sharif when he became PM in 2022, and even in this letter now received, has made no mention of congratulations to Shahbaz Sharif for being elected PM again (albeit in a controversial polling exercise). Shahbaz too has chosen to reply in diplomatese, focusing on harmless, peripheral areas of mutual cooperation while the herd of elephants in the room is blithely ignored.

The question then arises, why this ‘frosty’ exchange now? The main factor is Washington’s continuing concern about a terrorist threat to it and its allies emanating from Taliban ruled Afghanistan. The second is the Pentagon’s desire, reiterated after COAS General Asim Munir’s visit to the US, to maintain its strategic relationship with the Pakistani military with the latter the best bet for policing the region in the interests of the US and the west. The third reason is the growing concern in Washington that too much distance from Islamabad could thrust Pakistan even further into China’s embrace. So, despite the victory in the Cold War ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism and the inescapable necessity for remaining socialist countries such as Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Cuba to tack with the prevailing wind and make compromises with capitalism for the sake of survival, the Pentagon still envisages a continuation of its long standing ‘independent’ relationship with Pakistan’s GHQ (independent of whoever is in power in Washington or Islamabad). Of course even the Pentagon cannot prevail in the halls of power in Washington to reopen the free lunch box Pakistan has been used to since the early 1950s. Therefore while a minimal relationship will remain between the US and Pakistani militaries, it is unlikely to reap for the latter the goodies it is used to receiving in the past. To sum up, what remains of the US-Pakistan relationship now is a minimum engagement (with an eye on security contingencies) for the foreseeable future, minimum support through the IMF and other international financial institutions to prevent an economic meltdown (something that promises to make the debt trap we are clearly in arguably worse), peripheral engagement in do-goodie areas that are hardly strategic (e.g. health, education, etc.), and straining to keep Pakistan as far away as possible from the Chinese embrace. Not a very tasty menu of maybes.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column March 26, 2024

Massacre in Russia

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The toll of the horrendous terrorist attack on March 23, 2024 at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk has risen to 137 dead, including three children, and 182 wounded, of whom 100 are in hospital, some in serious condition. All this bloodshed and mayhem, including the terrorists setting the Hall on fire after they had shot at everyone in sight, was produced by just four attackers armed with automatic weapons, knives and firebombs. Although Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility, Moscow is sceptical, suspicious and wondering out loud at the possible involvement of its battlefield opponent Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin revealed that the four attackers fled after the massacre in a car in the direction of the Ukraine border, where, he alleged, a ‘corridor’ to safety awaited the perpetrators. Ukraine, as expected, has denied any involvement and accused Moscow of trying to shift the blame. Russia declared a day of mourning the day after, with streams of mourners making their way to the semi-demolished Hall to pay their respects to the victims and lay bouquets of flowers at the site.

TV footage of the roughed up and bloodied attackers showed them responding fearfully to preliminary interrogation by claiming they were hired by unknown people through the social media site Telegram (used for messaging by IS) to kill as many people as possible amongst the crowd attending a music concert at the City Hall in return for payment of Rubles 500,000 (a little over $ 5,000). Without clinching evidence one way or the other so far, this ‘confession’ does not sound like an IS suicide squad putting their lives on the line for their version of ‘Jihad’. The Russian security forces recovered weapons and ammunition from the captured terrorists but failed to find any suicide jackets on them, a signature ‘uniform’ for such terrorists in case of being close to arrest.

Whether the simplest and obvious explanation that the four purported IS attackers of Tajik origin were indeed engaged in hitting back at Russia for its role in defeating IS in Syria in support of the Bashar al Assad regime proves correct or some deeper conspiracy is behind the massacre may only emerge after the ongoing investigations reach some conclusive closure. Meantime Moscow voices in guarded manner its suspicion that Ukraine and its US-led west supporters timed the massacre to humiliate freshly elected President Vladimir Putin by denting his credentials as Russia’s defender and protector. While we await further clarification, let us not forget that the Ukraine war continues, with the latest exchange of missiles and drones yielding, apart from the usual destruction of civilian targets, hits on two Russian Black Sea ships off Crimea. Not to be left behind in the concerted pressure on Moscow in this conflict, Poland has jumped into the fray by accusing Russia of violating its airspace with a cruise missile heading for Ukraine.

It may help readers to recollect what IS is, where it stands after its resounding defeats in Iraq and Syria where it had occupied vast territory and declared an Islamic Emirate before being soundly defeated and beaten back, leaving only straggling remnants in those countries. Following that defeat, IS appears to have shifted its main base to troubled Afghanistan while denouncing its Taliban regime as not sufficiently hardline ‘Islamic’. From its bases largely confined to eastern Afghanistan, it has struck inside Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and now Russia. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan labels itself Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) and is strategically placed to reach out for new recruits in Central Asia. That could explain how Tajik attackers massacred so many people in this bloody attack near Moscow. However, in the shady world of ‘Jihad’, nothing can be ruled out, including the use of ISIS-K recruits in a western-Ukrainian intelligence joint venture to hit Russia and thereby cause embarrassment and political difficulties for Putin, or at the very least take the shine off his recent electoral victory.

The world is now holding its breath to see how Russia responds. Once Moscow has its facts settled, the riposte is likely to be swift, bloody, and contoured to assuage the feelings of grief and outrage of a Russian people feeling beleaguered for years by a hostile west seeking to do down Moscow and achieve full spectrum hegemony worldwide. Along the way, having annoyed and frustrated once post-Soviet Union ‘partner’ Russia through ‘NATO-creep’ and various other creepy manoeuvres, the US-led west has included another once ‘partner’ China on its hit list. For those puzzled why, after an initial embrace, post-Soviet Russia and post-Mao China, both having embraced capitalism to a greater or lesser extent, have been so targeted, the explanation lies centrally and crucially in the nature of capitalist imperialism, a system inherently driven to economic, political and military dominance and therefore sensitive to actual or perceived rising rivals. If Putin’s revival of Russia after the disaster of 1991 and the even bigger disaster of the Yeltsin years has ‘alarmed’ Washington and its satraps in Europe, Asia and Australia, China’s economic and now military rise has awakened Thucydides from the grave. Welcome to a world increasingly poised for horrendous conflict, with the menace of the mushroom cloud always hovering in the periphery of our memories.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

RPC Lecture Series: Dr Aurangzeb Syed on "The new system of state power in Pakistan"

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is holding a lecture by Dr Aurangzeb Syed visiting from the US on "The new system of state power in Pakistan" at RPC, 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 3:00 pm. 

Dr Aurangzeb Syed is Professor Emeritus Northern Michigan University. He has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Punjab University (Thesis: Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investments in Pakistan), a Master’s degree in American Studies (Thesis: Socio-economic Transformations during British Colonialism in Pre-Pakistan areas) from the University of Buffalo, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Virginia Tech (Dissertation: Political Economy of Pakistan’s Energy Policy). He began his teaching career at the Punjab University in 1978 and has taught at various Universities in the US: Metropolitan State University, Denver; Virginia Tech; and finally Northern Michigan University.

Aurangzeb was a political activist and participated in the socialist student movement as well as the Workers' movement in Lahore during the early to mid-1970s. He went abroad in 1975 for studies, first to Norway and then to the US where he continued his activism along with educational programmes.  In Norway, he participated in the activities of the foreign workers branch of the Workers Communist Party of Norway (erstwhile AKP). He was also active with the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) branch in Oslo. At the University of Buffalo, he helped organise the Third World Students Association, which promoted an anti-imperialist agenda and information.

Throughout his academic career, he consistently applied the Marxist political-economic paradigm to the subject matter of the courses taught in areas such as international politics, politics in developing countries, political economy, US politics, US Foreign Policy, etc. Within the post-war Marxist tradition, he especially appreciates the works of Nicos Poulantzas in the field of political analysis, Capital Logic school (Michael Heinrich) in the analytical approach to Capitalism, and Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism in dialectical materialist philosophy of social sciences.

For your urge to read something interesting and exciting, he recommends the recent (2015) political biography of Lenin by Tamas Krausz: Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography (Monthly Review Press, NY); Michael Heinrich’s biographical work Marx and the Birth of Modern Society (2018), a multi-volume project of which only the first volume has been published so far, is very interesting in bringing to light the formation of Marx’s ideas during the years of his early youth.

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the lecture and audience question-answer session.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column March 19, 2024

A plethora of issues

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Normally one tries to focus on one critical issue that appears to be central when sitting down to pen these columns. However, such is the state of things in Pakistan that perforce one has to deal with a plethora of issues confronting the country and its people. That this may lead to important issues being treated peripherally or in insufficient depth is one of the occupational hazards of being a member of the commentariat.

Terrorism has never been laid to rest despite the military campaigns against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other like groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP’s) erstwhile tribal areas. The recent uptick in terrorist attacks, particularly in KP, endorses this conclusion. One reason for this is that the military offensives from 2014 onwards failed to plan a pincer movement to cut off retreat avenues for the TTP, admittedly in unfavourable and forbidding terrain, seemingly content to uproot these terrorist forces from their bases in erstwhile FATA and ‘allow’ them to flee across the border into Afghanistan. I have been consistently arguing since in these columns and elsewhere that the military has succeeded merely in ‘exporting’ the problem, not scotching the snake. This prediction has since come true, particularly after we helped the Afghan Taliban to come to power on the heels of the ignominious and shambolic retreat of the US from their 20 year military occupation of Afghanistan. However, this turn of events once again proved the adage in politics that yesterday’s friends cannot be taken for granted to remain tomorrow’s allies. That applies doubly to proxies, with whom many countries, including Pakistan, have had occasion to rue the day they plumped for support for such entities. Inherent in such a relationship is the risk of proxies sooner or later running off the leash. The retreat into Afghanistan has if anything strengthened the TTP’s hand because of unadmitted but obvious support from the Afghan Taliban regime in Kabul.

Multiple attacks by the TTP were witnessed in KP over the weekend, in which two officers and five troops were killed in North Waziristan’s Mir Ali area in an attack on a police check post, two policemen were injured in another attack on a police check post in Ambar Dub Chowk Tehsil of Mohmand district, a police mobile (with no casualties) was damaged in an attack on Otmanzai police station in Bannu, and a Motorway Police vehicle was attacked (again without casualties) in Kund, Nowshera. The pattern of these attacks, as previous attacks, suggests the spread of the TTP’s reach beyond their traditional tribal areas holdouts to KP province entire. From there it is a short hop, skip and a jump to Punjab and Balochistan, the two neighbouring provinces of KP. Having reverted to guerrilla tactics with dispersed units instead of concentrated forces in the past in the tribal areas, the TTP now can only be combatted through superior intelligence. That, unfortunately, remains conspicuous by its absence, not because efforts are not made night and day by military and civilian intelligence agencies, but because there is precious little coordination between them. Intelligence agencies the world over are notorious for keeping their intelligence information cards close to their chest and being reluctant to share them even with fellow intelligence organisations of their own country, engaged in a common struggle. The post-2014 National Action Plan (NAP) was stillborn in the face of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) balking at the suggestion that they should coordinate with and (perish the thought!) share intelligence with their civilian counterparts under the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA). There the half-baked pie of the NAP rests in peace (RIP). There is no evidence that either the military or civilian authorities are seized of the critical requirement to overcome this logjam and get down to the serious task of rooting out the terrorist threat. We must therefore gird ourselves against more of the same for the foreseeable future.

But hark, perhaps I underestimate the resolve of the military. In the wake of these multiple attacks in KP over the weekend, Pakistan has carried out airstrikes against alleged TTP bases across the border, killing, according to Kabul, eight people in Khost and Paktika provinces, all the dead being women and children. Taliban officials claim the ‘reckless’ airstrikes prompted retaliatory actions with “heavy weapons” against Pakistani military outposts on the border. They followed up with a statement that Afghanistan would respond to any aggressive actions and defend its territorial integrity at all cost. The simmering tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the 2021 victory of the Taliban, which prompted the former to expel millions of Afghan refugees across the border back to their home country, promise, if Kabul’s veiled threat is to believed, in “very bad consequences, which will be out (of) Pakistan’s control”. Now it may be conceded that since the TTP terrorists based in Afghanistan’s border areas have their families living with them, the toll may well have included, if not been entirely composed of, women and children. To compare, not so long ago when Iran attacked alleged Jundullah bases in our Balochistan and Pakistan retaliated with strikes against alleged Baloch nationalist fighters in Iran, the casualties on that side, if correctly reported, were indeed women and children. With all the sophistication of drone and air force technology today, it remains an uncertain weapon for targeting elusive guerrilla organisations. Pakistan and Iran mended fences soon after, in an atmosphere of both sides’ ‘honour’ having been satisfied, but the new tensions between Islamabad and Kabul portend an escalation with no end in sight.

Pakistan needs reasonable, if not good relations with all its neighbours at a moment when it has so many other problems to contend with. Relations with Iran are on the mend after the mutual strikes on each other and the start on the Pakistan side of the much delayed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that threatened their bonhomie. With India, relations remain frozen, with little chance of even normal diplomatic outreach till after the Indian elections. With Afghanistan, we could be staring down the barrel of the gun of a continuing tension and even conflict on the border because of the reverse osmosis of TTP terrorists based in Afghanistan continuing and escalating their attacks inside Pakistan, the wages of the original sin of using religious extremists in Pakistan’s wars in Afghanistan since 1973.

Strangely, the terrorism issue has taken up all the space this week, but I shall no doubt be explicating the other issues facing Pakistan in flux in the weeks to come.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Lecture by Dr Aurangzeb Syed at RPC: "The new system of state power in Pakistan"

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is holding a lecture by Dr Aurangzeb Syed visiting from the US on "The new system of state power in Pakistan" at RPC, 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 3:00 pm. 

Dr Aurangzeb Syed is Professor Emeritus Northern Michigan University. He has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Punjab University (Thesis: Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investments in Pakistan), a Master’s degree in American Studies (Thesis: Socio-economic Transformations during British Colonialism in Pre-Pakistan areas) from the University of Buffalo, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Virginia Tech (Dissertation: Political Economy of Pakistan’s Energy Policy). He began his teaching career at the Punjab University in 1978 and has taught at various Universities in the US: Metropolitan State University, Denver; Virginia Tech; and finally Northern Michigan University.

Aurangzeb was a political activist and participated in the socialist student movement as well as the Workers' movement in Lahore during the early to mid-1970s. He went abroad in 1975 for studies, first to Norway and then to the US where he continued his activism along with educational programmes.  In Norway, he participated in the activities of the foreign workers branch of the Workers Communist Party of Norway (erstwhile AKP). He was also active with the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) branch in Oslo. At the University of Buffalo, he helped organise the Third World Students Association, which promoted an anti-imperialist agenda and information.

Throughout his academic career, he consistently applied the Marxist political-economic paradigm to the subject matter of the courses taught in areas such as international politics, politics in developing countries, political economy, US politics, US Foreign Policy, etc. Within the post-war Marxist tradition, he especially appreciates the works of Nicos Poulantzas in the field of political analysis, Capital Logic school (Michael Heinrich) in the analytical approach to Capitalism, and Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism in dialectical materialist philosophy of social sciences.

For your urge to read something interesting and exciting, he recommends the recent (2015) political biography of Lenin by Tamas Krausz: Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography (Monthly Review Press, NY); Michael Heinrich’s biographical work Marx and the Birth of Modern Society (2018), a multi-volume project of which only the first volume has been published so far, is very interesting in bringing to light the formation of Marx’s ideas during the years of his early youth.

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the lecture and audience question-answer session.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column March 12, 2024

A tangled web indeed

 

Rashed Rahman

 

As could be anticipated, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) protests on March 10, 2024 against alleged election rigging were nullified by the police, particularly in Punjab, where newly inducted Chief Minister (CM) Maryam Nawaz Sharif had promised to ‘crush’ any such manifestation. Sindh saw little of a heavy-handed government response, perhaps because the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government headed by CM Murad Shah is securely ensconced with a huge majority. Balochistan barely witnessed a murmur, underlying the reality that the PTI has little if any strength in the largest by area and most troubled by a nationalist insurgency province. Also as anticipated, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the PTI was not only able to mount protests without police hindrance but also hold a rally addressed by CM Ali Amin Gandapur in Peshawar. The explanation for this clear exception to the rule lies in the fact that the PTI is in power in KP. Most prominent PTI leaders were arrested in Punjab, some by being dragged out of vehicles. The response of the PTI leaders and workers to this time honoured treatment by the Punjab police was different from the past. It seems that the PTI has learnt some lessons from the May 9, 2023 fracas and its aftermath, and now plumbed for ‘peaceful resistance’.

What is notable about the PTI’s protests on the street is the extraordinary array of gleaming vehicles. This is perhaps a reflection of its urban middle class base, particularly in Punjab. This relatively new phenomenon in the country’s politics points toward the changing social and political dynamic in the country, of which the PTI is the main beneficiary, having focused on this demographic since at least 2011. The question that remains unanswered is whether this urban middle class base can demonstrate in practice the efficacy of street protest, even if peaceful. It goes without saying, and the events of March 10, 2024 indicate that the incumbent government in Punjab particularly is in no mood to allow the PTI to gain momentum for its political campaign against alleged rigging of the elections through street power. Although the PTI has also seemingly learnt the lesson that abandoning parliament, as it did after its government’s removal in 2022, is bad strategy, it remains to be seen whether its clamorous opposition inside the Houses combined with its newfound Gandhian peaceful resistance on the streets can or will yield the expected results. For the PTI, those results rest centrally on the dissolution of the present government and anointing of the PTI in power or, failing that, a fresh election with some guarantees that it will be conducted in a fair and free manner and without the manipulation and other legerdemain employed for the Elections 2024. It is possible to see the shape of some of the future if PTI’s Sher Afzal Marwat’s announcement of another protest in Islamabad (and elsewhere?) on March 30, 2024 comes to fruition. As it is, the authorities have released prominent PTI leaders such as Latif Khosa and Salman Akram Raja but charged many workers for defying the imposition of section 144 just before March 10, 2024. This may portend an even harsher response to future protests. What this means is that the rules of the democratic game remain suspended except on the establishment-backed government’s terms, which naturally include acceptance of their (controversial) mandate.

The PTI’s game, on the other hand, seems to include continuing efforts for a rapprochement with the estranged establishment. One pointer to this continuing effort may be detected in outgoing president Dr Arif Alvi’s revelation that he had been, and continues to try for such a rapprochement, but regrettably without success so far. Perhaps Dr Alvi needs reminding that it takes two hands to clap, whereas the miffed establishment (because of the thrust of the May 9 ‘uprising’) is so far not interested in talking to the hitherto ‘insurgent’ PTI.

Meanwhile the system juggernaut continues in motion with the first phase of a 19-member federal cabinet being sworn in on March 11, 2024 in the aftermath of Asif Ali Zardari returning to the presidency. This cabinet assumes office on the verge of Ramzan. Surprise, surprise, Mohsin Naqvi’s stars are not confined to being anointed Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman immediately after he surrendered the caretaker CMship of Punjab (a trajectory that seems to be acquiring the permanence of a norm given the previous example of Najam Sethi), but also shine for him in terms of being inducted into the federal cabinet as proposed interior minister, a post he can hold for six months until he is elected to parliament, which opportunity beckons in the impending Senate elections. Now to ordinary sceptics there is no answer how or why this has transpired. What are Naqvi’s credentials for the post he is destined for? But then why quibble over qualification when now CM Balochistan Sarfraz Bugti was, until recently, caretaker federal interior minister? In both cases, the deft hand of the establishment seems inescapable. The only difference is that whereas Bugti had already won the affections of the establishment in the conflict with Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 and after, which was instrumental in him being awarded the caretaker federal ministry, Mohsin Naqvi seems to have passed the establishment’s test as caretaker CM Punjab with flying colours. This conclusion is not as farfetched as it may seem at first glance, given the fact that both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PPP are at pains to deny Naqvi is their man. Now President Asif Ali Zardari, on the other hand, will have little hesitation in honouring Sarfraz Bugti with this title since, in an extraordinary sleight of hand, a caretaker interior minister resigned just days (literally) before the general elections 2024, stood for a Balochistan provincial seat in his home area of Dera Bugti, and was not only elected, but duly ensconced as CM Balochistan. There are some who question the constitutional and legal validity of this sleight of hand. Others feel constrained to remind us that the PPP inducted Sarfraz Bugti into its ranks immediately after he left the caretaker federal cabinet and Asif Ali Zardari even campaigned for him (albeit from a distance because of bad weather cancelling flights) in his provincial constituency at a triumphant election rally. Now the PPP can boast of heading not just the Sindh government, but that of troubled Balochistan too.

It seems this may well be the last caretaker government Pakistan will see, as both the PML-N and the PPP seem determined in the light of all the objections that have been raised against the last such body, including overstaying its constitutional welcome to straying into areas that were not within its purview, to change this rule that has been in vogue since the 1977 abortive elections. Whether, however, a polarised polity such as Pakistan’s at present can agree how and what rules to replace the caretaker setup with, remains in the realm of the unknown so far.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Conference on Left candidates' experience in Elections 2024

 The Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is holding a Conference on "Left candidates' experience in Elections 2024" on Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 3:00 pm at RPC, 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Speakers:

1. Muzammil Kakar, NA-127, Lahore.

2. Ammar Ali Jan, PP-160, Lahore.

3. Imtiaz Alam, NA-161, Bahawalnagar.

The Speakers will recount their election campaigns, voters' response, and lessons to be learnt for the future.

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the Conference.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column March 5, 2024

Challenges, challenges

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The shape of the post-election regime has been more or less settled, with the remaining Presidential election on March 9, 2024 too a foregone conclusion in favour of Asif Ali Zardari. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N’s) Shahbaz Sharif has been elected Prime Minister (PM) by the National Assembly (NA), Maryam Nawaz Sharif the first woman Chief Minister (CM) Punjab by its provincial Assembly, Murad Shah of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) retaining the Sindh CM’s slot, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) Ali Amin Gandapur being elevated to the office of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP’s) CM, and recently inducted into the PPP candidate Sarfraz Bugti as CM Balochistan. A perfectly fractured mandate if ever there was one. Therein of course lies many a problem. The Centre only has its own party’s government in Punjab. It will have to manage tricky Centre-province relations with Sindh, KP and Balochistan. Because the PPP, despite having declared it would not join the federal government, has committed to supporting the latter, this part of the equation may prove the least fractious. However, KP’s CM, well known as a militant member of PTI, may pose problems. Balochistan’s Sarfraz Bugti, despite questions being raised whether the Constitution allows a caretaker federal minister to resign on the eve of general elections and run for office, is clearly the establishment’s choice for controlling the troubled province. Since the present dispensation is widely viewed as having the blessings of the establishment, the likelihood is that Islamabad-Quetta will see a more or less smooth working relationship.

The proceedings of the last few days of the NA to conduct elections for the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and PM indicate the shape of things to come. The PTI, it appears, has decided to join the parliamentary system despite its shrill continuing denunciations of the rigged elections in order to continue its fight from within. That at least is the conclusion based on its behaviour in these sessions, which can be described as anything but parliamentary. Strictly speaking, the PML-N government led by Shahbaz Sharif will be a minority government critically dependent on the PPP’s votes to get any meaningful legislation through. This delicate pass will obviously face the PTI opposition’s unrelenting efforts to make such passage as difficult as possible for the incumbents. Unless handled with care, this scenario could easily, and in the not too distant future, suffer a meltdown, with the ensuing solutions producing forebodings given the looming shadow of the establishment managing things from behind the curtain.

These considerations assume even more importance given the enormous challenges facing the federal government. First and foremost of these is the state of the economy. As the crisis of the last few years has clearly exposed, industry’s import-intensive character feeds into our balance of payments deficit since industry cannot run smoothly and efficiently if the supply chain from abroad of critical plant and machinery, parts, raw materials (including quality cotton no longer available domestically because of the failure to address this and other agricultural declines), etc., is disrupted (in the recent case through restricting import Letters of Credit). Industry as at present (and for many years) constituted needs a policy of walking on two legs if it is to become viable, efficient and internationally competitive: investment in import substitution and exports. Agriculture’s neglect reflects the consequences of no land reforms (redistribution from the inefficient large landholdings to the poor peasantry, which would usher in intensive cultivation), concentration on research and development of quality seeds (especially cotton), and revisiting the negative consequences of a wholesale turn to sugarcane cultivation in the interests of the sugar mafia (which has the added consequence of exacerbating waterlogging and salinity). These are not one day goals. But if steps are taken in this direction, it would enable the country to satisfy not just the International Monetary Fund (IMF, and by extension, other multilateral and bilateral lenders and the international markets), but also have a salutary effect in nurturing confidence in our benefactors such as China and the Gulf States. Investment in the two-legged policy in industry and land redistribution and support to agriculture would boost employment and accelerate growth.

Apart from the economy and Centre-provinces’ coordination, the challenge of religious fundamentalist terrorism awaits a comprehensive coordinated civil-military plan to plug the unmet gaps in the National Action Plan and allow sharing of intelligence (if need be, at the highest level) in order to put the missing spokes in the wheel of the anti-terrorist campaign. Of late, the Afghan Taliban government is reported to have admonished its ‘guest’, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), not to conduct terrorist acts inside Pakistan. How serious this admonition is, or whether it is just for show, will be revealed very soon either in the shape of reduced TTP attacks inside Pakistan or…

Last but not least, Balochistan needs the healing touch of sincere negotiations with the nationalist insurgents, not the new CM Sarfraz Bugti’s thinly veiled ‘surrender’ invitation. Nationalist insurgency must be distinguished from terrorism. Political negotiations, offering solutions within the four corners of the Constitution and law that go some or all the way to meeting the long list of long standing grievances of the province, seem to offer the best hope of defusing a lingering sore, promising perhaps in the process, the way forward to meet PM Shahbaz Sharif’s stated preference to resolve the missing persons issue.

Hope still resides in the breast, but the forbidding difficulties and challenges would test the most resilient of regimes, let alone one still striving to have its democratic legitimacy accepted.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Conference on Left candidates' experience in Elections 2024

The Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is holding a Conference on "Left candidates' experience in Elections 2024" on Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 3:00 pm at RPC, 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Speakers:

1. Muzammil Kakar, NA-127, Lahore.

2. Ammar Ali Jan, PP-160, Lahore.

3. Imtiaz Alam, NA-161, Bahawalnagar.

The Speakers will recount their election campaigns, voters' response, and lessons to be learnt for the future.

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the Conference.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

The March 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The March 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Noaman G Ali and Shozab Raza: Worldly Marxism: Rethinking Revolution from Pakistan's Peripheries.

2. Taimur Rahman: How the IMF is squeezing Pakistan.

3. Dr Saulat Nagi: Palestine and Balochistan: "If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

4. Stacey Philbrick Yadav: The Houthis' 'Sovereign Solidarity' with Palestine.

5. Fayyaz Baqir: My life and struggle – I.

6. Chris Hedges: 'Silent coup': how capitalism defeated decolonisation.

7. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – VII.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column February 27, 2024

Lull before the storm?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

One cannot really claim with confidence that the storm of dust kicked up by the controversies surrounding Elections 2024 has completely settled. However, there is perhaps an abatement of the shrillness attending the political discourse. The main reason for this relative calm, occasional outbursts in ‘traditional’ style notwithstanding, is the realisation by the beleaguered Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) that its rude, insulting, militant and aggressive style will not reap dividends in the post-elections scenario. This realisation seems to have sunk in despite their continuing complaints about the imprisonment of their leader Imran Khan as well as a host of other party leaders and cadres, as well as the denial of their claimed victory at the polls. How to explain this, for the PTI at least, ‘climbdown’? I would suggest that the fallout of the quixotic ‘insurrection’ of May 9, 2023 has induced this new-found wisdom. That direct assault on the prestige and repute of the military was founded on the absurd notion that such a minor assault when compared to what the military, and indeed militaries in general, are trained to face in warfare would cause a disintegration of discipline and unity of command in favour of the PTI. Of such absurdities are the roads to perdition for foolish notions paved. The ‘attack’ has, however, raised hackles in the high command about PTI sympathies amongst the officer corps, which has been, and according to some sources still is, being dealt with through a ‘purge’ of all such elements.

The counterattack by the military establishment on the PTI seems to have knocked a considerable amount of wind out of the party’s sails. On the backfoot ever since, the party has been forced to pragmatically weigh the situation and trim its tactics accordingly. The absurdity of the PTI does not end there, however. The foolish notion that a less than credible intra-party election would suffice was rudely punctured when the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) rejected and disqualified the intra-party election as not conforming to any set of known and accepted rules. This outcome was obviously beyond the arrogant notions of a PTI that is accustomed to seeing itself as a law-unto-itself. That unexpected shock resulted in the denial of the PTI’s prized election symbol ‘bat’ for the elections. The setback deprived the party of the emotional attachment of their followers to a symbol reflecting their leader’s cricketing hero status as well as arguably working against the mobilisation of the PTI’s electoral base amongst a largely illiterate electorate used to identifying its favourite party in any elections by the electoral symbol. An appeal against the ECP decision to the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) failed to convince the apex court. Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and the SCP came in for a lot of stick on this account on the PTI’s favoured social media, but to no avail. PTI candidates were forced to run as party-backed Independents. Despite all these unfavourable winds, the claimed (by the PTI) and officially accepted (by the ECP) vote surprised many. Nearly a hundred seats in the National Assembly (NA), a solid majority in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provincial Assembly, not a bad result in Punjab was difficult to understand and explain, given the hostility of the powers-that-be towards the PTI. The only surmise that makes sense is that the ‘managers’ of the election process thought it prudent to reflect the widespread sympathy and support for the PTI under the cosh, to a certain extent in order to have the electoral outcome seem more genuine and acceptable. In the same process, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), supposedly the establishment’s new favourite, was cut to size by being denied a simple majority in the Centre, and subjected to a reduced majority in its stronghold Punjab. The former dictated the necessity to form a coalition government with most of the allies in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government of 2022-2023, headed again by Shahbaz Sharif, elder brother Nawaz Sharif deciding to turn down a fourth stint as Prime Minister. The exception in the new coalition was the ‘dumping’ of Maulana Fazlur Rehman in his home constituency in D I Khan. It seems the Maulana’s days as an establishment favourite have already, or are in the process of, coming to an ignominious end. He seems to have outlived his long standing utility. In Punjab, dynastic politics’ continuing triumph was heralded by the anointing of Maryam Nawaz Sharif as the first female chief minister of Punjab. Hardly a ‘revolution’, one is constrained to comment.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has played its cards well under the direction of its master tactician Asif Ali Zardari. Not only has the PPP held on to its stronghold Sindh, it has garnered the largest number of seats in Balochistan, a circumstance that allows it to lead the coalition government in the offing in that province but it may or may not succeed in pushing for its recently recruited candidate, Sarfraz Bugti. Despite a small number of seats in its once fortress Punjab, the PPP has successfully extracted its pound of flesh from the PML-N in the shape of Asif Ali Zardari once again returning to the Presidency, a possible gain of Speaker of the Senate and Deputy Speaker of the NA. So far, the PPP has not agreed to take ministries in the Centre but support what would then be a precarious minority PML-N government without actually joining the government. One explanation for this attitude could be holding out for more ripe plums for the taking. The other could be the PPP’s safeguarding itself from the fallout waiting down the road for the incoming government when it attempts to deal with the mountain of problems confronting the country, first of all the economy, followed in close order by security and others. If the incoming government led by the PML-N fails to tackle these problems, an outcome not beyond the imagination, the PPP can simply pick up its skirts to avoid the muck that will be the ground the PML-N could be swimming in.

At the end, let us admit that despite all the hullabaloo about the results of the election, the declared results are being adhered to for government formation in the Centre and the provinces. PTI’s challenge may now be confined to parliament, the ECP or the courts, not so much the street. That does not preclude the desire of the PTI to attempt to destabilise the Central and Punjab governments, of which a trailer is Imran Khan’s letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to agree to a necessary long term programme with the incoming government without an audit of the election results. While domestically Imran Khan has been roundly denounced for the move, the IMF has maintained a diplomatic silence. The move does, however, reflect the by now well-known penchant of Imran Khan to put his own personal interests above everything else, even the country’s. Such egomania, which could be described as a ‘me or nothing’ attitude, requires little comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Pakistan India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) Conference "Current Economic Situation in Pakistan"

The Pakistan India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) is holding a Conference on the "Current Economic Situation in Pakistan" on Friday, February 23, 2024 at 3:00 pm at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Main Speakers:

Dr Qais Aslam.

Dr Taimur Rahman.

The Conference aims to delve into the pressing economic issues facing Pakistan today, exploring potential solutions and fostering dialogue among stakeholders. Special emphasis will be given to promote the agenda of peace between Pakistan and India through exploring economic openings and cooperation.

Tea will be served after the Conference. All are welcome.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column February 20, 2024

An (in)credible election!

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The 2024 elections have aroused a perfect storm of allegations of gerrymandering, rigging and manipulation of results. Most people, including well informed commentators, seem at a loss though to offer a coherent, convincing explanation of this conundrum. This writer claims no special knowledge either, so the following arguments may appear convincing to some, in the realm of the speculative to others. These are the wages of venturing into unknown, slippery territory.

Let us examine a possible scenario to explain what the ‘plan’ for the 2024 elections may have been. The repression let loose against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) and its leaders, particularly Imran Khan, had already dented the credibility of the polls long before even a single ballot had been cast. How then to explain the PTI’s winning around 100 seats in the National Assembly (NA)? This irrespective of the fact that the party has been claiming it won more, and that some 80-85 seats were stolen from it. It should be kept in mind that the PTI was fighting the election with one hand tied behind its back, a consequence of being denied its electoral symbol of ‘bat’, a circumstance considered crucial amongst a largely illiterate voting populace that identifies its preferred party through such electoral symbols. However, a qualification can be made to this accepted wisdom by the fact that the PTI’s vote bank (and arguably its leadership) belongs to an urban elite and middle class demographic. The PTI candidates were all contesting as Independents, requiring either familiarity of the voters with them, or extraordinary campaign efforts to establish the identity of particular PTI-backed Independents. Since neither of these was visible, the only other logical explanation is that factors beyond the local, i.e. national, were the not-so-hidden persuaders. The vote for the PTI, controversies notwithstanding, suggests a turn against the well-established penchant of our establishment to bend its back in every electoral contest in living memory in favour of the ‘desired’ result. If it may be assumed, and there are sufficient arguments to bolster this assertion, that the ubiquitous establishment was determined not to let the PTI back into power, how is even the ‘conceded’ tally of 100 plus seats to be explained? In this scribbler’s humble opinion, this was an effort to overcome the perception beforehand that we were heading into an unfair, unfree election. The tally of 100 seats was meant to bolster the credentials of an (in)credible election as free and fair. The fact that it does not appear to have succeeded, given the almost universal uproar from all quarters about the legitimacy of the polls, has less to do with the intentions of the authors of the plan and more to do with their failure to correctly judge the mood prevailing in the country.

While the gambit of conceding 100 plus seats to the PTI may have failed, the other half of the plan is also interesting. Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was left dangling short of even a simple majority, forcing it to seek a coalition alliance with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and other smaller parties to cobble together sufficient numbers in the NA to form a government. This has afforded the PPP the opening to exact more than its pound of flesh. Not only is it mooting Asif Ali Zardari to return as President, it also wants the post of Speaker, preferably of the NA, ministries in the Punjab government to be led by Maryam Nawaz Sharif as Chief Minister (CM), a PPP-led coalition government in Balochistan (led by worthy Sarfraz Bugti, a lately embraced ‘member’) and, of course, its government in Sindh, where it enjoys as usual a more than comfortable majority.

Nawaz Sharif has revealed his discomfort at heading such a disparate, weak coalition government in the Centre. He has therefore ‘sacrificed’ his desire to return as Prime Minister (PM) for the fourth time, preferring instead to dump the vale of woes the office is likely to prove in the lap of brother Shahbaz Sharif. This absolves Nawaz Sharif of any responsibility of the possible failure of the government to deal with the veritable mountain of problems the regime is bound to face, central to which is the state of the economy and the expected ‘blessings’ of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to squeeze the already labouring life of the people out of their wretched bodies and more and more wretched existence. Moving Shahbaz Sharif back into the PM’s chair also serves the purpose of clearing the path for the entry into high office of Maryam Nawaz Sharif, following in the footsteps of the trajectory of her father’s political career. The whole show, however, whether in the Centre or Punjab, will be run benignly by Nawaz Sharif behind the screen, a novel experience for a country not short of novel experiences in its past.

Whoever the masterminds of the ‘plan’ for elections 2024 were, they could either be reduced to navel-gazing in embarrassment at the outcome, or rubbing their hands with glee at its success. The first could be induced by the universal rejection of the elections and their unbelievable results (with the prospective ruling coalition embarrassedly making efforts to defend it but succeeding only in confirming public perception of their lately-found role as establishment satraps). The second is more ominous, suggesting as it does the deliberate introduction of political instability as a handle to manipulate things from behind the curtain in favour of whatever the establishment’s goals may be and away from a credible democratic system, something the country has been yearning for but denied since its birth. In either case, a bigger crisis awaits just down the road, whose outline is reasonably clear, but whose consequences remain so far in the realm of the conjectural.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

PIPFPD Conference on "Current Economic Situation in Pakistan" at RPC

The Pakistan India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) is holding a Conference on the "Current Economic Situation in Pakistan" on Friday, February 23, 2024 at 3:00 pm at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Main Speakers:

Dr Qais Aslam.

Dr Taimur Rahman.

The Conference aims to delve into the pressing economic issues facing Pakistan today, exploring potential solutions and fostering dialogue among stakeholders. Special emphasis will be given to promote the agenda of peace between Pakistan and India through exploring economic openings and cooperation.

Tea will be served after the Conference. All are welcome.

Rashed Rahman

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

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