“We cannot have an army or intelligence agencies that constantly destabilise governments. We cannot have rogue elements incessantly violating their oath and plunging the nation into crises — Benazir Bhutto (Herald, 2000)

Evidently, the state of Pakistan is rotten when its former Chief of the Army Staff, who does not stop touting himself as a true patriot, prima facie, violated the constitutional oath he undertook. It is not just Mirza Aslam Beg whose nefarious involvement in politics has been the subject of discussion in the courts and TV channels but countless others in Pakistan who have been upto similar transgressions and getting away with them.

After the death of Gen Ziaul Haq in 1988, military rule only changed its clothes. It survived and flourished for a decade until the Emperor threw off his civilian façade and took over in 1999 through a proper coup d’etat citing the same old excuse of saving the country. The history of 1988-1999 is yet to be written for it has remained hostage to the obfuscations of a political class created by the army itself and its loyalist intellectuals who rule the media and are found in Pakistan’s moribund academia as well.

The recent political glasnost in Pakistan — thanks to the lawyers’ mobilisation and the refusal of two major political parties to repeat their mistakes — is a new chapter in our history. Whether this is an illusion or a temporary triumphant moment, remains to be seen. The Supreme Court has, after a criminal delay of sixteen years taken up the Asghar Khan petition. The ‘free’ and independent Supreme Court did not take up this pending case until there was sufficient public pressure in the recent months. The judges have been remarking that they are representing ‘people’s will’ and perhaps this is why they are now establishing that they are truly independent and not taking cues from their erstwhile senior partner the military-intelligence complex. This is a welcome development and, if taken to its logical conclusion, might reset the way power dynamics have been structured in Pakistan.

After 1988 elections, it was clear that the junta, despite losing its greatest Machiavellian leader, Zia, was in no mood to transfer power to a civilian government. The story of Benazir Bhutto’s first ill-fated government (1988-1990) has been well documented by her advisor Iqbal Akhund in his book entitled, Trial and Error: The Advent and Eclipse of Benazir Bhutto (OUP Pakistan, 2000). The book, among other things, reveals the severe limits of Bhutto’s powers and outlines how she had little control over core governance areas such as security and economic policies.

During this time, there were two serious attempts to oust her: first, through a vote of no-confidence where the rogue intelligence officials doled out money to engineer the outcomes. The name of one Osama Bin laden was also cited as a potential financier of this effort. Bhutto’s government also indulged in horse trading given that was the ‘set’ game in town. In a hard-hitting interview given to monthly Herald (in 2000), Bhutto recounts the years in these words:

“..in December 1988, within a week of my forming the government, Brigadier Imtiaz, working at the ISI Internal, began contacting political parties to overthrow my government. My political adviser at the time, General Babar, moved to have him replaced. The army refused initially, though later, Brigadier Imtiaz was removed from the ISI Internal, not from the army itself…We collected proof, in 1989, of ISI elements visiting MNAs for a no-confidence move. We made audio tapes. The head of the MI entered my office and saw the photograph of the man who had been approaching my MNAs. He panicked, took the photograph and the tape and then sent me a report saying the man in question was deranged. In 1990, when the ISI launched a similar effort, we made a videotape called Operation Jackal. A serving army officer, Brigadier Imtiaz, technically not in the ISI but substantively still there, was taped saying: ‘the army does not want her, the president does not want her, the Americans don’t want her’. He was seeking the support of parliamentarians to oust the government. I gave that tape, substantive proof of treason, to General Beg. He filibustered.” (more…)

There seems to be a serious dearth of imagination while searching for solutions on Balochistan

As Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy recently wrote, “Men like Rohrabacher are no friends of the Baloch. But what can stop their meddling? The answer can only come once we dump the myth of Pakistan being one nation, one people”. The continuous undermining of Pakistan’s pluralism, citizenship rights and quest for self-rule has led to a situation where Pakistani flag is not welcome in many parts of its largest and most neglected province.

This is not the first time that the country has faced a dire situation. In 1971, we were faced with a similar dilemma and the civil-military elites of West Pakistan bungled. Their mishandling was exacerbated by an external intervention and for years we have been fed with stories of how all was hunky dory in the more populous wing of Pakistan until the evil ‘Hindu’ India destroyed the ‘Muslim’ Pakistan.

It takes a questionable resolution tabled in the US Congress by Dana Rohrabacher, an extremist republican with a dubious past, to alarm the mainstream Pakistani politicians and media about the plight of Baloch people. Yet again, a “conspiracy” to disintegrate the land of the pure has been reiterated. The good part is that Balochistan issue — something that the media was afraid to talk about — has become a subject of prime-time, and sometimes ill-informed, discussions on national television.

We cannot absolve ourselves of the decades-long discrimination that the province and its people have faced due to a variety of reasons. Whether it is the misuse of its natural resources such as natural gas, gold, etc, or its leverage in the federal power structure, the scorecard is pretty grim. In real terms, the issue of provincial autonomy has only been resolved recently via the 2010 eighteenth amendment. But even that seems to fit the clichéd description of being “too little and too late” given how the Baloch nationalists view it. (more…)

From Paper Magazine 2011- a year in review

Drones by Saba Khan

A journalist recently remarked that 2011 was the year that no one will remember. Alas, this will not be the case, as the year will haunt us for some time to come. The process of forgetting will not be effortless. Pakistan has undergone several such moments in the past. However, 2011 brought it all together in a chaotic fashion, exposing the blood-lined fissures within the society and the long-term crumbling of the state.

The year started with the gruesome murder of Salmaan Taseer, governor of Pakistan’s largest province as he championed the cause of a poor woman booked under the blasphemy law. His death was a shocking event in multiple ways: the murderer Mumtaz Qadri was a man supposed to protect him, the killer was garlanded and elevated to the status of a hero by many segments of the society especially the clerics. A tragedy of this proportion at one level appeared to be an epitaph of a society that had buried its humanity. Even worse the political parties, civil society and media remained cautious in the aftermath of the assassination; and the hope for a collective resistance was missing.

It took several months for an afraid judge to deliver a verdict against this heinous act and now the judge lives outside Pakistan to escape the wrath of clerics who find his act of sentencing Qadri abominable. The executive did little to punish errant officials who had allowed for things to come to such a pass; and the Parliament could not even offer prayers for the slain governor. Pakistan has never appeared so unkind and insensitive to murder, and that too in the name of a faith that preaches peace. This murder was followed by the assassination of Pakistan’s minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti ostensibly at the hands of Taliban and to date the killers remain at large. Bhatti’s death marked the end of activism against the Blasphemy law silencing most of the voices calling for reform to the man-made laws which persecutes both Muslims and non-Muslims in Pakistan.

Bruised by this ghastly incident, the country displayed another kind of a collective neurosis when a trigger-happy CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed three Pakistanis in Lahore. Davis’ act was despicable and he ought to have been punished. But Pakistan’s right wing and media manifested a rare kind of blood thirst against this operative of a notorious agency. The calls to hang Davis without a due examination of international and domestic laws came as another affirmation of a society, which has abandoned rule of law in favour of chaos and paranoia. It is a separate matter that the state bailed out Davis applying the Islamic laws introduced by Gen Zia ul Haq by paying blood money to the families of the victims. The executive was in overdrive and the judiciary also delivered a speedy judgement. The incident left Pakistanis more xenophobic and resentful of its long-time patron and ally, the United States.

Nothing has been more turbulent than the trajectory of Pak-US relations during the year. The two allies turned into frenemies by the end of the year. The Davis saga set the stage for stranger things to come.

An expensive wall hanging

On May 2, a special team of US Navy seals almost invaded a part of Pakistan in a surgical strike to capture and kill the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden (OBL). The location of OBL’s hideout was most embarrassing. The chief patron of a global Islamist movement was living apparently for years near a garrison town in Abbottabad, close to a prestigious military training academy.

There was uproar in Pakistan and the earlier shock and unanswered question – what was OBL doing there –was replaced by a nationalist outrage. The US had violated our sovereignty and if our security forces were negligent or complicit there was an issue. The contradictions within Pakistan’s policy and its domestic civil-military relations were at once laid bare under international spotlight.

The domestic crisis which emanated out the May 2 strike on OBL’s hideout deepened by the end of the year when the civilian and military power-wielders were playing out their conflict in the courts. The memo-gate affair, as it is now known, finds its roots in the writing of an unsigned memo allegedly written by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US calling for US intervention and support for the attempts to establish civilian control of security and foreign policies. By the end of the year, the Ambassador had resigned, faced a court petition, which culminated in the formation of a judicial commission to probe the charges, and been placed in virtual imprisonment beacause of fears for his safety.

Between these events, there were two other acts of violence. One against the state by a well-planned attack on a major naval base in Karachi in May 2011, and the second, the abduction and murder of a journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad around end of May 2011. Both acts disparate in their intensity and nature underlined one thing in common: the power of militant groups, a reality to be reckoned with. The naval base attack by the militants (or non state actors) apparently had inside support while the slain journalist was reporting regularly on the activities of extremist non-state actors as well as the operations of Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

These organised groups also abducted the son of the late Salmaan Taseer from Lahore and an American aid worker Warren Weinstein in August. On the issue of latter, a video was released by the current Al Qaeda chief claiming that his network had the American citizen in their custody. For the release of Weinstein, Pakistan and the US have to meet several demands of the militants. (more…)

Never a dull moment. And, increasing requests for quotes, opinions and reactions. Sometimes I wonder if it makes a difference? I am putting some of these quotes in a purely self-indulgent moment.

Most recently, this story in Washington Post by Karin Brulliard quoted me. Entitled ”In Pakistan, coup looms but does not strike” here is my feel-good view:

“There is an enlarged democratic space,” said Raza Rumi, a newspaper columnist who counts himself among the optimists. “So this is an interesting moment. The government may or may not survive . . . but the assertion of the civilians is inspiring.”

DNA on Pak government getting ready to face the top court. Here:

Raza Rumi, a leading Pakistani columnist, said the elected executive and unelected institutions had “entered into a logjam”.

He said, “The parliament will debate a loosely worded resolution on constitutional governance while the Supreme Court will hear two important cases that can potentially endanger the future of the civilian government.”

Rumi noted that the military had reportedly decided to back the apex court.

“Clearly, the civilians have gained some ground as the military, despite its power, has refrained from launching a coup,” he said.

Columnist Raza Rumi suggested that state institutions needed to find a way to work together. ”The best option for all players is to work out a formula on power-sharing where the elected and the unelected arms of the state can coexist within their respective constitutional jurisdictions,” he said. (more…)

My paper published in Seminar, India
THE hallmark of Pakistan’s political elites is their narrow base. A limited number of families have dominated Pakistan’s legislatures since the country’s inception in 1947.¹ These families traditionally are from rural landowning and tribal backgrounds. The situation in the twenty first century remains largely unchanged. Indeed, the principal change may be the expansion of dynastic politics to include families from urban, religious and military backgrounds.
The politics of kinship networks in Pakistan, as in South Asia more generally, is firmly anchored in the politics of clientelism,² which in turn is closely related to caste, ethnicity and identity.³ Clan, tribe, caste and biradari⁴ play a major role in electoral contests and in defining populist politics. These ties also legitimize the political family’s hold on resources and the passing on of these resources as legacy to new generations of family members.

This essay proposes a typology of dynasties in Pakistan, beginning from the ‘traditional’ rural dynasty of the Bhuttos, going on to the urban dynasty of the Sharifs, and concluding with the newer dynasties with religious and military backgrounds. Along the way, it shows how these dynasties are rooted in the politics of patrimonialism and clientelism. (more…)

Raza Rumi remembers the man that was Salmaan Taseer

o these liars and swindlers, these contractors of faith

I am a rebel, I am a rebel

– Habib Jalib

The last time I met Salmaan Taseer Shaheed (STS) was in the Punjab Governor’s House. This was a typical Lahori winter evening: misty and quiet, the palatial colonial mansion making it slightly surreal. A foreign dignitary was visiting; and I was part of the Lahori chatterati assembled in the stately living room that reeked of the Raj. Amid the chatter I took the opportunity to point out the rising tide of extremism in the country, and advised STS to be extra careful about what he said. STS’s response came with his characteristic bravado: “I am not afraid of these Mullahs. Should I stop speaking and stay at home?” He also said: “Being afraid is the worst state of mind.” Within seconds STS had cracked a joke and as always used his irrepressible humour to illustrate just how unafraid he was.

Two weeks later, I was in the same grand room, but in another state of mind: I was shocked and bewildered because STS had been gunned down in broad daylight. My grief since the day of his death has not abated and in fact has turned into a strange despondency: permanent and ominous. In his own words, STS was the “last man standing” against bigotry in a country that is slipping into the hands of extremists who have banned critical thinking and espouse the ideological project designed by the Pakistani state. (more…)

Asma Jahangir’s victory in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections is a momentous event in the country’s political and legal landscape. Even the worst of her critics grudgingly admit that her principled stance has remained consistent in a country where intellectual honesty and integrity are in short supply. More importantly, her reasoned approach to recent bouts of judicial activism has been a source of strength for stakeholders in the democratic process. Almost every progressive Pakistani has been overjoyed with her election as head of a professional body which was on the verge of losing its credibility due to indulgence in partisan politics.

Since the lawyers’ movement created a stir in 2007, the bars had started to assume the role of a political party with an exaggerated notion of their power. Instead of focusing on what ailed legal education and the maligned profession, the regulators had turned into rowdy mobs, televangelists and spokespersons of the free and restored judges. Encouraged, a Supreme Court judge reportedly remarked how ‘popular will’ was above the Constitution. The pinnacle of this approach was the judgment in the NRO case. Asma Jahangir and a few other sensible lawyers highlighted the problematic aspects of the verdict. This was a game-changer and Jahangir was at the centre of this rational discourse. (more…)

The short and interim order has disappointed many quarters that had been lobbying for a grand showdown between the judiciary and the parliament. Institutional conflicts could engineer systemic breakdowns. However, the apex court has avoided the route of appeasing its core constituency — the activist lawyers and bars — which for some odd reasons have been arguing for a governance paradigm that locates judicial dominance at its centre. Pakistan’s quest for parliamentary democracy has sought representative rule and no unelected institution, howsoever effective or popular, can appropriate that space. The interim order on the petitions challenging the 18th Amendment to the Constitution has tacitly acknowledged this reality.

The bone of contention in this saga has been the insertion of Article 175-A which revised the mode of appointments in the superior courts by introducing two broad based fora — a Judicial Commission and a Parliamentary Committee — to make the process of appointing judges inclusive, less discretionary and transparent. Several other new clauses were also challenged but Article 175-A was the subject of much debate and discussion as a few purists from the lawyers’ movement deemed it to be against the Independence of the judiciary as enshrined in the Constitution.

The decision also comes in the wake of an ongoing crisis comprising judiciary-executive collision on a number of issues. In the past two years, for right or wrong reasons, almost every executive decision of import has been challenged in the courts, thereby creating a duality of evil versus the good in terms of decision-making. Let it be clear that this is not the reality perhaps. It is a perception carefully crafted by the media and sections of the opposition who have strategized to use legality and judicial activism as mechanisms to settle scores with the ruling party and by extension the coalition. The court has, by and large, acted with judicial propriety and has avoided the brinkmanship suggested in TV talk shows and belligerent political statements. (more…)

A natural disaster, largely unavoidable, has provided a glorious opportunity to all those who have been hankering to reverse Pakistan’s fragile transition from an authoritarian to quasi-democratic rule. There is hardly a new script for the much-touted change and its proponents are using the same old tricks out of their worn out hats to prepare for a rollback of the democratic process. Therefore, the intense rumour-mongering, which has gripped Pakistani psyche over the last fortnight, is a tried and tested success formula: create the perception of change and then turn it into reality.

Even though Pakistan’s military remains unwilling to intervene, regime-change seems to be the flavour of the month. Ironically, this time large sections of the electronic media are hyperactive participants in the process, which is most likely going to push the country towards another man-made disaster. It is appalling to note that TV talk shows are focusing on extra-constitutional remedies. For instance, a Mr-Know-It-All anchor, whose acrobatics are well-known, posed a question to his (utterly uninspiring) guests to discuss the merits and demerits of the Bangladesh model and the so-called ‘General Kakar formula’. While the responses of the guests were entirely predictable, the most shocking response came from none other than former minister and Senator Iqbal Haider who has been a dyed-in-wool democrat. He confidently and at times vociferously advocated the “General Kakar formula” which essentially relates to the intervention by the army chief in a situation where a political deadlock emerges. One had always sympathised with this reputed lawyer’s position on the problems with the way his former political party – the PPP – was led and managed but to hear pleas for an extra-constitutional intervention was shocking to say the least. (more…)

When the earthquake hit us on the morning of 8th October 2005, we said that the disaster caught us with our pants down. The mini disasters of Cyclone Yemyin in 2007, the Ziarat earthquake in 2008 and the presently unfolding mega disaster suggest that we never bothered to pull our pants up and are continuously trying to cover our nether regions with Post-It stickers. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was launched in 2007 with a lot of fanfare but a quick look at the (recently lapsed) National Disaster Management Ordinance tells us that it is another toothless tiger whose job is to ‘coordinate’ among its provincial, regional and district-level counterparts. Now, we are a very funny nation. When it comes to taking responsibility for public, we quickly don our ‘federal’ garb and declare that the centre cannot interfere in a job that is primarily provincial/local. Such commitment to federalism, alas, is never forthcoming when it comes to resource exploitation, but that is another story.

NDMA’s mandate can perhaps be classified into three categories: mainstreaming risk-reduction in development programmes, overseeing contingency planning, and coordinating response to disasters.

Before the media promotes NDMA over Zardari and fake-degree holders, as being chiefly responsible for all our woes, it would be pertinent to look at the organization’s capacities and powers. After its establishment, a retired army official was appointed as its head. It took a while before the consultants hired by the United Nations could come up with an organizational structure. But NDMA could not attract the best of professionals chiefly for the work environment. This resulted in NDMA ending up mostly, with pen-pushers. (more…)

My new oped for Express-Tribune

The Wikileaks’ damning half-truths pertain to the anti-war movement within the US. This has caused embarrassment to the US war architects and stirred the military industrial complex and its cousin, the corporate and embedded media. Similarly, what has been said about the role of Pakistan and its globally famed Inter Services Agency (ISI) is not something that is really a revelation and is more or less an open secret. Three important questions need to be considered before Wikileaks can be taken seriously.

Do field reports from individual sources, especially disgruntled, anti-Pakistan Afghan nationals constitute ‘evidence’? No. Is there sufficient evidence to substantiate the startling sensational pieces of information? Perhaps not. Is the Pakistan-ISI role central in the Taliban insurgency within Afghanistan? No clear answers can be determined due to the complexity of the Taliban resistance and the involvement of multiple players. (more…)

Raza Rumi

The elusive quest for peace between India and Pakistan remains hostage to the military-industrial complex at both the global and regional levels. Such is the dynamic unleashed by two imagined “nations” that their existence as states is dependent on a perpetual state of confrontation. More so for Pakistan, given its deeply embedded paranoia, which has assumed a reality of its own. Sixty-two years ago, it was hardly envisioned that the two states would erect an iron-curtain and fight forever. From actual wars to propaganda campaigns the task seems complete now. The oft-repeated phrase ‘trust deficit’ is a natural culmination of this ugly process. Of late, another dimension has been added, i.e. information-deficit as India had marched towards a new phase of its economic development, it has stopped taking interest in transitional Pakistani society and kept the time-warped framework of understanding Pakistan. However, the situation cannot remain static. Policymakers are slow to catch up on both the sides.

Mumbai factor: Twenty months ago, the Mumbai attacks changed the atmosphere created by President Zardari’s unprecedented offers of peace, dialogue and cooperation. The day Zardari made his remarks in a conclave organised by the Hindustan Times in 2008, many observers saw a Mumbai coming. The jihadis of Pakistan and perhaps their counterparts in India were quick to stop this process. Ironic that PPP, a party fed on the Pakistani nationalist rhetoric, thirty years down the road had read the writing on the wall. Pakistan’s future and survival is dependent on a reduction of hostilities with India. More importantly, this also holds the key to correcting the endemic civil-military imbalance. (more…)

Published today in The News

Much has been said about media accountability and the dire need of a regulation framework for Pakistan’s new power centre. Pakistani media has earned its freedom and independence after a long, often bloody, struggle against military dictators and civilian autocrats. Countless journalists were imprisoned, harassed, even killed in this decade’s long fight for free speech, otherwise a much-touted fundamental right in every Pakistani constitution. There is no question that a viable democracy and a culture of accountability cannot exist without a robust and independent media.

Globalisation and the rise of electronic media in Pakistan, ironically under General Musharraf, is a relatively new phenomenon and has changed the contours of power matrix in the country. If anything, electronic media and its older cousin, the print media, with a plethora of columnists, are now an established group with considerable influence and nuisance value. Actualisation of the newly acquired powers was best demonstrated during the anti-Musharraf movement from 2007-2008. This was a startling development and pleased most Pakistanis as they found the echo of their daily trials and tribulations in the direct and frank reporting by the numerous TV channels.
Ambiguous regulatory framework: The sudden liberalisation of private television channels took place in an environment when a regulatory framework had barely been established. The Pakistani Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) came into existence during an unrepresented regime and, therefore, it lacked the essential process of consultation, ownership, and national consensus. On the one hand, media oligarchies emerged despite the vague announcements that cross ownership would not be permitted. On the other hand, electronic media showed little interest in developing a common code of conduct and finding ways of self-regulation. The results and the initial phase were disasters. Human limbs and heads found ample air time thereby glorifying terrorism and violence, and impacting the collective psychology of the viewers through a gradual process of desensitisation. Furthermore, objectivity was thrown out of the window and partisan, one sided rants became the order of the day.

Lawyers and media alliance: This was a type of intense civil activism and unprecedented representation of the Pakistani middle class in mainstream politics. Seemingly, a momentous development, the foresighted mobilization, came into public domain regurgitating the ‘anti-politics’ biases of Pakistan’s conservative middle class. This automatically resulted in severe distortions of the political expression. The first rule of law was personified by a handful of judges who had been linked to Pakistan’s regressive establishment throughout their careers; and a misconception that rule of law would lead to political, economic, and social transformation became a ‘truth’. Minority voices such as this scribe, alerted to the inherent contradictions of these developments. In short, intra-bourgeoisie struggles could be disruptive but rarely led to transformative social change. The results today are clear. The lawyers are beating up every public official and media representative who attempts to question their activities. After heroic battles the conduct of judges has been called into question. (more…)

Just found out that I was quoted on The Guardian twice. Made me smile a bit in these gloomy times.

Here is the copy of the page.  Click here to see the two stories on Data darbar carnage and fake degrees of Pakistani politicians.