Elections, Pakistani Style

Did anyone see the PBS International Dispatch program on Pakistan called

``Pakistan-the Inside Story``? Utterly riveting. This was a program by Najam

Sethi and he traversed the tortuous paths Pakistan has taken through various

inept leaders, pulling no punches. Wonderfully produced, paced and edited.

This is a must see for all those interested in Pakistan.

Gen. Musharraf states his concerns and vision clearly, as the

straightforward and honest individual that he is - for the first time those

views are not skewed or distorted or presented in a background of prejudiced

stereotypes by the western media.

I am in the process of trying to get a copy of the program. I remember an

article a while back here on Chowk by Salman Lodhy in the advertising

business who wanted Pakistanis to present the truth in the media rather than

the slanted and distorted versions we get. Here is one such program.

I think that the offer of the $1000 Mr. Lodhy made should be put to good

use by airing this program again. I will do my best to help make it happen.

Well some people may find humourous the wretchedness of their nation, I most certainly do not. Saleem, Irfan Uncle & Co. are not nice friendly ppl but vicious mobsters and plunderers of our national wealth. Present them as they really are.

Otherwise a good piece.

Adnan

Fuzair: I found an interesting article discussing why certain countries like Korea and Malaysia have benefited from high rates of economic growth. While other countries like Pakistan have not benefited from them.

``After the race riots of 1969, the Government of Malaysia adopted a 20-year plan to promote growth and human development, reduce poverty, end racial discrimination in employment and improve education and health standards. The success of that 20-year plan led to a second plan in 1990 which aims to continue the country`s successful pattern of growth with equity, bringing Malaysia to the status of a fully developed country by 2020.

The Republic of Korea is a prime example of government-forged strong links between growth and human development. In 1945 only 13 per cent of adults had any formal schooling. Then both public and private investment focused on education. By 1990, average years of schooling for all reached 9.9 years, higher than in industrialized countries. It is the fastest educational growth in the world, supplemented by strong vocational training. While education improved, so did the economy, with growth averaging 9.2 per cent a year in the 1980s, based on exports, high savings and investment rates.

Pakistan, by contrast, has failed to turn economic growth to the advantage of its people. Despite a healthy growth rate of more than 5 per cent a year during the 1980s, job opportunities contracted. The government concentrated resources on capital-intensive industry such as chemicals, iron and steel at the expense of small-scale, labour-intensive areas such as rubber and agriculture. On the Human Development Index, Pakistan ranks 134th out of 174 countries, compared with Korea, ranked 81st. School enrolment totals 37 per cent of youth in Pakistan, compared with 81 per cent in Korea.``

Complete article at http://www.undp.org/news/hdr96pr1.htm

Fuzair #45

Having read your apology, I read your earlier lengthy post in any case. Reminded me of the following lines:

Caught no fish

Tell you why

water too low

wind to high

fly wouldnt catch

drat those boys

... and so on

Caught no fish

plenty of reasons

Caught no fish

could talk two seasons

Having criticized others for their poor/repetitive/obfuscating/just-plain-confused writing styles, I must apologize for my last post. I can only plead that I did not have time to edit it properly.

Regards to all.

Re: Umairr #40

I read Omar Noman`s first book, `The Political Economy of Pakistan,` a few years ago but I am not familiar with the one in which he states that, but for nationalization, Pakistan would be at Malaysian levels of industrialization/development. I do not know on what assumptions he has based this conclusion but I sincerely doubt that his analysis is anywhere close to correct. Unlike us, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and any other wannabe NIC that you can name was extremely open to foreign investment. They allow majority or 100% foreign ownership and not just minority share joint-ventures. We were never this open. In addition, these other countries also produced for export. We were interested only in producing for the captive home market where shoddy goods were sold at artificially inflated prices to a captive market. The foreign firms very early on decided that Pakistan was a lousy market and moved on. For example, General Tyres, GM, Bedford (the ones I can remember off the top of my head) all packed up and left. Ayub Khan`s cronies (esp. Gen. Habibullah who was given an industrial empire as a consolation prize for not being made CinC) and the infamous 22 Families of Pakistan also, I believe, helped `convince` the foreign firms to leave and brought up the assets at knockdown prices. The only MNCs left were the British ones which predated Pakistan (ICI, BT now Pakistan Tobacco, etc) and were content to make a comfortable and safe little profit in a completely protected market. In any case, our entire industrial structure (textiles, sporting goods and minor surgical steel stuff excepted) was meant for the domestic market. To reiterate, our economy`s manufacturing sector under Ayub was a hothouse flower that could only survive in an extremely protected environment. So very high tariffs, completely closed/captive domestic markets, an artificially high exchange rate (to make imports cheap), cheap credit and massive government patronage made our Ayubian `miracle` possible.
Back when I was a banker in Karachi, I was talking to one of my uncle`s friends from Lahore, a fairly large though not really big industrialist, and I naively asked him if he was looking forward to the privatization and economic liberalization and the chance to compete openly in the market. He laughed out aloud at my naivete and said that why would he want to compete in an open market when now, in this highly regulated and unfree market, he was netting a 30-35% profit margin? Why indeed? Much of our private sector is almost as fat, bloated, incompetent, corrupt and inefficient as our public sector.

Incidentally, many Latin American countries enjoyed the same type of success as we did in the 1960s, just to collapse completely in the 1970s and 1980s as the oil crisis led to the debt crisis.

The S. Koreans also went the same route as we did (except for the artificially high exchange rate) but they made it work because General Park`s govt insisted on the chaebol exporting a large portion of their output. This forced the S. Korean firms to improve both the quality and cost aspects of their products and keep climbing up the economic food chain.

Primary and Secondary Import Substitution industrialization will work extremely well as long as the economy has some way to earn foreign exchange (to pay for its capital imports) AND its not hit by adverse external economic shocks. We exported jute, cotton and cotton yarn and textiles all through the 1950s and 1960s to pay for our capital and other imports and overvalued exchange rate. Combined with substantial foreign aid and ridiculously cheap oil, we thrived. However, the 1965 War, massive economic disruption, drying up of US aid, massive war cost to pay, nearly did us in. We survived because oil was still dirt cheap and world commodity prices fairly high. However, post-1973, our economy would still have been very badly hurt by the oil crisis and the inability to earn enough foreign exchange to afford our trade deficit. Unlike the Japanese, Taiwanese or S. Koreans, we would not have had any viable export base to generate foreign exchange. Our economy would still have limped along all through the 1970s with worker remittances being used to finance oil imports and the budget deficit.

To repeat, a focus on Import Substitution Industrialization, the Pakistani strategy in the 1960s, was an invitation to disaster. Why we didn`t collapse in the 1970s was because we discovered a new export market: the Middle East for our manpower. At its peak, worker remittances were bringing in about 12% of GDP (these are official figures, mind you; unofficial ones would be much higher). As far as these workers investing in the stock market goes (or buying govt bonds, or opening up small businesses/manufacturing firms of their own), alas, that is a wishful dream indeed. I wrote a paper as an undergrad analyzing Pakistani worker remittances betwen 1975-85 and found that all they were interested in was (i) buying land and/or building a house, preferably the fanciest one in the gaon or mohalla, (ii) jewellery for their women, and (iii) getting their sons/daughters married off in a REALLY fancy shaadi. On the plus side, the nutrition and calorie intake of remittance families was cleary better than that of non-remittance ones. As one family member put it, ``Aho ji, assi to roz asli ghee da pakka huwa khana khaanday!``

So, in short, pure consumption and no investment. Ours is not a savings oriented culture but one that is geared to conspicious consumption. Just look at our national savings rate, the last time I looked it was well below 10%. The govt used the remittances to make up the import gap, defence expenditure and for debt servicing, not infrastructure investment or even social welfare spending.

As far as capitalism making things worse at first, this is the famous Kuznet Inverted-U hypothesis that relates to several differenet social welfare indicators. Mahbubul Haq, who was a brilliant economist, wrote in his Harvard thesis that development consists of expropriating the surplus from the labourer and reinvesting it. This, he said, was not exploitation but development. The belief is that, once the nation has reached the Rostowian takeoff stage of self-sustaining growth, it can afford some level of redistributive policies. Nobody, not even the conservatives, really believes in trickle-down helping the bottom 30-40% or so of the income distribution. Even the US in the 1950s and 1960s had a national poverty rate of 20-25% or so (and the poverty rate is a family of four with an annual income BELOW

Re Umairr

Your wistfulness about the economic potential of Pakistan is about correct...with hindsight being a perfect 20/20. You had a certain amount of homogeneity, a cultural cohesion and you were given an infrastructure that did not exist. In other words, you were quite close to Korea or Japan right after WW2. But of course, what happened is a whole another story.You could have built from scratch a whole new system. But...

Re nationalization...it was a hot trend in that phase and your country did what the others did. That egomaniac Mrs Gandhi did the same with her half-baked socialist tendencies that was countered by your hotheaded ZAB. And the mothership, England was in a similar situation then with a whole lot of centralized planning.

While your economy of buoyant in the 60s, that very same buoyancy enabled many of the elite to shut their eyes toward democratic systems. This period led to a certain arrogance that manifested in many misteps beginning with the 65 war, and since then it has been a progressive downhill ride save for that brief period when you were able to milk the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But then you were not able to convert those into economic vibrancy and the only constituency, and I stress, the only constituency that has gained by the overall slide is the military, and specifically, the army. Perhaps, this is one of the largest armies that does not serve the will of the people. Rather, it`s the poor people that serve the will of the army.

Re: Umairr # 40

I agree with you that nationalization was an ill-fated choice in Pakistan`s development and it should be corrected; the present dream about privatization process needs to be spured onwards and realized as soon as possible!

Robert Kaplan not withstanding, Pakistan`s future is quiet disconcerting and as a nation, we should be paying more attention to where we are heading instead of where we could have been had our stars been different!

In all of this there is a glimmer of hope and that is that Pakistan, in its present state, cannot continue any longer and therein lies our redemption as a nation!

The days of the ``vulture culture`` are limited and the fools can rejoice all they want, because the king is gone and the queen is not coming back!

Ciao!

Fuzair #34: Thanks for the informative reply. My knowledge of the Pakistan economy in the 60s is based on the following factors:

Writings by economists like Omar Noman (who states that Pakistan would have been where Malaysia is currently had nationalization not taken place in the 70s).

A comparative analysis of the buying power of salaries of govt. employees in the 50s and 60s with the salaries of govt. employees in the 90s. I have done this in quite a bit of detail for the members of the armed forces. Basically, whenever an old time soldier told me how, ``good`` they were during his days, I promptly reminded him the buying power of my salary as a Captain was equivalent to the buying power of the salary of his batman in the 50s (this is a fact, based on quite a bit of analysis done by me):-) Not to mention the fact that the civil servants now are quite a bit more educated than those of the 50s and 60s. So, much much lower salary for more educated people. During one part of the 50s, the PAF officers actually made more money in terms of buying power than the officers of the USAF.

The third factor is the history of Pakistan, itself. If the legend is correct, than Pakistan was the boondocks at the time of 1947. The Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota of the Sub-Continent. I can remember Pakistan from around the mid 70s. And at that time, Pakistan had made quite a bit of progress. Along with Punjab University, there were a string of other universities, medical colleges, hotel chains, dams, roads etc. However, since the mid-70s onwards, nothing much seems to have been done. So somewhere between 1947 and 1970, somebody build quite a bit of infrastructure.

The fourth factor is the influx of money from the ex-patriates in the Middle East, after the 70s. Had Pakistan not nationalized everything, this money could have been put to quite a bit of use by being invested in private enterprise. Along with this, the ex-patriates in areas besides the Middle East would have actually contributed their skills and money also, if they had the option of investing in private enterprises, which despite their inefficiencies must have been quite a bit more efficient than anything else available in South Asia at that time, and in Pakistan currently.

However, my analysis is somewhat unscientific, while yours seems more scientific. So I will default to yours. But I would be interested in your replies to the points I have mentioned above. Why does the current average Captain level person`s salary in the PAF give him the same buying power as the batman of Captain in the 50s/60s?

Also one final scientific point: While driving on the Pakistani highways, one still sees a lot of pictures of Ayub Khan painted on the back of trucks belonging the average Pakistani. One hardly ever sees a picture of any other leader on these trucks, including Jinnah :-) This point probably won`t hold up in an economics class, however something must have been going good during those days.

My own analysis of the 60s compared to now is that: During the 60s in Pakistan, the rich were getting richer and the poorer were getting poorer (this usually happens in the first stages of capitalism, until the benefits start trickling down). In the 90s, the poor continued to get poorer and the rich also started getting poorer. I think Pakistan in the 50s and 60s missed the social side of things (hence the creation of Bangladesh), but may have been on the right track on the economic side. From the 70s onwards, it missed both the social and economic side.

Zakk #38: ``btw his coment about the PTI and others not being infiltrated by teh families ...is somehwat wrong his senior vice prez is Mohsin Ali Khan ..son in Law of Aslam Khattak?...and in case of Maulana Fazlur Rehman ..he is Muft Mehmoods son ...he might not have the cash of one of teh families ...but he has the influence ...to the MQM and the Jamaat I would agree :) ..``

To some extent, I agree. I believe Nasim Zehra quit PTI when Mohsin Ali Khan joined PTI. I am not too much about him, though. However, he is by far the exception in terms of the membership of PTI. Perhaps the only last name in the PTI. I am familiar with the names that were given seats by PTI in the previous election. Almost all of them were either middle class people, or ex-beurecrats, technocrats etc. Very very few last names. That is why PTI didn`t win a single seat. NS had offered PTI something like 35 seats if they agreed to support joint candidates, with the PML. But PTI did not agree due to the last name factor. Ethically, a very upright decision. Politically, the biggest mistake Imran Khan has made so far.

Fazlur-ur-Rahman is also definitely a last name. However, he is an exception also. The religious parties are still pre-dominantly last-name free (except for the one odd leader of each party).

Viking #35 You asked for comments concerning 50% share of parliament seats to the military. How about an even more radical suggestion: tell the military guys that they can have 100% of the parliament IF they are qualified to run for elections AFTER leaving the army and IF they win elections. Otherwise, they stick to playing bands and showing up for disaster relief, and not be seen or heard from at any other time.

Hmm interestin debate ..Fuzairs post was very interesting .I recently sent of a letter to the frontier post and mailed a few other people about a simple idea of using the existing peshawar Landi Kotal railway line as a mass transit system for commuters ..apprently the railway as a economical and eco friendly means of transport does not go down well with the gov fat cats ...

I would like to point out something to both Fuzair and Umair about the Pakistani economy ..being very bouyant in the 60`s ..First fo the economic boom was not there in teh real sense ..You should read G.W Choudrys book ..the last day of United Pakistan ...there had been a continuous capital outflow from East pakistan to West Pakistan which had been markedly increasin during Ayubs Govt.In fact Jute processing was being done in West Pakistan ! ...

ANother comment was the one about Bhuttos Nationalisation ..now I am no PPP person ..but other countried had done the same taking on outta control capitalists ...like Egypts revolution ..it caused a setback to the business sector ..but lead to a major improvement in social services ..simialirly India ...in both cases ..it was only when smart leaders realising that now was the time to allow innovative local people ..to invest ..that caused an economic take off ..In ZA B`s case ..at the time there had been a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few families ..al concentrated in Karachi to the detriment of the rest of the country IN fact a new generation of business people cropped up because of that Nationalisation and the subsequent liberlisation caused by Zia Ul haq ..( oddly most of which are the bed rock of the Muslim League in Punjab ) What was wrong was the way it was done ..brutally and ad hoc ...that was wrong ..but then that goes with the intention ZAB was settling scores ..seen in that sense he did the job evry well!:)

As Fuzairs said ..the failure of the Ayub govt to invest in social services ..was bound to cause a situation which would damgae even the strongest govt. ..a rapidly politically aware people ..deprived of basic righst like education ..the author of this policy ..`the tricle down efect ` was the now venerated late ..Mehbubul Haq ..who believd if u amke the top ofthe cake heavy enough it would trickle down ...which it never did ...btw he was a great economist too!:)

To correct Umair ..btw his coment about the PTI and others not being infiltrated by teh families ...is somehwat wrong his senior vice prez is Mohsin Ali Khan ..son in Law of Aslam Khattak?...and in case of Maulana Fazlur Rehman ..he is Muft Mehmoods son ...he might not have the cash of one of teh families ...but he has the influence ...to the MQM and the Jamaat I would agree :) ..

Hmm interestin debate ..Fuzairs post was very interesting .I recently sent of a letter to the frontier post and mailed a few other people about a simple idea of using the existing peshawar Landi Kotal railway line as a mass transit system for commuters ..apprently the railway as a economical and eco friendly means of transport does not go down well with the gov fat cats ...

I would like to point out something to both Fuzair and Umair about the Pakistani economy ..being very bouyant in the 60`s ..First fo the economic boom was not there in teh real sense ..You should read G.W Choudrys book ..the last day of United Pakistan ...there had been a continuous capital outflow from East pakistan to West Pakistan which had been markedly increasin during Ayubs Govt.In fact Jute processing was being done in West Pakistan ! ...

ANother comment was the one about Bhuttos Nationalisation ..now I am no PPP person ..but other countried had done the same taking on outta control capitalists ...like Egypts revolution ..it caused a setback to the business sector ..but lead to a major improvement in social services ..simialirly India ...in both cases ..it was only when smart leaders realising that now was the time to allow innovative local people ..to invest ..that caused an economic take off ..In ZA B`s case ..at the time there had been a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few families ..al concentrated in Karachi to the detriment of the rest of the country IN fact a new generation of business people cropped up because of that Nationalisation and the subsequent liberlisation caused by Zia Ul haq ..( oddly most of which are the bed rock of the Muslim League in Punjab ) What was wrong was the way it was done ..brutally and ad hoc ...that was wrong ..but then that goes with the intention ZAB was settling scores ..seen in that sense he did the job evry well!:)

As Fuzairs said ..the failure of the Ayub govt to invest in social services ..was bound to cause a situation which would damgae even the strongest govt. ..a rapidly politically aware people ..deprived of basic righst like education ..the author of this policy ..`the tricle down efect ` was the now venerated late ..Mehbubul Haq ..who believd if u amke the top ofthe cake heavy enough it would trickle down ...which it never did ...btw he was a great economist too!:)

To correct Umair ..btw his coment about the PTI and others not being infiltrated by teh families ...is somehwat wrong his senior vice prez is Mohsin Ali Khan ..son in Law of Aslam Khattak?...and in case of Maulana Fazlur Rehman ..he is Muft Mehmoods son ...he might not have the cash of one of teh families ...but he has the influence ...to the MQM and the Jamaat I would agree :) ..

Sorry for the digression, but some interesting stuff in here enough to fuel enough e-jehads. check this out: The financial times annual review of India. Finally online

http://surveys.ft.com/india2000/

its quite interesting. while the pakis decry their elected leaders as extremely corrupt and authoritarian and welcome the army`s action when they are toppled, they also criticize the army for trampling its democracy. may its time to design a constituition that blends both the civil and military components and give them both an equal and simultaneous chance to plunder.

may be there could be a system where half of the seats of the legislative assembly could be filled in by the army representatives and the other half by the elected ones. or a system wherein the army could be assigned a number of seats equal to that of the seats secured by the single largest party.

any ideas how this kind of demockracy might work in pakistan?

Re: Umairr #23

I usually find myself in general agreement with much of what you say but in this I have to disagree somewhat. Pakistan was certainly doing extremely well in the 1960s (at least up till the 1965 War) but it would in all likelihood have suffered a massive economic setback in the 1970s even if there had been no 1971 War. Why?

Pretty straightforward actually. First, we failed miserably in providing primary education to the masses and put most of our education funds into white elephant type `showcase` educational institutions (all those medical and engineering colleges, for example). Granted that Bhutto`s nationalization absolutely ruined what used to be a pretty good educational system (at least at the college level), the fact still remains that we have absolutely failed our `common` man and woman.

Second, we went for primary and secondary import substitution industrialization (ISI) and completely ignored the importance of a viable export sector. We relied on jute and cotton export to earn our foreign exchange and our idea of a high value-added export component was/is cotton textiles and sporting goods. Both of these actually rank very low on the economic food chain and in the 1970s oil crisis, our economy would have tanked anyway, even without the Bangladesh fiasco. S. Korea, for example, was among the world`s most heavily indebted countries in the 1970s but, unlike Argentina or Brazil, did not suffer from a serious debt crisis because their industrial sector was geared not just for export production but high value-added export production. So they kept moving up the economic food chain into higher and higher value-added exports. They now compete with the US, Japan, and EU on more or less equal terms.

Our infant industries went straight from infancy to senility because they had no incentive to either improve quality or to keep costs down. Our work force is among the Third World`s most expensive, in terms of productivity, and our industrial sector is dead. My uncle, who owned a textile mill and export business in the 1980s before he cut his losses and got out of it, once calculated that the S. Koreans could buy Pakistani raw cotton, ship it to S. Korea, spin it and produce textiles AND still outcompete us in both price and quality. Since he has a Ph.D. in Economics, I have a certain amount of faith in his calculations.

The only reason why 90% of our textile industry hasn`t died completely is because of the quota we get under the Multi-Fibre Agreement. Even Bangladesh, which only started in the 1970s, can outcompete us in both price and quality! And as far as I know, they don`t even grow cotton there!

Third reason why our economy would have failed miserably in the 1970s even without ZAB is that our infrastructure is among the worst in the world (barring Somalia or the Central African Republic or some other bananastan). In the 1980s, it used to cost almost as much to ship cotton from Punjab to Karachi as it did to ship it from Karachi to Europe. For god`s sake, we ship almost everything by truck! One of the most expensive shipping methods known to man. Even in the US, truck transport is only profitable if it is subsidized (indirectly) by the government!

The less said about our power generation and telecommunications system, the better. The World Bank, the architect of all of the Third World`s ills, put forward two excellent infrastructure proposals in the 1980s for Pakistan. One was to make the entire rail line from Karachi to Peshawar double tracked and to improve the quality of the existing line so that the average speed on it could be just about doubled. This was shot down by Saeed Qadir because it would have meant no money for the NLC (and him). The second proposal was to build a barge port at Sukkur, just below the Sukkur Barrage, so as to make commodity (cotton and rice mainly) transport to Karachi much more cost efficient. This was of course shot down by the transport lobby since then half the truck drivers in Pakistan would be out of work. I believe there were also ``vested interests`` in the Federal government who weren`t too keen on developing interior Sind either.

The point is that all of these were/are ideas which should have been carried out in the 1960s but weren`t. Education, improved infrastructure, economic efficiency, and so on, are really no-brainers when you come to think about it but no one had thought about it.

Regards.

PS: Don`t forget about Punjab University which actually predates Pakistan by few decades!

Even the BBC gets it wrong !

http://www.the-hindu.com/2000/11/10/stories/0410210l.htm

The World Bank is considering programs worth 12,000 crores or $2.5 billion -- it has not approved them. Moveover, this is over a period of seven years.

If you go to www.worldbank.com you will find the actual projects approved by the World Bank.

-Arun Gupta

Great story! Hope there will once again be elections in Pakistan. And hopefully yu will once again be ensuring democracy in Ghaznikhel.

Thanks.

ussa

Layman #29: ``Not that I think such loans are in Karnataka`s interest, though.``

I would worry about this more than about other countries not getting loan approvals...

RE: Umairr # 26

I was not implying that you had neglected to
mention people in uniform in the list of the corrupt. My main point was that we have left all the blame for all our ills on corruption with
the people in uniform as judge jury and executioner. How can I say without questioning this group`s own agenda that people who have taken
up politics in Pakistan are the corrupt ones?
I made it a point to equate Naveed to ZAB as a
part of the landed elite who were not in politics for the money. I did not equate him to Zardari
whose family was most famous for owning Bambino
Cinema in Karachi. BB married into this family
of questionable ambitions!
People with old money in Pakistan (those that are left) have had more class and are less corrupt then these Zardari characters.
I have no information on the units privatized
during Naveed Qamar`s tenure, nor am I going to
pursue this venture because I have not lived in Pakistan for over 25 years. But to charge a person
for selling a product at too low a price in a country where the most thriving business since
Zia came to power is the proliferation of ``Intelligence`` Agencies should be questioned.
We have to question NAB`s intentions especially its choice of targets, at least those of us who have the best interests of Pakistan at heart.

Ras

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1015000/1015587.stm

``The World Bank has announced a $2.5bn loan for the southern Indian state of Karnataka.``

Found it interesting that at a time when Pakistan is struggling to get a few hundred million $$$ from the IMF, one state in India gets $2.5 billion. Not that I think such loans are in Karnataka`s interest, though.

Re : Umairr #23

I think feudalism in India has been on the decline on account of the following :

a) More than Vinoba`s ``Bhoodan`` (literally - donation of land) the Zamindari Abolition Act of 1956 introduced significant land reforms. Incidentally, Vikram Seth`s ``A Suitable Boy``, which is set in the 1950s, presents an interesting account of the debate surrounding this legislation.

b) The communists pushed through land reforms in West Bengal in the 1970s, and have endeared themselves to the Bengali countryside ever since, notwithstanding their otherwise abysmal administration

c) In some other states, notoriously feudal historically, the cocktail of demographics, democracy and conscious use of caste-based politics has reduced the exploitation of rural poor (e.g. UP, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and parts of Madhya Pradesh). In the short term this has been sometimes violent, often economically destabilizing and has led to comic politics, but I feel this churn will have positive effects in the long term.

d) Some states, notably Maharashtra and Gujarat, have successfully experimented with rural co-operatives in a very big way, and raised the bargaining power of small individual members through collective production and marketing of commodities. Sugar and dairy industries in these states are good examples.

Sincerely,

Nachiketa

looking at the way that the ``elections`` have become almost an yearly tamasha in india, may be you guys could consider yourself lucky. atleast, you aren`t draining resources on elections.

Ras Siddiqui: #24: My intention was not to state that people in the military are not corrupt. I don`t think I mentioned the military anywhere in my reply. All corrupt people should be prosecuted, regardless of the group they belong to. Two wrongs definitely don`t make a right.

I was only requesting some information on the units that were privatized during Naveed Qamar`s stint as the head of the Privatization Commission. On the whole, my experience has been that the wealthier people in Pakistan are more corrupt than the poor people. The, ``already rich`` are generally the ones who carry out most of the corruption in Pakistan. Corruption has more to do with attitude and morals, and less to do with the wealth one has already accumulated.

I have not assumed that Naveed Qamar is corrupt just because he was appointed by BB to a lucrative position. I am just interested in finding out whether he was or not. A good criteria for that would be to study the transpency of the process thru which the govt. owned businesses were privatized during his time.

On the whole, the overall effect of the BB regime was nearly suicidal for Pakistan, specifically for the Pakistan economy (it is quite possible that this happened despite of Naveed Qamar`s efforts, and not because of his efforts). The amount of foreign investment was neglible during her rule, and is still negligible. However, the net loss of this money thru corruption was very high during BB`s rule. That is why BB and Zardari`s are in the international elite group whose photograph (with explanations) is sent out to everyone who joins Transparency International. I received one a few years ago, and it made me proud to be a Pakistani :-)

Anyways, I am not too interested in qualitative comparison of regimes. I also think it is unethical to put people in jail without a trial. So I am on the same page as you on that. However, since you are a personal friend of Naveed Qamar, I am hoping you could provide some info. on the industries etc. that were privatized during his tenure.

Most things rural strike a chord in me. Liked reading some lines - earthy!

`I browbeat the poor man in fluent english and he retreated.` - city people!

Sorry about my lack of focus in my last interact
here but it should have read ``little hope for improvement in a country that...`` (instead of ``little room`` a possible freudian for the accomodations provided in a Rawalpindi jail to my friend Naveed Qamar.

RE: Reply #: 22 Umairr
It is true that there are are a lot of corrupt people in Pakistan. The ``system`` if you wish to call it that rewards the corrupt.
But what I find really amazing is that these
knights in khaki armor show up every now and then
on the premise that all civilians in Pakistan are corrupt and they are all Momins.
Let us for the moment assume that all the PPP
and the PML are corrupt people who wish Pakistan
harm (I personally do not agree with this assumption). But while all these politicians were
all busy ``looting`` the country, what exactly were
our Khaki Momin brothers doing? And does our poor
land/population all start bathing in milk and honey once the military intervenes?
Benazir Bhutto brought more foreign investment to Pakistan in her terms then the Military Rulers
have to date. I agree that my logic may be colored but our Military has been great at taking
over the country and jailing/hanging elected representatives but continues to be poor at delivering much to Pakistanis as a whole.
Naveed Qamar has been a Progressive all his life. He is a Sindhi friend who being a part of
the feudal elite has tried in vane to change the
poor conditions of his surroundings for the past several years. To automatically assume that he
would make use of his position to enrich himself
would be wrong. He is and was already rich. Like
ZAB he`s definitly not in politics for the money.

Ras

Rdesikan #20: ``It hasn`t been done for over 50 years, but breaking the feudal society is the first step. India was fortunate in having people like Vinobha Bhave and others who fought for land reform--and it ain`t done yet.``

``but if it can be countered in any way, economic liberalization and land reform is the most effective way out.``

In terms of third world countries, Pakistan actually did quite well in economic liberalization, but terribly in breaking the grip of the feudals. By the end of the 60s, Pakistan was poised to take-off economically. According to many economists, Pakistan would have been where Malaysia is currently, had the nationalization not occurred in the 70s (despite of the coups, and the political problems). The nationalization of the 70s is considered by some Pakistanis (including myself) to be the biggest historical mistake ever made by Pakistan. Pakistan was into privatization and a growth oriented economic policy 30 years before the rest of South Asia caught onto it, and even before some of the Asian tigers discovered it. This allowed Pakistan to raise its standard of living to easily the highest in South Asia, from what it inherited (the most backward areas of the Sub-Continent).

At the time of partition, Pakistan had nothing compared to India. No infrastructure, no universities, etc.; only a canal system and some good agriculture land in portions of Punjab. The only educated human resource pool was the one that had migrated from India. However, by 1970 it had put up industries, dams, infrastructure, colleges etc. So in terms of economic policy, Pakistan has traditionally been way ahead of the rest of South Asia (which was completely caught up in beaurecratic and govt. ownership of every industry). It was on the same beat as the Asian tigers in the 60s. However Pakistan was never able to come up with the right leadership, which could utilize its economic growth.

The problem has been breaking the feudal stronghold. I am not familiar with the feudal hold of families in India. It would be interesting if you could highlight it. My own guess would be that it probably was not nearly as much as what we see in Pakistan. Or at the very least, it was not spread out over the whole country. Since a much larger portion of India was literate than what ended up constituting Pakistan. So there may have been a counter-force to the power of the feudals, in India. If this is not the case, then how did India break out of the hold of the feudals?

In case of Pakistan, its politics is still in the hold of the feudal lords. The only areas where they do not exercise power are in the big urban centers. In those areas, they have been replaced by the industrialists (apart from urban Sind, and some of the smaller urban metropolises like Pindi, which have relatively more middle class leadership). However, 70% of the country is still in the hold of the feudals. These families have their tentacles spread out into every arena of power in Pakistan. A few relatives in the ruling party, a few distant relatives in the opposition party. A couple of cousins in the civil service, who appropriately end up getting assigned to the areas where their families have political influence. Using their political clout, they are able to get a few relatives into business, as well. An odd relative or two in the army. If the army relative ends up doing well and rising in the army, then these families have all their boxes checked off.

I have read some very interesting articles in Pakistani magazines, which describe the hold of these families in the Pakistani power structure. The inter-marriages amongst these groups makes very interesting reading. The feudal`s (or local powerful family`s) daughter married to the general`s son, whose uncle is contesting the election from the opposition party`s seat, whose nephew is the deputy commissioner in that district, whose aunt just opened up a sugar factory with the help of her MNA brother-in-law, who happens to belong to a third political party; so on and so forth. So regardless of who is running the country, these families have a foothold.

There are approx. 220 seats in the Pakistan National Assembly. On the whole, there are probably around 300 to 500 families that control almost all of these seats. They fight over these seats between each other. If one traces their intermarriages, 1/3rd or so end up being related to each other. Nearly all the members of these families live and grow up in Lahore, Peshawar, and Karachi etc. They go to school there, etc. Their lifestyles are more in touch with the USA, then the backward rural areas they represent. They have an odd house or haveli in their rural lands, which they visit every now and then. At every election, they shift into these havelis, make them their election headquarters, and fight to become the representatives of these extremely backward rural areas (even though none of them or their off-springs would ever think of living or growing in the rural areas, they are bent upon representing).

It is difficult for Pakistan to break out of their stronghold, because their family tentacles extend into every area (politics, military, civil service, business, etc.). Out of these areas, the military is probably the only one where the progress of their family members is purely due to merit. Everywhere else, it is mostly due to the last-name factor.

Currently, the parties which are not infiltrated by these last-names are MQM, Imran Khan`s PTI, the religious parties, and a few other small ones. However, the major powerhouses like the PPP and PML are completely owned by them; half the family in one party, half in the other.

I would be interested in finding out how the feudal structure in India was/is setup, and broken/not broken. Is it in the in the control of any last-names?

Ras Siddiqui: #13: Naveed Qamar`s name used to come up in Pakistani politics quite a bit; unfortunately not in a very good light.

Anyone who worked with NS and BB in generally considered corrupt (an overwhelming number of them probably are corrupt, although there are some honest ones also). In case of Naveed Qamar, he was sitting on the gold chest, i.e. the privatization commission. Everyone and their grandmother, including Zardari`s pals wanted to buy the govt. owned corporations, at throw away prices. Because of this, people generally assume the head of the privatization commission is generally, ``more corrupt`` than the other corrupt colleagues of our distinguished leaders (the other appointment that falls into this category is the head of the Ehtesab Bereau).

I do not know whether Naveed Qamar was an honest or dishonest man. If he is an honest man, then BB would have gone against her nature to appoint an honest person to a position that could prove so lucrative to her colleagues. You have described him as an, ``idealist.`` Would you happen to know which industries were privatized in Pakistan, while Naveed Qamar was the head of privatizaion? That would give a good indication of his honesty/dishonesty. I agree that no one should be kept in jail without a trial.

Really funny article nicely returned and laughed.

The sad part is it is a real experience and tragic.

RE Ferozek

Don`t forget that India is not too different. Both were cut from the same piece of cloth--which also means that there is hope for your end of the world as well. If it works well here, so can it over there, even taking into account demographic and cultural shifts over the last 50 years.

It hasn`t been done for over 50 years, but breaking the feudal society is the first step. India was fortunate in having people like Vinobha Bhave and others who fought for land reform--and it ain`t done yet. From an economic perspective, we know that small farming is not cost effective, but it has a huge psychosocial impact on this part of society. The feeling of ownership does wonders and that brings them into the democratic process and the mainstream. These small farmers are not competing with Archers Daniel Midland to feed the world, but are fighting for their subsistence and anything is better than nothing.

Intolerance however is a sad side effect of years of religous bumbling and coddling by various regimes in Pakistan, but if it can be countered in any way, economic liberalization and land reform is the most effective way out. When people get busy, they have less time to spend worrying and therefore turn less to religion as a panacea for all things.

In the words of Dylan, when you`ve got nothing, you`ve got nothing to lose. Too bad that the most recent crop of bumblers in power dont have what it takes to right the course.

Re: Zeejah

1970 was an interesting year! I still remember flashes of it...!

Elections in Pakistan are more about personal egos than goverance and I hope that Pakistan breaks out of this cycle and really mirrors the voice and concern of its citizens, but I will not hold my breath!

Pakistan is a feudal society at heart and it will always remain so despite all the modern facade we put on!

Feudalism is about intolerance and is antithetical to democracy and elections!

Pakistan is a theocracy and theocratic states have no need for elections!

Ciao!

Re Ferozk #8

The ONLY election I have experienced in Pakistan was in 1970. U wouldnt remember I guess as you were still a lil kid then... :)

btw ... is Rati online too?

Ferozk#8 It is true that Pakistan has a sad history of three military takeovers (Ayub, Zia, Musharraf). Unlike the previous military regimes, however, the current one is finding the global climate unexpectedly hostile to military takeovers (the cold war being over, and military rule being no longer in fashion around the world) and also recognizes that Pakistani people will tolerate military rule only to the extent it solves some problems and then steps out of power. The storming of the Supreme Court a few years ago was a disgraceful act and, by helping turn public opinion against NS, sowed the seeds for his downfall.

I think it is in everyone`s interest, including that of the Indian people (this may be hard to believe for some people), for Pakistan to end military rule and have elections. The real task of making South Asia a peaceful and prosperous part of the world lies ahead for all of us.

great article, as usual.

Elections!

I wish 20 year old`s were allowed to contest and I wish Elections were tommorow and I wish I was contesting against the most Influential of them all..oohhh how I wish..if only wishes could come true...:)

regards,

Taimur.

In response to Ras Siddiqui (Reply # 13)
Dear Ras:

I am once again moved by you reference to Naveed Qamar`s illegal incarceration. I understand, no person in a ``Legal Pakistan`` could be jailed for more than 90 days without due process.

It is a shame that the State which is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens has long been violating them.

We need to write against such gross injustices (if your information is verifiable)in the Pakistani press. Of all the newspapers, Frontier Post is one which publishes letters without any censorship (self or otherwise).

I had published a letter against a similar situation in the FP (in response to a letter from Ayesha Khalid Aziz, I think this was her name before her recent marriage; her father was incarcerated in the infamous Attock Fort; I don`t know them personally).

Isn`t injustice institutionalized in Pakistan since, at least, the colonial days? Are we free in a so-called free and independent Pakistan?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. Please tell us more about Naveed Qamar. His name sounds familiar. Did he go to Karachi University?

My experiences with ``elections`` in Pakistan
have until recently been with through my good
friend Naveed Qamar ``MNA`` (if that really means
something in Pakistan). He was even Finance Minister of the country for a record full week and former head of Privatization effort in Benazir`s government. Naveed has been languishing in a Rawalpindi jail for over one year now without a trial.
You`re darn right that I`m pissed off due to
his treatment and see little room for improvement
in a country where idealists are treated in such
a manner.

Ras

if only 30%(or 18%) vote, and even those votes seem to be manipulated (as alleged), then how can it be claimed that the `jihadi parties` will never get more than 2 seats? maybe people are not being given `a free choice` to vote for these parties!

in free and fair elections (without the famous last names influencing the voters), can the jihadis come out as the winners?

;O)

RE: Ferozk

I agree with both of your notes-the serious one and the un-serious one.

According to statistics reported by Pakistani print media the Election Commission of Pak has identified 17 million bogus voters in a total voting list of 57 million people. In a particular case there were over 300 voters registered at a one room house in a shanty town in Lahore.

That pretty much explains why democracy fails at all levels in a country where only 30% of voters use their right to vote ( again govt. figures, whereas conservative estimates put this number down to 18%).

Voting must be made mandatory and failure to comply with this requirement should be made a punishable offence by law.

re Umairr #2:

The article is a simple narration of the electoral realities in Pakistan. Your analysis of the malaise afflicting Pakistan is too simplistic.

The scions of the political elite do not need to burn the midnight oil in far-off lands when they can get sugar and honey in their own constituencies. Thought experiments of the expatriates who`ve done well in ``international business`` are too harraowing to narrate here. We had the Shahid Burkis and Mehboob-ul-Haqs of this world taking us for a ride earlier. Now we have the Moeen Qureshis and Shaukat Azizes of this world cooking up recipes for a grand Armageddon. The Sun microsystems guy was the cleverest of them all.He had the good sense to realize whats good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.

I am always amazed by the desire of otherwise intelligent Paksitanis looking for the elusive mard-i-momin to set things right. One shudders at the thought of Edhi(the great man that he is) ever put in charge of cleansing Pakistan. Being good at one thing does not translate into being good at another.

As far as the issue of privileged families is concerned, look at the grandest democracies of them all-USA. Even in yesterday`s elections there were only a handful of races that were up for grabs in the Senate and Congress. Imagine going up against a Kennedy in Massachussets or a Bush in Texas or a Quayle in Indiana. These families have occupied the political landscape for a long long time and they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Unlike other Pakistanis I don`t think Pakistan needs to send its elite into outer space. Its elite needs to realize that it needs the cooperation of the middle classes to run the country. Remember Pakistan was not founded by the haris or the Muzarays. It was founded by the elite of the day. Sadly the elite has not been able to devise a social contract with the middle classes in order to split the pie somewhat proportionately. The NABs of this world will put some privileged ones out of business but like a hydra-headed monster it will come back more powerful than before. The Army being a middle-class institution(with middle-class mores and thoughts) cannot cure what ails Pakistan. The tragedy of Pakistan is the tragedy of lack of thought on its elite`s part.

later

-sac

Zeejah :

I really liked the article.

Thanks !

-Arun Gupta

Re: tahmed321 # 4

On a serious note, do elections really happen in Pakistan?

When was the last time an election was held in Pakistan?

How is power transfered in Pakistan? Coup d` état, storming the Supreme Court or via some other means?

I would love to read your observations/comments on these questions!

Ciao!

At another election an old woman came up to me asking ``Are you `Mayun Khan`s sister?`` My heart sank for I thought she was going to ask for some `sifarish`. But instead she told me, ``Tell `Mayun Khan that I have voted for him ever since he has been standing for elections because he has built roads and schools and brought sweet, fresh water to my village.``

For some reason my hair stood on end. Later, when I told Humayun about it he said his hair had stood on end too and that remarks such these made all his hard work a pleasure.

Dear Zeejah (Zeenat Jahan?):

An interesting and informative narrative!

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Ferozk #1 ``Need I say more!!!!!!!!!``

Thanks for sparing us your observations.

Timely article, today being election day in the US. Election day is the day that the true joy of a free society can be felt in the air. I felt it in Pakistan between martial laws. And I feel it here in the US, where elections are held in a peaceful, quiet and yet very exciting manner. The only time the magic wasnt there in Pakistan was during Zia`s ``election`` when people generally stayed away realizing the whole thing was a set up. However, my Dad insisted on going to the voting booth in Islamabad in order to use the opportunity to cast his vote against Zia - we were the only voters who showed up it seems, and were gratefully escorted around like royalty by the police and other Zia minions, which simply increased our great pleasure when we put a NO against the proposition that Zia should stay in power.

PS Loved your line ``She included his belt, and my reading glasses in some curses I could not understand.``

The author says at the end:

``Next elections I will be back in Ghaznikhel, inshaAllah.``

Next elections - now that would be a long wait, wouldn`t it?

I would be interested in getting your views on the domination of the elections in Pakistan by a few families, year after year. And the efforts of these families to hold on to power, at the expense of the common man; in the process destroying whatever is left of Pakistan.

This in my opinion is one of the biggest problems facing Pakistan. Leghari, Khattak, Khosa, Khar, Bugti, Bhutto, Wali, this Khel and that Khel; unless one has the correct last name, one has very little shot of winning. It is basically a shoot out between the offsprings and siblings of politically powerful families, who have screwed up Pakistan, decade after decade. The most competent amongst this pool of incompetent last- names, ends up winning. I have some friends who fall into these categories. On the average, the best amongst them are incompetent in comparison to the above-average amongst the educated population of Pakistan. The worst amongst them are massively incompetent in comparison to the average Pakistani Joe. The small pool of last- names that dominate Pakistani politics, makes the choices of the average Pakistani voter quite limited.

It is not a coincidence that very very few of these people make it big (or even make an attempt to make it) in merit-based systems like the USA, where they lose the advantages of their last- name. One of have to look long and hard to find a Khar, or an uz-Zamman, a Chatha, or a Wali relative of the ruling dynasties (both, of the pre-British or post-British group) who has distinguished himself/herself in the international arena. One would also have to look long and hard to find a descendent of politically powerful generals like Ayub Khan and Zia who distinguished themselves anywhere, outside Pakistan. Idiots like Ejaz-ul-Haq, Gohar Ayub, and Humayun Akhtar, and the other beneficiaries of parents-in-power could barely make it even into middle management in international business, yet they return to Pakistan to control the destinies of the Pakistani populace. Same goes for the feudally powerful or the politically-powerful off-spring. It`s quite disgusting.

At most, the last-names are able to get into a good university (usually through political contacts or money). Thats about as much as they can do. Almost every Pakistani that has made it in a neutral international environment comes from the middle-class or at most upper middle class in terms of finance and political influence. Yet these last-names seem to dominate the Pakistani political process, thereby not allowing the best and brightest in Pakistan to enter this arena. Their only competitions are the cousins who belong to the opposition political parties. Some through political connections have now started dominating business, as well.

This is a pretty good article, as far as describing the environment of a Pakistani election. However, perhaps unintentionally, it describes all that is wrong with Pakistan also. The influential few, with historical last-names (or relationships with historical last-names), flying into, ``their`` ancestral villages, moving in chauffeur driven 4 x 4s and vans and attempting to get votes from the poor people who remain poor, despite voting for these candidates. Of course each candidate and his/her family member will always portray himself/herself as the, ``enlightened one`` who through their NGO work has actually benefited the area greatly. They have also fought for, ``democracy`` in Pakistan. They will point to the odd aunt, who donates a lot of money, or the odd uncle who is still not too wealthy because he would not accept bribes (implying that a person who has a good last-name and does not take bribes definitely deserves to be an MNA, as his birth-right), or the odd great grandfather who made it on his own. Somehow or the other, all the areas these people represent still remain in the fifth world, despite of the, ``good work`` of all these good aunts, uncles, and cousins who seem to be running representing these places, generation after generation. Compare this to the great work done by Dr. Akhtar in Orangi, and Edhi in all of Pakistan. I would take Imran Khan`s cancer hospital over what these last-names have done, anyday.

All of Pakistan (especially the rural areas) has always remained in the control of a few hundred families. They fight elections amongst each other, passing on the baton, to the next son, in-law, cousin, etc or whomever else, who seems a bit more capable than the opponents son, in-law, cousin etc. It is a big family affair (US politics to a much smaller extent is a family affair, also. But at least here the candidates actually do something for the their communities). The sooner Pakistan is rid of these urban last- names that continue to enslave the rural no-names, the quicker Pakistan will progress.

I am going off on a tangent, however I think this article describes everything that is wrong with Pakistani politics, i.e. the privileged last-names, fighting it out amongst their cousins and distant relatives (who belong to the opposing parties), while knowingly or unknowingly keeping their constituencies backwards. I have an odd relative or two who fall into this category in Punjab, and I despise them with a passion, regardless of how nice they are to me. It is still a well-established fact that when these guys grow old and die, the person who will climb their political throne will not be the most competent person from the community, but one of the offsprings of the current lot.

My criticism isn`t directed at the writer or her family personally. It is directed towards the, ``uppity`` ness of the article, which casually describes the core environment of the Pakistan political system, without pointing them out as problems. I wouldn`t be surprised if a portion of the writer`s close relatives contests the elections from the ANP platform and another portion from the PML platform (and perhaps a few even as PPP candidates and as independents). This is generally the strategy followed by the last-names in Pakistan who dominate rural politics. Half the family in the ruling party, the other half in the opposition party. Somehow or the other, their own kids prefer to live in Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. Yet these kids, when they grow up, are rarely willing to fight elections from these urban metropolises.

The best thing the off-springs of these last- names could do is to let the poor rural people elect rural leaders from their own communities, rather than flying in from Peshawar, to their rural homes, to aid in the process of furthering the hold of their relatives. Please get out of the way of these poor rural people, so they can progress. At the very least, please don`t patronize their simple behavior.

Elections in Pakistan?

Need I say more!!!!!!!!!

Ciao!