NOT ARCHIVE

2011-06-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

2011-06-27T04:35:00.001-07:00

Shadow War: The Untold Story of JIhad in Kashmir

2009-09-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

Book Review

The News on Sunday, 13th September, 2009

Evolution of a war

A book scripting the evolution of Pakistan military's ambition to use civilian insurgents as an instrument of defence and foreign policy

By Nadeem Omar Tarar

Shadow War:

The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir

By Arif Jamal

Published by Melville House Publishing, 2009

Pages: 352 (hardcover)

Price: $26.95

The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir is a myth-busting and brutal exposé of Pakistan's secret war against India. It provides crucial information on the key facets of militancy including recruitment, organisational structure, ideological base, and its transnational character. The author Arif Jamal, a journalist scholar from Lahore and New York, has not only made use of his journalist acumen and scholarly skills but more importantly his personal courage and professional integrity.

Jamal prefaces the book by validating the sources of his information which, given the clandestine nature of the subject, are as important as the findings of the study. He has been successful in interviewing most of the key players in the jihad networks as well as access organisational and popular literature of jihad. His use of first hand accounts and selective use of secondary sources turns it into a highly original work.

The author is especially well placed, to write such a book. Having begun his professional career in Pakistan in 1986 as a journalist with leading national and international media organisations, Arif Jamal has written hundreds of investigative and interpretive articles in English, focusing on Pakistan army and militant Islamic organisations. He holds a Masters in International Relations and has been a fellow at distinguished institutions including Harvard University and the University College of London, UK. He is presently associated with Center for International Cooperation, New York University , USA.

The book has broken the scholarly silence on military's involvement with militant Islamic groups and Pakistan's establishment's proxy war with India as it analyses the history of the jihad in Kashmir and the role of the Pakistan Army in shaping it since 1988. Scripting the evolution of the Pakistan's military ambition to use civilian insurgents/jihadis as an instrument of defense and foreign policy against India in Kashmir, the author provides a rather useful index of the names of the 'principal characters' from the warring regions, India, Pakistan and Kashmir, who would play out the script of jihad in Kashmir, a story which can compete with the best known political thrillers of our times.

In the first two chapters, the author outlines the formative phase of the Kashmir conflict and the evolution of the policy of using cross border Islamic militancy as an instrument of foreign policy, by focusing on Pakistan's first jihad under direct military command. It led to partition of Kashmir into Pakistani and Indian occupied Kashmirs within a year of independence in 1947. Chapter 3 discusses how CIA money, destined for the Afghan mujahideen in the 80s, was funneled to Kashmiri jihadis under Zia, creating a vital nexus of power and patronage of Islamic militants by the Pakistani military. Jamat-i-Islami (JI), provided ideological strength and human resource, in addition to coordinating jihadi network with various brands of Islamic militants across the world, fuelling a more than twenty-five year insurgency. Pakistani government and ISI support for militant groups who left Afghanistan to fight Indian rule in Kashmir has been the cause of much friction with India.

Chapter 4 and 5 demystify the notion of jihad as a selfless struggle for the glory of Islam by exposing the vicious competitions among various militant organisations fighting for share in the spoils of holy war. With the ascent of secular mission of JKLF, the Kashmiri nationalist militants in the 80s, JI fought back to take a lead role in the Kashmir Jihad with the help of ISI in post-Zia period. Chapter 5 builds on the factional struggle within the jihadi network and the hegemony of Hizbul Mujihadeen and its allied organisations on the reign of terror that they unleashed in Indian held Kashmir. They looted shops, bombed cinemas, targeted unveiled Muslim women and kidnapped, tortured and murdered Hindu businessmen and officials. In the process of conflict, Kashmiri society, which largely avoided communal riots at the time of partition, was convulsed into brutal violence, rising fundamentalism and communalism, and the flight of nearly the entire Hindu population from the Valley.

Chapter 6 outlines the military adventure of President Musharraf, the infamous Kargil war, as a logical corollary to Pakistan's policy of using jihadis as a strategic tool in the war against India. As Musharraf claimed it in his biography, it was waged to internationalise the Kashmir issue. On the contrary, it ended up isolating Pakistan internationally and for which Pakistan bore an enormous human cost. The financial cost of the war, met through Pakistani taxpayer's money, excluding the compensation rose to $700 million. Jamal analyses how the role of jihadis was overstated by the military and the sacrifices of Northern Light Infantry (NLI) drawn from Gilgit Baltistan/Norther Areas were ignored by the media.

Musharraf wore Kargil as a badge of honour despite repeated criticism of professional failures even from his very own military quarters. Claiming a degree of success in highlighting the Kashmir issue through Kargil, Musharraf went on to initiate peace process with India, epitomised by Agra Summit in 2001.

Jamal argues in chapter 7 that the failure of Agra Summit to lead to a peaceful resolution of conflicts between India and Pakistan rejoiced Islamic militants. Acquiring another lease of life, they attacked Red Fort and later that year on the Indian parliament, the very symbol of Indian sovereignty. In post 9/11 world, when Arab Islamic militancy under al-Qaeda came under an US-led international scrutiny, ISI tried to protect its jihadi networks in Pakistan and Kashmir by asking them to keep a low profile and camouflaging their organisational nomenclature. They were advised to drop names that smack of al-Qaeda -- Laskar, Jaish, and Sepah -- thereby allowing them to survive despite Musharraf's pronounced commitments to be a close American ally in international war on terror.

Extending the discussion of jihadi network further, the last chapter provides a substantiative account of ISI's official involvement in forming All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in 1993 in a bid to give a political face to jihad. Tracking its career over a decade Jamal, with profound penetration, analyses its impact on aggravating the Kashmir conflict, while counting its failure to live up to its original mandate.

A net result of shadow war with Kashmir has meant that Pakistani military has trained nearly half a million insurgents as a matter of defence policy, who now pose a grave threat to the peace and security of Pakistan. The nexus of power and patronage that was built up over Kashmir jihad fuels the militancy on Pakistani soil and abroad.

Coupled with threats of increasing "Talibinization" that mar the democratic future of Pakistan, the infrastructure of Jihad factory can not be effectively dismantled without finding solutions to Kashmir conflict. Despite numerous attempts in continuing formal peace talks between India and Pakistan in the last five years, militant attacks continue to hinder progress towards a sustainable solution on Kashmir. Talks are effectively put on hold since 2008 after India accused the ISI and Pakistani authorities of being complicit in the Mumbai Attacks.

Through a thick description of jihadi network, Arif Jamal underscores the global implications of a regional conflict. He argues that global jihad is an off-shoot of Kashmir conflict. Without peaceful resolution of Kashmir conflict, the international terror networks cannot be uprooted. In the light of Jamal's book, Barack Obama's singular focus on battling Taliban in Afghanistan and their sympathisers in Pakistan inherited from Bush administration can prove to be disastrous policy oversight for Pakistan as well as the international community.

CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT: THE MISSING LINK

2009-07-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Published in The News on Sunday, Political Economy, 12 July, 2009

Culture and development are intimately linked together in an increasingly globalised world, where development or its lack, is seen both as cause and solution of domestic social and cultural problems of global proportions. The strategic deployment of development and reconstruction plans in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, to break the fundamentalist's hold on cultural productions and regional economy, offers one of more dramatic illustrations of this relationship.

A textbook example of relationship between culture and development is the relative success of Aga Khan Rural Support Program, a non-sectarian development project in Northern Pakistan, especially in Ismaili dominated regions, attributed largely to a mutual fit between development agenda and the cultural and religious organisations.

Irrespective of the geo politics of development, common to both cases is the emphasis placed on culture as a means of human growth and empowerment and the recognition that in order to achieve sustainable development, and international peace, economic, financial and social reforms have to be addressed from a cultural perspective.

The consensus on the cultural dimensions of development in the international development sector has been slow to emerge, largely out of experience of administering development in the Third World as well as with interactions between development practitioners and academicians in the field of anthropology, economics and sociology. Central to the culture in development approach is the emphasis placed on culture as a means of human growth and empowerment and the recognition that in order to achieve a sustainable development, and international peace, economic, financial and social reforms have to be addressed from a cultural perspective.

Culture and development are linked in a number of different ways, and the connections relate both to the ends and the means of development. In the current global policy thinking, culture is not merely a means of promoting material progress but constitutes as the very basis of human development. Understood, as comprising of norms, tradition and values of a society, culture plays a critical role in economic performance and business behavior. Weberian analysis of the role of values in the emergence of capitalism is of considerable interest in the contemporary world, particularly in the light of the recent success of market economies in non-Protestant and even non-Christian societies.

While culture is regarded as the means and instrument of development, the notion of development, following Amrata Sen, is based on substantive expansion of freedom. It is not only the growth of GNP, but the enhancement of freedom and well being of people in a broad, holistic sense to include universal, physical, mental and social growth.

Appended to this approach is the idea that fostering respect for diversity and cultural pluralism is of crucial importance in the context of global and national culture, as the rapid spread of mass culture and its hegemonic tendencies are threatening the survival of traditional values and the interests of minorities. The need for respect for all cultures is particularly urgent at a time in which the uneasy acceptance of global culture and reactions against the alienating effects of large-scale modern technologies are reflected in the fast spread of religious fundamentalism and social intolerance.

Although the connections between cultural values and economic performance have been made in cultural theory as well as development economics, it remains debatable which set of values would work under what conditions. As in case of countries like Japan, China and India with fast economic growth, the relative merits of Confucian, Buddhist and Hindu values in shaping economic behavior are being debated.

Unfortunately, we lack informed debates on mainstreaming culture in development programmes and investments in the government and the non-government sector in Pakistan. The development sector in Pakistan is fairly cognizant of the importance of culture in development planning, yet the awareness of linkages remains at a level of project intervention in select areas rather than providing an overarching framework to restructure the development discourses. Organisation like UNESCO, which have from its very inception stressed the connection between culture and development have invested only in limited range of cultural arenas such as cultural tourism in Pakistan where as much more needs to be done to make cultural factors the focal point of all strategies for development.

CENSUS WITHOUT CONSENSUS

2009-06-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

Published in The News on Sunday, Political Economy, 28th June, 2009

The census scheduled for 2008 has been postponed. The federal government, which is responsible for census operations, cannot foot the bill and is seeking international donor support and private sector investments to fund an exercise in which 150,000 armed forces' personnel would be required to provide security to civilian census staff, especially in Balochistan and the NWFP.

This is not the first time that the government has failed to conduct on time this national data gathering exercise, which can be the only informed basis of allocating resources and rights to the citizens. The demographic profile is a key indicator to rank wealth and power of a nation and its constituent entities. Its data determines social power and political rights. That is why for many it is the hallmark of what constitutes a nation.

The fifth census scheduled for 1991 was delayed by seven years, and was conducted in 1998. It is strange that we have been devising policies and programmes in the absence of an updated demographic profile like the census since that year. Pakistan conducted its first census in 1951. Since then, four more decennial population and housing censuses have been conducted -- in 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998 -- with frequent lapses. The failure to hold regular census points to weakening writ of the state. It also reflects division within the nation, and the contested nature of rights and resources administered on the basis of census.

Is the delayed census a tragic reminder of a divided nation, which, if required, should be united through the use of armed forces? Or is there something about the census that does not neatly translate into indicators of equitable development and sustainable growth for all the members of a nation? A bit of history will help us answer this question.

Census as a tool of state craft was originated in the Western Europe in the early nineteenth century. After the first British census was conducted on March 10, 1801, and every 10 years thereafter, the practice of decennial census became a universal norm. The ability to conduct census also represented the power of the state over the nation. In the Indian subcontinent, the British colonial census drew on the long indigenous history of numeracy and information gathering institutions. This also included the Indian caste system, which provided the British with a relatively stable scheme to classify the Indian population according to indigenous criteria. Similarly, religion also appeared to the British a natural distinction to divide the population.

The first census of Punjab province, which forms a large part of present day Pakistan, was conducted in 1855 with Richard Temple as the chief census commissioner. It divided the population on the basis of two religious categories, the Hindus and the Muslims, creating the idea of numerical strength that was to serve as the basis of political representation and communal quotas later. The first decennial census was conducted by Denzil Ibbetson, who later became the governor of Punjab, in 1883. It extended the purview of census to the enumeration and ranking of castes in Punjab. The famous colonial anthropological text, The Punjab Castes, which is still in popular demand and is widely cited as the most authoritative account of castes and tribes of the province, was based on the report of this census.

The basis of Hindu-Muslim conflict can be traced back to the beginning of census operations in India. Communal boundaries between the Hindus and the Muslims were murky at the time of the first colonial census. Overlapping cultural codes and shared histories of dwelling rendered the communal identities as fluid. Therefore, the tabulation of information on population in distinct religious categories led to a heightened sense of religious identity. The census linked the elite political representation and communal quotas in education and employment with numerical strength of religious communities. In fact, state gazetteers and the census institutionalised the religious and cultural differences in mutually exclusive categories, sowing the seeds for inter-communal violence leading to partition and fuelling intra-state communal conflicts in the region.

Even the term 'Hindu' was largely a British invention. The British colonisers used it to demarcate a community distinct from the Muslims. Sikhs, untouchables and tribals were categorised as Hindus in the first census of Punjab. In 1868, the Sikhs were re-classified as distinct from the Hindus. Hindu nationalist saw this as a blow to their numerical strength and political representation. Every act of numeration sparked controversies and mobilised communities for effective self representation in census figures.

The colonial census computation of conversion rates of Hindus to Christianity and Islam precipitated the Hindu proselytising movement Arya Samaj in Punjab. For Muslims, on the other hand, early census returns brought home the realisation that they were a numerical minority in the Indian subcontinent, thus they sought education and jobs in the government service to bolster their demographic profile. The Muslim educational movement, such as Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh University, was engendered by similar fears of losing out on the religio-political front.

A quick reference to the censuses in Britain since the nineteenth century reveals how colonial census was used as a tool of imperialism in India. The census in Britain remained largely a secular institution as regards the collection and presentation of data. The census exercise exhibited either disinterest in religion or extreme reluctance to explore this field. In several censuses, there was no question on religion; and wherever any question on religion was included, it was done with extreme care. Not only this, the results were published separately from the census reports. No British census in the last two centuries has asked questions on ethnicity or religion. The question on ethnicity was for the first time introduced in 1991 Census and there was pressure to include religion in the 2001 Census of the Great Britain. The American census also specifically prevents collection of data on religion.

On the other hand, census in the colonial India had a different purpose altogether. Driven by the colonialist need to know the land and population it controlled, the census served the imperative of control and domination. In colonial census of India, the question on religion, caste and race was introduced since its beginning in the 1850s. Religion was used as a fundamental category in census tabulations and data on this was published without any restraint. It seems that the projection of cleavages within the colonial society was essential for sustaining the British rule. In fact, the British used a variety of texts, forms and methods to continue and perpetuate their rule at the cost of strained communal relationships in India.

Since a foreign and colonial government initiated both gazetteers and census, no public opinion or the representative institutions existed to limit the subjects investigated in the two documents. A comparative view of census enables us to see how modern census has played a different role in the social and political life of people in Britain and its colonies. The policies, procedures and institutions in Pakistan are very much framed along the lines marked by colonial census in the British India.

No attempt has ever been made to revisit the colonial categories and frame new one to unite, rather than divide, the society. From seats in the parliament to the allocation of jobs in government service, to the provision of education, health and civic services, all national resources are tied with numerical strength, irrespective of the needs of the marginalised segments of society. Every single census in Pakistan was conducted amid the storms of protests from the disenfranchised ethnic and religious groups, but without eliciting any changes in the census schedule. As a result, the struggle for power among various social and religious groups in the society draws on the imbalance between census figures and the situation on the ground.

Although the institutions gathering information on various aspects of population have diversified, along with the number of subjects under tabulation, the fundamental postulates of modern census as a measure of a nation's wealth and ranking have not changed. The politicisation of census in Pakistan has jeopardised the national planning process, because without reliable census figures, macroeconomic management is bound to fail and so is the electoral process based on doctored figures. The mirage of electoral democracy that holds the country together is in jeopardy, if the plans for decennial census are abandoned again. A fraction of media hype and public attention that is routinely showered on electoral process will relocate the issue of census and place it at the heart of the debate on national sovereignty and democratic struggle, to where it must belong.

COMMUNICATION: IN WORDS AND IMAGES

2009-02-14T13:52:00.000-08:00

Published in The News on Sunday, March, 2009

Every art exhibition, which goes up in the city, leads to an afresh round of skirmishes between artists and critics. Much of it is fueled by the disagreement over how does art communicate. Some critics expect art to communicate to us instantly and directly, in a manner an essay or a newspaper article does. They assume it to be an act of communication comparable to an act of speech or writing. These expectation and assumptions reflect a conflation of two communication activities, which are anything but different. The point of the article is to identify the different nature of communication process at work: in words and in images.

Lets take written/verbal communication first. Every non-visual communication act, be it verbal or non-verbal, involves a mediumthrough which it carries a message and delivers it to areceiver in time and space. An act of writing or speech contains an argument. An argument carries a messageand delivers it to a receiver in a certain amount of time, through the medium of writing or speech. (A dense argument may take more time to deliver). Two things should happen, if a message is to be delivered effectively. The message should lose its utility once it has reached the receiver (otherwise it may involve the risk of non-communication). Second, different receivers should get the same message, if a proper communication is to occur. The present article, for instance, is an act of communication. It contains an argument (a message), expressed through writing (a medium) to be delivered to the readers (receiver) in a certain amount of time. Ideally speaking, in order for an effective communication to take place, the argument should be understood by all readers equally well, without leaving any room for conflicting interpretation. Moreover, once it has reached to the readers, this argument should run out its utility and may lead to another argument or counter argument. This is how we communication through words in daily lives.

An essential feature of an effective verbal or written communication is linearity. Ideally, a speech or writing act is linear and unfold over time in a straight line. It starts from a point A and moves along a unilinear progression (of ideas and concepts) to conclude at a point Z in time. It is because of the linear nature of intellectual activity that even an entire book of 1000 pages can be described in a series of schematic statements. The structure and character of written or speech communication act can now be contrasted with art or visual communication.

The prevailing confusion about what the art objects says lies precisely in the fact that it is not comparable to a speech or written act of communication. If we try to understand or read a work of art as an act of writing containing a specific message, we will end up in frustration. The reason lies less the fact that aesthetic communication leaves the sphere of rational discourse and enters into the realm of untheorised experience and feelings. The fabric of art is the province of subjective feelings, which lends itself to formulation through images. The art or aesthetic communication is an on-going process. It does not start or stop at definite points. It neither contains an essentialmessage intended by the artist, to be communicated to the spectator nor the message will be finished once the communication act is over. The great works of art never finish to communicate to the viewer. Theoretically speaking, a masterpiece should let you discover new meanings and message, every time you look at it. It is mainly because of the open-ended nature of the aesthetic communication that generation after generations can live off the aesthetic experiences of great works of arts, without losing their capacity to generate new messages.

Given these contrasting features of aesthetic communication and non-aesthetic communication, one can begin to understand the conflicting views held by artists and critics. The former tends to see their work, as a part of on-going aesthetic experience and later see it as a product of finished intellectual message. A ’structure of intelligent dialogue’ between critic and artist, can only be established, if the fundamental differences between the two communication acts are placed in their respective contexts. Other social explanations, including curbs on critical thinking in our society, of course, reinforce and split this divide further.

The Idea of Civil Society: Reviewing Gellner

2008-11-30T06:12:00.000-08:00

Ideological
pluralism

Conditions of

Liberty:

Civil Society

and its Rivals

By Ernest Gellner

Published by Hamish Hamilton, 1994

Republished by Penguin Books, 1996

Pages: 225

Price:$86.98

By Nadeem Omar Tarar

Ernest Gellner, who died on 5 November 1995, was one of the great polymaths of the century. Many of his twenty books were concerned with philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Yet, at the core of his work was an historical question. In the backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gellner wrote essays on the origins of civil society which later provided substance for his book Conditions of Liberty which synthesised and extended the thought of a lifetime. In the wake of judicial crisis in the country, a large scale mobilisation of diverse groups across society have taken place, providing a renewed currency and valency to the term 'civil society' in Pakistan. Gellner's works can help initiate the debate on the role of civil society in the country.

Civil society is understood as a set of diverse, non-governmental institutions which are strong enough to counterbalance the state. Without preventing the state from fulfilling its role of peace-keeping and arbitration between major interests, the civil society can, nevertheless, prevent it from dominating and atomising the rest of the society. Underlying the concept of civil society is the notion of institutional and ideological pluralism that prevents the monopoly of power and counterbalances those central institutions which, through necessity might, otherwise acquire such monopoly.

The phrase civil society was used in the philosophies of Locke and Hegel that kept the philosophers busy for some time to come. But the recent emergence of the idea of civil society as a shining emblem for a democratic society, is linked with the developments in the recent political history of the world. The political developments in Eastern Europe, as a result of disintegration of the former USSR, led to an upsurge in the idea of civil society which was found lacking in those societies. It can also be seen, as philosopher-sociologist Ernst Gellner argues, as a backlash to the suppression of ideal and practices of civil society by Marxist regimes in USSR and elsewhere. They firmly declared their central intuition that civil society is a fraud: being handmaiden to the dominating state, it is a facade to hide its oppression. The support for civil society is a bid to hide the complicity of civil society with state, which should go. The withering away of state will pave the way, it was argued, for a just social and moral order, that can take care of itself, without requiring a state or additional institutions to counter balance the central agency. Therefore, the active suppression of the idea of civil society by Marxist regimes and their consequent failure to live up to their own socialist vision, led to the renewed interests in the idea and the yearning for the creation of civil society.

The growing expectation of the people to build up a civil society is not restricted to communist failure alone. In South Asia, it has its own independent roots. Among others, the most important is the hegemonic, over expanded state structures, that has started to crumble under its own weight, creating massive corruption and causing severe problems in the governance of the South Asian countries. The yearning for civil society in former Marxist countries and elsewhere in Asia makes one significant point. That is to say, civil society is not something that is given, it has to be groomed. It's not something that can be cherished as an idea and then imposed on a society by legal frameworks or governmental regulations. It is beyond the reach of an individual efforts or the well wishes of a group. Ernest Gellner outlines the institutional preconditions for the growth of civil society through a historical study of three societies namely Muslim, Marxist and Capitalist west.

Gellner analyses the emergence of distinct cultural forms, over the centuries in the aforementioned diverse societies. He is careful to distinguish between the forms of liberties. He doesn't generalise the conditions of civil society as a token of universal human condition.

Marxism was the first secular belief system to become a world religion, as well as a state ideology. It instituted a social and moral order with its own socio-metaphysics. It was not only moral, but also promised freedom from economic inequality and political oppression. Marxism promised a total salvation, not for an individual but to the total humanity which is reflected in its failure to create life cycles rituals in USSR. Gellner argues: "the great weakness of Marxism may not be so much its formal elimination of the transcendent from religion, but its over-sacralization of the immanent."

The sacralization of social and economic life leaves out the option of retreating into profanity in the times of diminished zeal. With the sacralization of work, the failure in economy is likely to diminish the faith on the sacred. By a strong contrast, the success or the failure of economic activity (since its neutral), doesn't contaminate or effect the faith in Islam. The religious Umma or community of believers, was able to retain its control over its followers, by keeping up the distinction between sacred and profane and thereby, separating economic from religious. Whereas in Marxist societies, with the sacralization of economy and society, the distinction between sacred and profane was collapsed. As a result political economic and ideological hierarchies were united into a single pyramid of bureaucracy. This not only effected the economic performance, but also proved catastrophic for the social soul.

"When the nomenklatura killed each other and accompanied the murderous rampage with blatantly mendacious political theatre, belief survived; but when the nomenklatura switched from shooting to bribing each other, faith evaporated." This observation has serious implication for the civil society. Gellner seems to be asserting that for Marxist regimes, civil society was considered a fraud, not only because of its assumed complicity with state but also due to sacralization of social and economic life. As a result no popular will, expressed through civil society, could be considered legitimate. In the same vein, but due to opposite reasons, in Islamic societies, state was considered as the implementer but not the creator of divine law. As long as it doesn't violate it, the need for an additional institution, expressing the popular will, and holding state accountable for other than divine will, was not considered legitimate. In both cases, there are no grounds for the existence of civil society.

According to Gellner, civil society cannot be imposed from above. Rather, it takes its roots with the gradual evolution of institutional preconditions like the centralisation of authority for maintaining political order and decentralised economic and ideological control. For instance, in Europe, the French centralising monarchy, with its respect for property, prepared grounds for the civil society which modern democracy completed.

Economic decentralism is also considered essential precondition of civil society mainly because of two reasons. In an industrial society, it is not possible for sub units (like a county) to claim the loyalties of all of its members. The possibility of pluralism of politically autonomous, coercive units is rather too remote [unlike in a segmentary society composed of clans, baradaris]. Liberty, on the other hand, as a condition of balance of power of autonomous units, demands such pluralist arrangement. Since the pluralistic structure can not be political, therefore, it has to be economic. Secondly, the existence of genuinely independent productive and property controlling units is also necessary for the economic efficiency and growth.

In this economic pluralist arrangement, however, Gellner doesn't discard the role of state. In contrast, he argues that modern technological innovations and the welfare system can not be managed alone by market, through the enlightened self interests of the individuals. It requires a loose state control. The assigned role of state becomes all the more necessary, when the "pure-market-cum-minimalist-state" model cannot be relied upon. Viewing large scale and irreversible consequences of modern technological innovations on social order, the production process cannot be left in the 'invisible hand' of forces of market. There must be a regulatory body that monitors and effectively checks the productive units without depriving them of their autonomy. In this loose state-economy arrangements, it will be economic growth and ideological pluralism that balances the centralising trends of state. Ideological pluralism or "double think" is also necessary, because these are the cognitive mechanism underlying the technological-economic growth of societies.

One of the adverse consequence of ideological and economic centralism, observable in Marxist societies, is the sacralization of social order. Communist system was a moral order where faith and social order was fused, but in a civil society it is reversed. The circle between faith, power and society is broken up. In a civil society, social order is not sacralized. With the desacralization of social order, the social cooperation, loyalty and solidarity do not require a shared faith, instead they require a shared doubt. In contrast to Durkhemian sociology, where man has a organic relationship with society marked by religion and ritual, Gellner makes a strong case for social modularity of modern man, as a essential precondition for civil society. Social modularity makes people capable of combing effective innovations and institutions without these being stranded. The formation of specific purpose, ad-hoc and limited organisation signifies a shift from status to contract form of social relationships. The transition from a moral order to a functional, pragmatic compromise is aided by economic prosperity and growth. Increase in economic growth facilities this delicate balance of power between desacralized, autonomous, economic units, under lose political control and keeps this strategic balance of forces in play, ensuring civil liberties in modern societies.

The F.E. Choudhry Gallery: A Story of Normalcy, or of Displacement?

2008-05-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Nadeem Omar Tarar

Posted at All Things Pakistan.
http://pakistaniat.com/2008/05/14/fe-chaudhry-flood-1950-pakistan/

This photographs from F.E. Chaudhry depicts Chacha’s ability to turn a news story into a human story.

A narrative photograph of the Punjabi victims of the 1950 floodin the wake of which nearly three thousands perished. Their villages and homes submerged, a family has taken refuge in a railway bogey, which serves as a kitchen as well as shelter from the blistering heat.

Each individual in the picture, though part of a single family with elderly heads of household and their children, is lost in his or her own personal world. With little interaction among them, they appear to be privately counting and mourning their losses.

The young man while preparing food on the railway wagon apprehensively looks at the sky as if searching for the clouds that drowned their village and their lives. Except for the elderly woman who looks into the camera, the other younger women shield themselves from the prying eyes of the cameraman.

The story telling quality of the photograph lies precisely in the fact that each individual character in the photograph is revealing his or her own story without compromising on the overall composition or the melancholic effect of the image.

The F.E. Choudhry Gallery: Ba Adab, Ba Mulahiza

2008-05-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

This set of photographs from F.E. Chaudhry depict the news journalist side of Chacha’s portfolio.

In February 1961, Queen Elizabeth II, toured India, Iran, Nepal and Pakistan on her first ever tour of countries outside Europe. She arrived in Pakistan on 11th February, and was received at the airport by Govenor, Nawab Kalabagh Khan. As a staff reporter of The Pakistan Times, F E Chaudhry covered her entire visit, but only two pictures are presented here.

In the first picture, taken at the Lahore airport, where out of hundreds who gathered to cheer the Queen, only a select group of high profile politicians and bureaucrats are being introduced to the Queen. Bowing the head by gentleman in the suit while shaking hands with the Queen is only contrasted by the forced head bowing of two durbans holding spears at the entrance while clasping their hands in submission in the second picture, as Queen oblivious to their menial presence, is being escorted by the leading ladies to the Lahore Fort.

If the first picture projects an image of a modern, progressive nation, capable of hosting international dignitaries, the second picture deliberately re-creates a royal Indian past to highlight its ancient culture, with staged presence of durbans in Mughal costumes in a backdrop of a medieval fort built by the mighty Mughals, however, both joined by their acceptance of Western cultural and political domination revealed in the servile posturing of noted figures that frame the pictures and our history.

F E Chaudhry Gallery: Personal Hygiene

2008-04-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

Posted at All Things Pakistan.

http://pakistaniat.com/2008/04/21/f-e-choudhry-photograph-women-lice/

Nadeem Omar Tarar

In this, the first in our series of photographs from the F.E. Chaudhry Collection, we want to feature this remarkable photograph taken on a Lahore street-side, probably in the 1950s.

A group of four young women unabashedly sitting in a row on a road side in Lahore, picking each other’s heads for lice and so very focussed on the task at hand that they are oblivious to the passersby. The children (probably their own) squatting around and hiding in their laps, captures an age old family ritual that is no longer to be seen, even in the private, lost forever to the glamorous new world of branded soaps and shampoos.

The photograph shows F. E. Choudhry’s penchant for novel sights. The public performance of personal hygiene was not an uncommon sight, even amongst the more affluent. But usually not so for picking lice. Although it was a common practice for women (sometimes men too!) to pick head lice for each other, especially in summer, when head lice breed in great number, it was usually done in the privacy of home. This is clearly an example of poverty forcing people to “live” in the public space and conduct what would otherwise be private acts, in public. This, as we shall later see, was a recurrent theme in F.E. Choudhry’s portfolio.

F E Chaudhry Gallery: Women at Work

2008-04-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Posted at All Things Pakistan

http://pakistaniat.com/2008/04/27/fe-choudhry-women-work-rickshaw/

Nadeem Omar Tarar

Much like the last photograph in our series on the F.E. Chaudhry Collection, this photograph is also about women at work. But in a different way.

This photograph, taken in Lahore probably in the 1960s, brings to light many Pakistani realities; some of which have changed, and some not.

Showing an elderly woman hauling a cycle rickshaw, boarded by a family of four, the photograph can be seen as the inhuman plight of an old women left to fend for herself. At the same time, it can speak for struggle of working women who can take to occupations generally associated with masculine strength, when the need arises, rather than being confined to domestic spaces to suffer in misery or beg on the streets.

The photograph also presents a forgotten image of Pakistani society, when it was not altogether uncommon for even working class women to ride or drive on the road. Contrary to the present, when its almost a taboo for women to ride a bicycle or motorcycle, a working class vehicle, forcing them to ride behind their men, this photograph clearly refutes the impression that our society in the past was less susceptible to gender equality. It makes one wonder how we came to lock ourselves in patriarchal prison, pushing half of our population off the public sphere.

NORMS AND FORMS OF DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN

2006-07-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Published in Himal Southasia on December, 2006

The Pakistani intelligentsia is used to bemoaning, in addition to the overdeveloped state structure, the disease of authoritarianism that threatens the future of democracy in Pakistan. This disease is nurtured, it is said, by a blend of retrogressive social values, which encourage submission to patriarchy and kill an individual’s questioning spirit. Most importantly, it is argued that an essential structure of democratic norms, having evolved in the West through a long process of conflict between bourgeois and feudal elements, has not established itself in Pakistani culture. Going by the prevailing arguments, there are cultural prerequisites to democracy as a system of governance, and the absence of a particular moral and social fibre in the society inhibits the growth of democratic practice in Pakistan.

This argument of organic incompatibility and retrogressive cultural values assumes a certain democratic ideal with which political situations can be compared – an ideal that is both a theoretical and a historical fiction. Such an argument brings Western and non-Western societies into a parallel that is unwarranted and simplistic, given the vast amount of historical and cultural differences between and within the two. In this hypothesis, democracy is granted a fixed historical origin. Instead of viewing culture as a process of becoming, the argument looks for prerequisites, as if it were not the democratic process but rather the culture without democracy that gives rise to democracy. Instead of studying the shaping influence of historical experience, this argument sticks to the emblems of origins, and pins the failure of democracy on cultural values. It omits the local brand of democracy by committing itself to the professional humanist habits of seeing only evolution along Western historical lines as true evolution, and of interpreting non-Western societies by their placement along such an imagined timeline. In other words, by staring too much at ‘History’, the Pakistani intelligentsia loses sight of its country’s own multiple, discrepant histories.

The argument of Pakistan’s incompatibility with democracy testifies to the claims of British colonial historiography: that democracy was bestowed on India through colonialism. It supports the idea that it is thus an alien concept, one that runs only through the institutions of power that were put in place to colonise the native population. No doubt there is an element of historical credence to this point, but in the heat of argument we often forget that the grand narratives of democracy and enlightenment – as well as their institutional practices – mobilised people in the colonised world to rise up and throw off the yoke of imperial subjection. Aijaz Ahmad, a postcolonial critic and historian, has argued that the historical adequacy of such things as democracy and nationhood should not be looked for by referring to their origins in Europe; rather, this needs to be established through reference to the practices of political subjects within a geo-political space.

The historically adequate referent for democracy exists in pre- and postcolonial India in the shape of the anti- colonial struggle. Internally this process was far more democratic than was the colonial state, and it mobilised some 20 million peasant households through the Quit India Movement. In a similar vein, various sub-national resistances against the internal colonialism of the nation state in Pakistan – such as those of Bengali, Sindhi, Pakhtun and Kashmiri nationalism, along with broad-based peasant and labour movements – are testimony to the fact that democracy is not the privilege of a few cultures, nor is it tied to a string of liberal cultural values. However, the sad fact is that official historians of state nationalism excised crucial chapters from the pages of subcontinental and Pakistani history: those of the unleashing of a democratic process by the anti-colonial struggle. They did so by splitting the struggle along communal and separatist lines, thus creating part of a story that puts the onus of responsibility for extended military dictatorships directly on the shoulders of the masses themselves.

Furthermore, the position that attributes the failure of democracy to certain archetypal features of Pakistani culture, such as family institutions and baradai networks, echoes the views of modernisation theorists who attribute underdevelopment to the internal backwardness of third-world societies rather than to historical and global circumstances. Such arguments, which emerge through the educated prisms of our intellectual elite, resonate with the paternalist arrogance of great fiction writers such as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, who, by insisting that the Indian reality required (indeed, beseeched) British tutelage more or less indefinitely, ultimately forecast the untenability of their own theories of organic backwardness. Though the Pakistani state may give its citizens democracy more in breach than in observance, it is worth recalling that nowhere in Europe or North America is adult franchise implemented with such low levels of literacy and material well-being as there are in Southasia. And nowhere in the West did women achieve the right to vote in the founding moments of electoral democracy, as happened in post-Independence India and Pakistan.

These observations are not intended to privilege feudal residues, patriarchy and gender oppression, or the presumed ills of social structure. Nor are they meant to play down the corrupting influences of martial law on Pakistan’s fractured political process. Nevertheless, there is a need to register unease with the argument that ties democracy to a handful of Western liberal values. Democracy as a political practice must be read in the active struggle of political subjects in their political space. The institutional values of democracy should be separated from democracy as a set of cultural practices. When it comes to cultural practice, it is the active political struggle of a subject that can adduce a historically adequate referent for democracy, and not a squabble over the question of origins and endings.

However, the forms of democratic norms are bound to vary in different cultural spaces. It is in large part the colonial engineering of Pakistani society – which fostered a certain evolution of the social structure of the colonised – that is responsible for the fact that it is not individual ethos, but rather ethnic, religious and kin networks that will continue to provide the support for the electoral process. Those who think that democracy can only work where there is a pervasive philosophy of ‘one man, one vote’ – the individual existing free of kinship networks – are searching for an impossible ideal. If ‘clientelism’ (the generally exploitative relationship between a powerful ‘patron’ and a weaker ‘client’) of one sort or another pervades Pakistani society, then the point is not to disown customary practices by imagining a monolithic definition of feudalism, or to castigate them in a barrage of moral rhetoric. The task is to understand the sociological significance of the patron-client relationship, which provides an important nexus of electoral politics in Pakistan and elsewhere in Southasia.

British anthropologist Ernest Gellner once called politics based on clientelism “government-by-network”. In this formation, formal institutional arrangements matter far less than do the informal connections of mutual trust – those based on past personal services, or on exchanges of protection from above for support from below. Pakistani society is ruled by networks, quasi-tribes, alliances forged on the basis of kin, services exchanged, groups of common regional and ethnic origins, and common institutional experiences. But even in this last case, the most important connections largely find their basis in personal trust, rather than in formal relations in a defined bureaucratic structure.

In our passionate yearning for democracy, it is important not to disavow what is often hastily dismissed as ‘feudal residue’. Rather, we need to understand how this structure has been carefully put in place through colonial governance, and how it works in the postcolonial state. Radical research into the various forms and norms of local democracies is what is needed to provide an understanding of a local democratic order. It should not be forgotten that if Pakistani society is ever to reform itself, it has to do so on the bedrock and by the terms of its own local cultural ideals and aspirations. Democracy cannot be thought of as something borrowed from the outside, or as something credited to its pristine ideals.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVING IN PAKISTAN

2006-07-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Published in The News, August, 2006

Archives are the repositories of official and public knowledge. For the historians, scholars, and journalist archives provide the primary sources of information to write about the past. The scale of conservation and level of access to the sources of primary information are two of the fundamental conditions for the original research in social sciences as well as investigative reporting and can be read as the indicators of the state of social sciences research in Pakistan.

National Archives of Pakistan, Islamabad is the central organisation responsible for the collection, preservation and holding of all official records of the state of Pakistan. It claims to contain the official records of the government, all official publications, newspapers, periodicals, press clippings on selective subjects, T.V and radio news bulletins, rare books, manuscripts, oral archives, microfilm holdings and private collections. However, the official rule that ministries and divisions should send all their records to the Archives for permanent preservation is observed more in breach.

Despite the fact that constitution of Pakistan recognises the access to public information, various laws on the statutory books, such as Official Secret Act of 1923, promote the culture of secrecy, where by breach of loosely defined ‘official information’ is construed as criminal offence. Moreover, the military records have been kept separate from the records of civil administration and public access to those records such as PAF record office is rather limited. The international rule that official records of the state administration should be made public after a span of 30 years, though adhered to, is never strictly followed in the country.

Besides its collection, the National Archives maintains an active repair and conservation unit. Despite limited resources, it is the only organisation officially responsible for the training of the archives staff in the country. However, starting in as late as 1975 the number of training courses have been few and participant restricted to the key state departments. The training in conservation and restoration of archival material of private individuals or non-government organisations and public bodies remains outside the purview of the National Archives.

Visit to Archives should not be for the sole purpose of writing, lecturing or research. The pleasures of looking at old manuscripts, reading about forgotten families of the note and for the general pleasure of learning about the past are sufficient reasons for visiting an archive. However, it is an irony that provincial archives in Lahore, kept at the Anarkali tomb, are located in the civil secretariat, where access to the secretariat itself is scheduled to deter as many visitors as possible in a day. Even the interested scholars, leave aside the casual reader or observer have to face long hours of waiting before they could get to consult the archives. The facilities for photocopying are sometimes, denied even to seasoned scholars, on the humble pleas of precarious nature of archival material. Various categories of public records are randomly placed as classified documents, thereby depriving the scholars from an important source for writing the history of the region.

It has been rumoured that students and scholars from British and American universities working on the colonial Punjab prefer to go to Indian Punjab given the difficulties faced in accessing information from the Punjab Archives, Lahore. There seems to be some credence to it, given the disproportionate references to the pre-partition Pakistani Punjab in the mounting bibliography of Punjab Studies, compiled by a British historian Ian Talbot in 2000. Much damaged seems to have been done in terms of adequate representation of the historical experience of the region in colonial and postcolonial period in the South Asian history.

As an evidence of the past, which is textual, visual and oral, the archives form a part of collective social memory and is constrained or enabled by the discourse on national cultural heritage, which is inextricably linked with the time of the nation. It is a landmark on the national calendar, times check on the growth of a nation. The notion of national cultural heritage imposes an economy of violence on the imagination, exploration and conservation of the past. One dimensional view of the past, build on the singularity of the idea of an imagined community, defined by the exclusive parameters of the monotheistic religion, is what that is considered useful for the social reproduction and consumption by the state. I have used the word violence instructively. Any attempts to transcend the borders of national imagination bring the wrath of the nation state. Even in the days of much hyped Pakistan India peace, the themes of ‘common cultural heritage of pre-partition Punjab’ are strategically deployed by the two states. An unrestrained communication between regions poses a threat to the integrity of national body.

As a signpost to the ideological control over the definition of what constitutes Pakistani culture and deserves to be conserved as the ‘national’ heritage, the official website of the Government of Pakistan under the title ‘Cultural Heritage of Pakistan’ cites the evidence of archaeological remains of 14 million years old fossil, identified as ‘Suvapithecus Pakinnisis’ , to produce a link between ancient civilisation and national culture as well as providing ancestral roots to the historical genealogy of an imagined community. The singularity of meaning over objects to create national heritage is imposed through a bizarre periodization of history, emphasizing the centrality of religion: ‘So rich and diversified is this heritage that Pakistani nation can be proud of its glorious past, be Islamic, Post-Islamic and Pre-Islamic as far as pre-historic times’.

Therefore the conservation and maintenance of the archives in Pakistan, is indicator of a set of priorities, which may not overlap with the order of preference of various social groups in a society. The selective indifference of the Pakistani state towards private archives is also graphically illustrated by the fact that Quaid-a-Azam papers forms one of the largest and perhaps only part of private collection of National Archives to date.

Given the narrow concerns of the state managed archives, and restricted access to public records, the records of social and political groups in Pakistan becomes critical to the writing of alternate histories that seeks to challenge the state authorised history. As Ahmad Saleem, who has been dubbed as the ex-officio keeper of citizen’s records, largely through his personal efforts for saving private archives, has illustrated the loss of records of leading political parties and their leaders, largely through confiscation or its threat by the state. All those records of events and activities that sought to challenge the political orthodoxy of the state were scraped. Each successive government vandalised the records of the political parties, sitting in opposition, thereby leading to serious breaches in the historical reconstruction of the political and social history of the country.

Unlike in most of western world and in Asian countries like India, the conservation of archives and ready access to scholars has been high on the state agenda. In recent years, in collaboration with thriving IT industry, Indian institutions has been able to keep up their presence on the cyber space and cater to much wider international audience by building interactive websites. In contrast, the national and provincial archives in Pakistan do not, in principal, aim to advertise their collections; rather they tend to restrict them to most die-hard visitors and scholars! Lack of adequate funds and lack of prospects for professional growth adversely affect the working of archives in Pakistan. In the era of privatisation of public services, it is reasonable to expect that present government will bring state archives, within the mandate of private public partnership. With prominent members of civil society on the Board of Governors, along with representatives of the state, who could raise funds from the private sector, the present crisis in the conservation and access to information can be addressed.

POLITICS OF CONFLICT: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW

2005-07-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

“Strife is the mother of all things,” said Heraclitus, a 5th century Greek philosopher. Every society has developed mechanisms for negotiating with strife, conflicts and disputes because its quality, frequency and intensity profoundly affects the lives of people in any society. Conflicts cannot be completely avoided, however, they can be limited. One way of limiting social conflicts is to understand them in their historical context.

Until 18th Century, Indian societies were largely tribal and agricultural. The structure of economy was hereditary, ascriptive and non-competitive. A hierarchical order of caste and baradari groups governed the societies, which were also responsible for maintaining social order and managing conflicts. Conflicts were negotiated through long established customs and traditions, rather than through general and impersonal laws.

All this changed under the British rule in India, which brought the legal cannons of western provenance, to create a new order of things in Indian societies. An attempt (albeit a failed one) was made to create a new social order, which can transform India into a proto-type of an industrial society. Backed up by the colonial bureaucracy and impersonal laws and constitution, the new social order eroded the legitimacy of customs and traditions, along with the power of social groups, which regulated the older social order. They also challenged the traditional ordering devices of caste and Jatis, thereby creating new set of opportunities and new types of social groups, claiming a share in resources, power and social status. Egalitarian ideologies embodied, for example, in universal adult franchise, have shattering blows brought to bear on the received hierarchical social order.

This led not only to fresh sources of conflicts, but also increased the level and complexity of social conflicts in Indian societies. Another implications was that older modes of conflict resolution became ineffective and new and European ways of conflict resolutions did not acquired the social depth necessary to order the entire part of lives of people in Indian societies. [Law courts, for instances, only negotiated conflicts at the level of government, (in commerce, property, trade etc) but even they became instruments in aggravating conflict in the societies]

This brief historical context sets a stage to analyze the conflicts in Pakistani society. From ideological conflicts, which challenge the unquestioning claims of religion to dictate the lives of people, to overtly political conflicts about sharing resources between different social and economic class groups, conflicts appear to be breaking up the very fabric of Pakistani society. The separation of East Pakistan in 1971, as a result of long protracted conflict ending in a blood bath and war between India and Pakistan, looms large in the collective psyche of the nation.

Before proceeding further, a definition of social conflict is in order. Social conflict may be taken to mean “a struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate their rival”. The nature and scale of struggle and conflict can vary from street brawls to the war between nation states. (Like in the example of former East Pakistan, the conflict in the street may graduate into conflict between two language or culture groups [Bengali and Punjabi] and if not controlled at the level of state and society, can turn into war between nation-states [India and Pakistan]).

As said earlier, conflicts can divide into different types according to their scales and magnitude. First in the order of scale are Interpersonal Conflicts, which are rooted in personal preferences, likes and dislikes and can cause conflict between individuals.

Group Conflicts can cause a family, an office or party into faction fighting machines, which can potentially fight endlessly to an extent that conflict can become the sole basis for the formation and continuation of the groups.

Community Conflicts have generally historical basis to them. The conflicts between Hindus, and Muslim can marshal facts of history to support their contending claims to power and resources. In recent decades sectarian conflicts say between Shia and Sunni tends to implicate entire communities into their effects.

In an organizational scale, industrial and agrarian organization tends to display conflicts, which are largely related to the economic sphere. From a small factory to vast bureaucracies, different sets of conflicts are subsumed within the institutional conflicts. Compared to others, institutional conflicts are more and less institutionalized and are governed by laws, and particular institutions like management councils, and adopt legislatively established procedures for reconciliation, mediation and arbitration.

All social conflicts can be managed through the mechanism for resolving institutional conflicts. (Aga Khan Foundation, for instances, have tried to negotiate social conflicts, through special institutions at village levels, called Aga Khan Arbitration Board in Northerner Areas).

Territorial units like state may become party to conflicts between communities and lead to conflicts at the state level. Generally confined to institutions like parliament, courts and tribunals, yet the conflicts can become politicized. For instance as in recent months, the aggravating conflict between Sindh and Punjab government over the distribution of provincial share in water. Earlier on, a conflict between Punjabis and Bengalis led to the break up of country

There can be many causes of conflicts. Marxian tradition places much emphasis on the unequal distribution of wealth and resources as the prime causes of social conflict. In that respect, much of unequal control over land in Pakistan by ‘feudal lords’, which continues to fuel social conflict, is the result of socio-economic divisions made under British colonialism.

The increased social mobility is another factor causing conflict in Pakistani society. Unlike a small scale homogenous society where resource base is not so diverse, in a complex and heterogeneous society, for instance Karachi, where different ethnic groups, religious and linguistic communities and caste/baradari groups compete for diverse but limited resources, the potentials for social conflicts are much larger. The composition and distribution of population in heterogeneous society, the historical experience of different groups within it, the relative levels of their socio-economic development, their relative sense of unity and strengthen, provides basis for conflicts to erupt.

Violence is one measure of the intensity of the conflicts. It may be an indicator of the degree and magnitude of the conflict. However, violence also has been used as a political and strategic tool to solve a conflict and may not be a reflection of the intensity of the conflict. In contrast, Ghandian non-cooperation, for instance, may be intense yet non-violent.

A conflict may be realistic and non-realistic. A realistic conflict is a mean towards a specific end, where as a non-realistic conflict is an end in itself. Many conflicts have an element of non-realistic conflict in them. For instance, when violence is used to create a terror [as in bomb blasts at public places], the sole objective is to create generalized fear among people. In contrast, violent measures of hijacking are often aimed at getting specific demands accepted.

In short, it must be remembered that creating social order and achieving peace and harmony among different political groups in a society is a never-ending process. At no point in history, peace can ultimately and finally be restored. It has to be negotiated and achieved through continuous efforts. An awareness and attention to this conclusion is the only viable solution to the conflicts.

NGOs, CIVIL SOCIETY AND STATE: AN ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE

1999-06-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Published in The News, June 1999.

The prolific growth of NGOs is a world wide phenomena. Since the official end of cold war in 1989, bilateral and multilateral agencies pursuing New Policy Agenda has channeled much of the aid through non-government organization (NGOs). Notwithstanding the differing nature of the policies of various donors agencies, two elements of their polices, economic and political, seems to stand out. The first is encapsulated in the statement 'Imperfect markets are better than imperfect states'. Market and private initiative, therefore, are seen as efficient means to deliver services than the governments. In consequences, NGOs in private sector are preferred over others as the most competent and cost effective service providers than the government bureaucracies.

This preference is not without due justifications. Out of ten thousands registered NGOs in Pakistan, a large majority of them focus on the community development and provision of services. One of these NGOs, Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in Karachi has set new standards of quality and cost effectiveness in providing relatively low unit cost services to the slum dwellers of Orangi. Similarly, the NGORC network in Khairpur works with existing community-based organisations, which are encouraged to take up development-oriented projects such as credit and saving schemes and non-formal education. Such example are not so rare and lends credibility to the claims of donors and NGOs.

The second element in the policies of donors is their emphasies on the achievement of 'good governance' as an essential condition for a healthy economy. In this regard, NGOs are awarded a key role in the democratisation of country's management. They are seen as integral components of a thriving civil society and an essential counter balance to state power. By opening up channels of communication and mass participation, NGOs thereby promote pluralism and democracy. One observer went so far as to claim NGOs as 'assoicational revolution' equal to the rise of the nation-states in late nineteenth century.

In one of its chapters, the much acclaimed Human Development Report on South Asia 1997 by Mahbubul Haq, offers a balance sheet of information to asses the performance of NGOs. The summary account of the successful NGOs of the region, along with a brief analysis of their relationship with state and donors can have a sobering effect on the critics of NGO movement. Given the state of deprivation and economic misery that threatens the very existence of Pakistan, NGOs look as if the only hope for an economic survival. All that is undeniable as the record of their performance show.

However, there is something troubling in the reception of NGOs as the vanguard of democratisation process in Pakistan. Much of the rhetoric by the proponents of NGOs has given prominence to the belief that NGOs are affecting a fundamental transformation of the society. If the capacity of NGOs to deliver services is considered wide open to debate, and multiple strategies for community development are being 'rethought', then what is not considered debatable and doesn't really comes out of the report either, is the potentials of NGO movement as it stands now, to create a "thriving" civil society in Pakistan.

In the development world, civil society has come to mean two things: the world of NGOs providing services mainly at grass root level and activist who voices political concerns left out by formal political parties like gender, environment and development with a human face. But there is a lurking danger in all too common use of the phrase "civil society" as a lustrous badge of a liberal democratic order. This is further aggravated in consequence, by equating strong civil society with the mere presence of NGOs as a bearer of liberal values and a cradle of democratic culture. Civil society, as mentioned earlier, is much more complex and richer concept than this simple equation implies. Any analysis that wishes to study the NGO's role in promoting civil society must precede by a through examination of the component of civil society and a disaggregation of the groups that make it up.

At present, NGOs in Pakistan make up a rather small and in some cases, an insignificant part of civil society. The Euro-centric interpretations of civil society and the dogmatically modernist take on the social and economic issues, excludes many groups from the sphere of its operations, (like those who profess religious affiliations) that can critically effect the growth of civil society. Its exclusive focus on women, rural poor and the marginal groups commendable as well as necessary, given the prevailing conditions of patriarchal oppression and inhuman development in the country. Nevertheless this exclusive focus can and has made NGOs even with high levels of commitments and dedication, incongruous to the concerns of large groups in the civil society.

Moreover, in a climate where NGOs are being increasingly part of a deregulating market, it has to be carefully ascertained to what degree NGOs intend to provide basic services better than government and to what extent they are determined to contribute to transform relations within civil society as well as between civil society and state.

A trend visible within NGO movement to scale up and take over the state functions of providing services to the people, reflects the confusion of NGOs leaders in Pakistan in deciding their future agenda. Although given the crisis of governance in the country, it is understandable why NGOs should think so. Nevertheless, this is a dangerous trend which if accentuated will hamper the growth of civil society and state in Pakistan.

Considering the antagonist relations of state with NGOs, which perceives NGO as competitor in dwindling foreign aid and therefore tries to contain their operations by legislative action, one can understand the temptation of NGOs to take over the functions of state. But it must be remembered that a civil society needs a strong state that have the capacity not only to deliver services or to defend its national boundaries, but also to mediate between competing interests groups within a civil society. Instead of trying to substitute state by providing better services, NGOs should try to lobby with and against government in order to hold it accountable to the people. It is important to endorses and back up an emerging trend in some NGOs to take up advocacy related issues, than to provide mere relief services.

Finally, in a environment where there is a mounting pressure on the third world from the international financial institutions to 'roll back the state', which can allow the exploitation of market, resources, labour, it is only a democratised state, that can serve as a buffer against the predatory international capital. A challenge for the NGOs as a part of civil society, then, is not to try and substitute state but to create civil networks that should be pluralist and inclusive and have the capacity to develop within individuals a sense of 'responsible autonomy', where rights are coupled with duties and obligations.

As concluding remarks, let me hazard some comments on the 'organisational culture' of leading NGOs in Pakistan. A civil society organisation may perform two functions: Pluralistic and Educational. Defining themselves as non profit and independent, NGOs express a balance between different power centers, interests and opinions. Calling themselves as participatory and voluntary organisations, they intend to be open to popular demands. In line with their pluralistic function, they intend to serve as organs of socialisation into the practice of democratic norms, through a process of learning by doing. It is gradual learning of democratic skills that is deemed as one of the fundamental features of NGOs.

It will be a sad commentary on part of many NGOs who profess themselves to be the vanguard of democratic culture, that they are failing to practice in their internal organisation what they preach to wider society. Far from serving as organs of democratic socialisation, their social affiliation remains exclusive, their internal governance authoritarian and decision making undemocratic. They inherit all the vices of feudal culture but none of its virtues. Apart from ritual self flagellation in the seminar and public symposiums, a handful of presidents and directors chair, define and dictate their agendas. These practices should recede along with the vertical organisational structures, the perks and privileges coupled with fat salaries, and a culture of 'personality cult', to make NGOs more accountable to people - to whom they owe their legitimacy.

CAN FUNDAMENTALISM OF NEO-LIBERAL THOUGHT BE AVOIDED?

1999-05-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

This article was written in the context of Nawaz Sharif’s brief compaign against madrassa and mujhadeens, in the last year of his last term in 1999.

“March against Fundamentalism” has become a rallying cry for even those elements that hitherto constituted contending camps of Pakistani polity. All groups from diverse political and ideological spectrum have joined the chorus led by the state and echoed by their international allies. One will have hard time in being out of tune with the band, given the threatening proportions of the fundamentalist reality. However, one must question the symphonic harmony of other wise conflicting voices. What has happened that changed the ideological make up of the mujahadeens and freedom fighters of the previous days, turning them into the terrorists of the present?

I guess one doesn’t have to be a Socrates to make it out, as several handy explanations of changing balance of international power (or inequality!) are in order. But one may be aspiring to the ideals of 'Socratic individual' to question the role of NGOs and secular democratic intellectuals in civil society played when state and international allies were refusing to see a fundamentalist threat to the society.

It is no longer a guarded secret that so called fundamentalists served their time as hired mercenary of state to fight a proxy war in Afghanistan and Kashmir. It is not a secret either that their ranks were swelled with state’s authorisation and under the watchful eyes of our American allies. However, the hand that fed the mouth was also occasionally bitten is part of a separate story. But it will be revealing to wonder what civil society in Pakistan was busy doing when the Great Game of the 20th century was being played by much maligned “inefficient” and “crisis-prone" state and “instrumentalist” west , to borrow expressions from the prevailing vocabulary of NGOs in the country.

The secular democratic intellectuals in NGOs are, as in the past, busy chewing the fodder set as policy agenda by the so-called New World Order and its sister frameworks rooted in inequality of world resources. They were engaged in whipping their hobby horse, officially called state, for its acts of omission and commission strictly along the lines set by the policy agendas. This policy agenda has taken many forms. From giving policy advice to the state, to trying to substitute it, a whole battery of NGOs committed themselves in organising the poor and building up the capacities of marginalised as well as lambasting the state for want of good governance.

All these are undeniably noble and politically urgent measures and steps were and are being taken in good spirit. However, what was not included in the policy agenda set by the international donors and consequently not taken up by local NGOs is the abuse of the rights of a ’community of believers’ that has been abused as pawns in an inter-state game of territorial remote control. An abuse whose history can be explored through the employment registers of the Pakistani state. If we are critical of state’s abuse of rights of citizens, then are not the fundamentalist citizens of the state? Are they not consumers and producers of goods and services? How they can be divorced from a society through an ideological operation of secular democratic ethos, propogaged by intellectuals in NGOs? The question – why an individual citizen, a consumer and a member of Pakistani society, is eulogised as mujahid when he fights against the Zulim perpetuated by enemies of lslam, but denounced as a cool blooded terrorist when he raises arms against the violence authored and sanctioned by the state and its international allies– has not been a popular NGOs’ concern.

The madrassa-educated citizens have an equal right to hold their views and we should learn to respect their differences, as long as their faith does not become a polemical one. Even if their doctrine has turned into a prejudice, then what NGOs have done to soften it up, to date? How many instances of reaching out to communities of fundamentalists can be reported from the annual reports of NGOs? How many agendas of capacity building of sectarians can be quoted from the grant registers of donors? How many credit and savings programs for the religious extremist have been launched? How many attempted coalitions on civil rights with religious organisations can be cited from the ever increasing number of NGOs? How many campaigns to expose this exclusion can be quoted from the advocacy registers of think-tanks swelling the ranks of Pakistani intelligentsia?

These questions could have provided some affirmative answers, had civil society not lapsed into a fit of historical blindness, where it is failing to see the fundamental character of their institutional existence and location of their public action. Ignorance to sectarian or religious ideologies is example of this historical forgetfulness. Why ideological questions have not been raised in the annals of development? Why the success of AKRSP, to name a flag bearer of planned development as modernisation, not been studied in the context of its ideological leaning? All successful models, be it Orangi Pilot Project or Khuda Ki Basti are routinely attributed to the structures of rational management, in complete disregard to ethnic, linguistics, sectarian and ideological factors, which have turned the question of development on its head.

The historical amnesia has been facilitated by dominant discourse of western intellectuals and policy makers in donor agencies. They are committed to the ideals of empowering women, securing the rights of child, and generally committed to the protecting human rights. But human is defined in a secular democratic order, which excludes all those categories that do not subscribe to specific configurations of state and market in a society. The praxis achieved by NGOs is firmly rooted in a secular democratic ethos that restricts the travesty of thoughts in other directions. The prevailing spirit (in Hegelian sense) of NGOs circumvent any efforts towards one such ’community of allies’ who had the potential to share much with the promise and failure of state and society in Pakistan. The secularist truism has to reinscribe itself for its rejuvenation.

Post script:

In all societies, different ideologies protect its social organisation. Rich and poor, moral and immoral, strong and weak have to survive together despite their conflicting claims to the survival. Call it culture, myth, or belief systems; these ideologies tend to ensure the survival of a social order. Interplay of conflicts of social and ideological orders is called as human history. However, one particular version of human history has prevailed over the others.

From ideas of history as progress to the claims laid by end of history, the ideologies of western social order have ensured the survival of its host population. For how long, it will survive have been sounded off by cries of decline of the west to the rhetoric of triumph of the west. Science fiction is a good place to speculate about it. However, the rule of these ideological social orders is all too pervasive. Thanks to the hegemony of capitalism and (neo) colonialism on the imaginative and material landscape of the world.

The foregoing realisation requires several responses. One response is to accept it. We, the secular democratic individuals, have accepted it. Accepting the realisation that one particular social order has triumphed in ensuring human social order means two things: Make good use of it or make bad use of it. If we are to make good use of it, then its is important to see how it suits to various locations across the spectrum of these ideologies, thus ensuring their survival. The conflict of interest is not denied here, but presumed to be manageable. However, if we were to make bad use of it, perhaps as we do, then we will try not to subject it to organic mutations and not work out the modalities of its forms. The result is in-human mayhem. This is what we should hope to avoid in the future by questioning the fundamentalism of liberal thought.

A few suggestions can be made on the basis of present realisation. Ideological factors in development process need to be addressed. The role of state in sponsoring sectarian ideologies also requires to be seriously questioned. On the part of secular democratic individuals the binary opposition of secularism and fundamentalism would need analytical reworking. Some of the recent studies done in South Asia can be instructive in this regard.

CAN THE GOOD GOVERNANCE DELIVER?

1999-02-02T14:59:00.000-08:00

Pakistan has a long and chequered history of corruption, which stretches back to the earlier years of its independence. Since then, various political and military regimes has tried to tackle it with varying degrees of success but none was able to up-root it. Voice against corruption has always been a polyphony, inviting contrasting tones into its political composition. In this perspective, in contrast to government’s rhetoric there seems to be nothing new about the slogan of Ehetasab that has entered into the current political discourse, as a rallying cry of 'clean' politicians and bureaucrats.

Coinciding with the 50 years of Pakistan, the slogan of accountability has gained a special emotive appeal for the public as well. Ehtesab has been made to stand for a collective confession of a nation and a commitment towards high moral grounds. Notwithstanding the history of losing battles against corruption, there is something unusual about the current drive for accountability. There are the voices of bilateral donors that have given their unqualified support to the process of accountability in Pakistan and third world in general, as a part of their agenda for 'good governance'. Far from being a internal realisation of the nation and the national elite of their country's standing as the most corrupt nation in the world, there is an evidence to suggest that there are international pressures that are driving the accountability process, despite the commitment of elite to the contrary. Notwithstanding a democratic ground swell of public opinion in Pakistan, there is little political space available to redefine the parameters of democratic and bureaucratic organisation that are accountable to public.

Implicated in the moral fibre of Ehtesab are harsh political realities, which seems to twist the image of accountability process as transparent and politically neutral from its very inception. The manner in which Ehtesab Ordinance was rushed through the assembly, the blanket commitment of treasury to pass it without allowing for critical discussion by the opposition or national media, the setting up of Ehtesab Council and arbitrary change in cut off date from 1986 to 1990 has drawn huge criticism from the public and press. More recently, the setting up of hand-picked Khidmut committees without due consultations with the opposition parties, parliamentarians or the public have tend to give the whole accountability drive a politically partisans character. The worst fears of all those concerned tend to favour a cynical view of the situation. The efforts of government to institute institutional reforms are likely to be seen as an attempt to cope with the impending economic collapse through greater governmental control rather than through "good" governance.

However, the procedural and legal-constitutional aspects of Accountability drive has generated controversies, but what has been passed over in silence are the vested interests of the bilateral organisation that are pushing the current drive not only through direct governmental directives but also operating through paper pushers and technocrats in non-government organisations as well. The later group of professional aides have been given the task of selling this idea far and wide. Those at the helm of affairs are suddenly waking up to the "reality" of good governance and trying to catch up with its political idealism and rhetorical appeal.

A case in point is Project 2010, which is initiated by present government through its minister Ahesan Iqbal, and with the financial support of Asian Development Bank and technocratic assistance of its beneficiary institutions. This project is claimed by one of its champions, to be aiming at "making Pakistan a newly industrialised country by the year 2010". This is being pursued in a political environment, where the corruption charges against a federal secretary were rigorously defended, against the rule of law by those who are considered as the most 'concerned', 'knowledgeable' and 'responsible'. Irony of the fact is that these very people are responsible for putting the project 2010 recommendations into top gear. Therefore, the ambitions and recommendations of the benevolent consultants may be right in their own accord but when seen in the light of “actual” political culture, appear at best naive and at worst laughable and misleading.

Instead of creating enabling conditions of governance by social mobilisations, the know all consultants are drafting polices which are trying to bring the tyranny of westernised technocracy. Instead of pursuing the ideals of good governance and jumping on the bandwagon of a "reform" process, one needs to know the causes of bad governance, which run deep into our political culture. Instead of acting as it were holding an agenda of revolutionary government the project co-ordinator and his cronies should learn to face the realities of crisis prone democracy where government is marred by the crises despite its majority mandate, and which has to mediate between the conflicting interests of its allies, in bureaucracy, parliament and military. If the project is holding consultative workshops under the premises of "interest group" theory, then it should also be able to identify the issues that the conflict of stakeholders will generate. By assuming a good faith on part of stake holders, it has ignored the clash of interest and power struggle that will generate if the reforms are ever put into action. If the project reports are not to gather dust like several other commission reports rusting under the privacy act, then it should be aware of the vested interest of the very stake holders that it has sat in consultation with.

In that case, it becomes important to question the deliverability of such accountability process, pushed through institutional reforms for good governance that is largely donor-driven and doesn't presupposes any commitment of the national political and bureaucratic elite for a democratic governance. The global context, that has made good governance a catch all phrase and allowed UNDP to spend 40% of its program budget in the area of good governance -- the idea which executive board was not willing to buy four years back -- be rethought. A little background may put us in proper perspective.

The debate on "good governance" was initiated by the World Bank in its long term perspective study of Sub-Sahran Africa in 1989, where 37% of its project were failing. Provoking controversies, the debate has done much to create an awareness that even the best laid plans will go no where, without adequate institutional mechanism to formulate policies and implement them. Since then it has published more generic reports on governance in 1992 and 1994. In its long-term study, the Bank emphasis is placed on the need for a "leaner, better disciplined, better trained and more motivated public service", public enterprise with managerial autonomy and monitorable performance indicators and a greater role for local government. By equating good governance with sound development management, World Bank's concerns seems to be focused on the efficiency of economic management alone. However, one can also observe a shift from the purely management concerns to the more political ones. For instance, from the management of economic development in the 70s through the structural adjustment of the 1980s ( in which the Bank began to manage entire sectors, including making many social decisions, in the countries being adjusted), we have come now to the area of government itself. Other multilateral banks like The Asian Development Bank who follows the World Bank parameters in its description of good governance, however, unlike World Bank have relatively more political concerns in their good governance policy. They not only stresses a need for action in executive branch as the most multi-lateral agencies do, but also includes the legislative, judicial and other institutions where economic, social and political activity takes place.

Though few would argue with World Bank's general contention of upholding the rule of law, public accountability and the free flow of information, but neither they are practised in western democracies which being run more like technocracies nor Bank itself respects any of these conditions. The operations of Bank are mired in secrecy and decisions making central and bureaucratised. The protest against Narmada Dam in India, is just one small example of the anti-poor policies of the bank.

In reality, good governance has become the criterion for reward and punishment of the political regimes in third world. As some critics like Susan George have argued that behind the seemingly politically innocuous terms good governance there is a deeply political objective. This is also reflected in the very choice of word. Governance in English's is rather an archaic word and most people would say 'government', 'democracy' or 'administration'. But after a lot of fancy foot work of lawyers, the Bank came up with the word 'governance' and defined it as "the manner is which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development". Governance or government is essentially a political area, but in World Bank unique phraseology, governance appears now as a completely non-political as if it were merely a technical-administrative matter. The reason is that being non-political and purely economic institution, its charter doesn't allow it to intervene in the political affairs of the country. So the word governance is used as a roundabout way of achieving the same goal: the direct political intervention in the national economies. By defining governance as non-political , not only a reason is created for making a political intervention but also the responsibility of failure of World Bank policies is shifted to the country itself. The consequences of various components of Structural Adjustment program like privatisation that leads to inflation etc., create inequalities and marginalised the poor, are clearly not the responsibility of the World Bank. Under the good governance regime, the responsibility lies squarely with the national governments itself, that has to bear the brunt of burden of these policies. Good governance is here to stay, because it is a new big excuse to cover up its failure of the various signposts of development. The present government may drive along with World Bank to cover up its own set of failures and incompetence. With a happy marriage between multilateral agencies and national government under the good governance regime, poor may live happily ever after!

If the current drive toward accountability is a direct result of world Bank and IMF policies then its not clear how it will lead to an internal democratisation of our society. Accountability is a political concept and must operate as an integral component of democratic societies. Therefore it should project from within the structures of bureaucracy and judicial processes. An attempt at introducing accountability through setting up new and impotent bodies like Ehtesab Cell and Khidmut committees will not lead to a change in the basic structure of administrative management of economy or natural resources. A program for governance should be situated in the nature of political governance and the nature of state itself. It cannot be made to operate in a vacuum. The institutions of accountability which have taken a partisan character from their very inception will be discredited with the change in government. If politics is the art of possible, the designer of the good governance scam has to learn their art, before they can make good governance possible.

PAKISTAN TURNS FIFTY: CULTURAL NATIOANLISM AND HISTORICAL IDENTITIES

1997-03-14T15:10:00.000-08:00

Published in The Nation, March, 1997

Clock is ticking away..and so are our lives running by the clock. A great change has occurred in our society. From the times when we use to tow cattle in the barn with the setting sun to the present, when we drive back home with the turn of the clock in the luxury of our cars. But has the clock ticked in the same manner ever since? From the perceptions of the time to the lives measured and aided by it, one can see sea change of difference. We no longer conduct our lives in the same fashion. We don’t build the same type of houses. We don’t harness the animal energy to ride. We fly by air and travel by sea. Looking at the world around, from Europe to Africa, and Asia to Atlantic, across diverse regions, environments, people and histories, a dominant pattern of social life inspired from the west prevails. Some call it a happy face of ever increasing globalizations; globalizations of cultures, technologies and economies. Few cry about the loss of diversity of cultures that have sustained human socities and ecology for thousands of years of human existence on the earth. However, it is a sad fact to the dismay of many proponents of cultural bio-diversity that contemporary human societies have threatened the very existence of life on the planet.

Within this vast canvass of change in human societies, where does 'Pakistani society' stands at the threshold of present times? There are no easy answers to it. Pakistan as a territorial state was created about 60 odd years ago, but the human societies that it commands have survived for thousands of years. Never in isolation as if in a museum of natural history, the people of Pakistan have intensely interacted with neighboring regions and cultures. Turks and Arabs, Afghans and Chinese for much longer and earlier than any of them came to be designated as citizens and nationals of any country.

However, the rich shades of diverse cultures tends to lose their lustre, when one single version of 'Pakistani society' is imposed by the political and bureaucratic order of the state. Can any of us become 'Pakistani' in the same fashion?. Each one of us is a part of unique mosaic of cultural histories. Looked at this way, our national anniversary celebrations of 'Pakistani society' appear a little forgetful of the life span and diversities of our societies. We, even as Sindhis, Punjabis, Pushtoons, Baluchis, Barhuis, Kashmiris, have managed to live, speaking the same languages, following the same cultural patterns, worshipping the same gods/God for hundreds of years. What is so earth shattering being 50 or entering into 21st century under the emblem of Pakistani nationality?

'We are a nation of 50 and still not old enough to handle our affairs with political maturity'-of adult (emphasis mine) says Chief Executive or for that matter any executive of Pakistan. Bemoaning the loss of justice, good governance and moral piety is the favorite past time of most of us in Pakistan. We are corrupt as a nation, we all say in one voice. We say all this and more without realizing that communities and social groups in Pakistan have lived together and separately for hundred of years without throwing this moral fit about themselves. One begins to think that perhaps one of the components that govern our lives has outgrown its size. State as the governing body of our societies has come to monopolise the extent of what we are as people. In other words, 'Pakistani society' is a state dominated society and its social and cultural representation, including education, defense, media, justice, religion, reflect the priorities of Pakistani state and not of people living in Pakistan.

The distinct sense of national identity is made to appear more real than flags we carry on our national days. We are made to believe that we are one nation, one people, one culture, one religion, in complete disreagard to the fact that we are as much a part of a land that we tilled for centuries as much of a government that controls that lands. The rich experience of being in tune with the physical, visual and cultural landscape is denied by the normative order of the state. The hegemony of state in 'Pakistani society' is curbing the diversity of human societies and cultures. The traits of individual cultures, the marks of different social patterns, the diversity of ideologies and religion; all is being translated into a single monolithic version of 'Pakistani society' as if we are frozen in a historical time capsule.

The present sense of individual and collective belonging has been made possible with the growth of nationalism in late 19th century Eurpe and its later spread in most parts of the world. Nationalism has aged human socities in a similar fashion. It has brought diverse spans of human socities along a single scale and measured their rise and fall, prospects and problems along a single continuum of History. The growth of 'Pakistani society' is measured only after the people living in the regions were called as Pakistanis. Their relationship with the region is only looked through the limited time of 'birth of nation state'. This realsiation makes the task of studying social change from a single focus problematic to many. Only a close reading of cultural differences on the national map will allow such analysis to emerge.

One can believe that American nation, speaking one language (which however now acknowledges the inheirtance of multiple cultures) came into existence after Coloumbus landed in the region some two hundred years ago. However, it is difficult to ascertain that 'Pakistani society', speaking one or two languages was created only 50 years ago. If looked through the prism of history, it appears inscidental that the people living in Pakistan are part of Urdu speaking Pakistan. Nothing in essence of culture or history make them so. We as people have lifes longer and richer than lives authored and authorised by nation states.

The increasing conflict of identitues, ethnicities, religions and sects is an indicator of the fact that all of us are not equally together in the state of Pakistan. It is the time to realise the cultural heterogentity of our society where neither state nor citizens share collective cultural ideals. In contrast, state which has become the mediator of cultural ideals in modern times is deeply divided from within, but tries to impose a normative order over the plurality of dissenting voices. If heterogenity of our societies is granted as a principle of governance; if conflict in Pakistani society becomes a predictable and managable outcome of national policy; if plurality becomes the arbitrator of social justice, the face of Pakistani soceity will glow with the spirits of changing times. Our lives are changing and so are the times. The clock is ticking and it might be off a time bomb!

SEEING WOODS FOR THE TREES: AGHA KHAN RURAL SUPPORT PROGRAM NORTHERN PAKISTAN

1996-07-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

While the critical literature on modernization theory is rapidly expanding and some development critics have suggested it as “passing of an era of blind faith”1 the instances of its specific applications are rarely questioned. The development projects in the third world still retain much of their vigor and credibility to deliver the goods. A specific example is of AKRSP in Northern Pakistan, which has been described as “turning point in Pakistan’s rural development strategy”. 2 This program has been regarded as ‘remarkably successful’ which tends to meet the ‘most if not all’ of generally agreed upon requirements of a successful rural development project 3. Because it has been elevated to a status of model development project, its model is claimed to be ‘tested’ sufficiently and provided a good basis for rural development .4 It has resulted in replication of the program at national and provincial levels, under various principles and methodologies demonstrated by AKRSP.5

In view of the prestige of the program, and its large scale replication, it becomes imperative to review its theory and practice considering critical literature on development. The present article is an attempt to evaluate critically the dominant theoretical orientation of AKRSP in this regard. It aims at hinting that scientific knowledge applied to social development in the name of planned change is neither neutral as often claimed nor implications of its use. Construction of knowledge is agentive in the sense that it indicates , who is qualified to know and what?. It prescribes the course of action to be taken The problem is couched in terms of developer’s knowledge and local knowledge is thereby ignored. 6

Before proceeding further it will be instructive to review briefly the basic tenets of the modernization theory, which underpins the philosophy of AKRSP 7 Like most of theories of social development , the modernization theory advocates a need for planned change .The existing organizations are assumed unable to achieve the desired results on their own .Thus the stress is placed on the deficiencies of traditional institutions , casted as backward, which people are incapable of changing or making productive use of them .The agency for change comes from the planners, who has superior understanding of their structures responsible and capacity to substitute them. Following the dictates of the theory, the planners of AKRSP assumes, without substantial evidence, that with the abolishment of the princely states administration Raja in Northern Areas, the traditional institutions disintegrated .8 It further assumed an “institutional vacuum”, at local level administration ,which needs to be fulfilled9. In the absence of detailed ethnographic studies to substantiate their claim, the AKRSP publicize and emphasize this assertion ,so to prepare the grounds for its planned intervention in Northern Areas.10 The local population and the traditional institutions came to represent ,not agents of change, but as objects of change.

Putting the AKRSP in perspective of modernization theory and having identified the direction of its intervention ,I will now turn to nature and kind of planned change which it advocates and explain the specific instances of dominance of developers knowledge categories. First the working principles of AKRSP are based on the Raifessen’s work in the 19th century Europe and are distillation of experience of Japan, Taiwan etc. The belief is that the “adoption of this principle…tremendously improved the lot of the subsistence holders” 11 This statement betrays the specific conception of the knowledge, based on the rational scientific epistemology. The knowledge is thus treated as some abstract conceptual system, which can be articulated in practice, without consideration of the peculiarities of space ,occasion or circumstances.12 No need was felt either to rethink these generalized set of principles in the light of indigenous social organization or to derive them from the native thought and practice. Second, the rural people are defined as ‘poor’ and ‘individual’, which lack the ‘capacity and resources’ to make a dent on their ‘hostile social and physical enviornment’13 The characterization of the population in individualist and scientifically quantifiable terms, creates enough space for the developers prescriptions. A remedy is thus suggested for the ‘poor to form a legitimate and credible organization’ based on the ‘equal partnership of all members’14 The contextualization of population in the categories of the expert tends to ignore the moral nature of the peasant economy and render them susceptible to the ready made solutions prescribed by the expert. The existence and functional importance of multi stranded relationship between the people ,corporate nature of the village and a symbiotic relationship between the people and natural environment is belittled and considered as an obstacle in the way of rational, planned change.15

Third, the prescribed solution of poverty elevations takes the forms of village level institutions, as said shortly earlier, namely Village Organization (henceforth VO). In theory the VOs are defined as ‘interest groups’ with a ‘physical proximity’, and a ‘common identity and cohesion’. An ideal VO display the features of a modern bureaucratic organization constituted by the parochial interest and guided by the defined target The over emphasis of the developers on the social solidarity tends to underscore the possibilities of conflict situations that the formation of VO inflame. The development package associated with the formation of VO adds economic resources into the village, which might lead to discord between competing individuals or groups over resource distribution. Due to the naive assumptions of tension free social situation ,the VO s are not structurally equipped to cope with the conflict.16 The functionalist view of the expert, concerned more with the increased efficiency and the performance of an organization depreciate the relevance of friction and discord in the process of institutional adjustment.

Fourth, the formation of VOs is not a mere benevolent act of ‘equal partnership’ in rural uplift, it is an expression of the superior knowledge of the developer. The populace is constituted as a willing subjects , the planners provide the intelligence about the working of the institution and the people follow the pattern. More radically, the enterprising individual is expected to respond to the structure, the pattern of which is elucidated by the economist or the planner. The agency is attributed to the enterprising individual whose actions will provide a demonstration effect to the rest of progressive members of the society. In conclusion the ultimate power lies with the development planners expert knowledge and the indigenous knowledge is disregarded. Finally, against the rhetoric, the development planners of AKRSP played a central role in attributing knowledge and agency in the specification of the development policy. In an attempt to reverse the vision of knowledge as stemming from the development elite, ostensibly it was portrayed as coming from the masses , a term which significantly diffuses and depersonalizes the agency.17 Thus the much publicized rhetoric of ‘learning from the masses’ was created in the form of ‘the Dialogues’, carried out by the top management of AKRSP. In practice the scattered and unsystematic views of the people were gathered, coordinated and translated into a hotchpotch policy, along with the official planning. But an image was projected of top management learning from the limitless wisdom of people and the Dialogues became the pearls of participatory development wisdom.

In conclusion, the attempt has been made to highlight the epistemological ethno centrism of the theory and practice of development with reference to a development project. The stress is placed on the value of treating the local knowledge seriously and examining their potential contribution to peoples material , intellectual and general welfare.

NOT ARCHIVE

Shadow War: The Untold Story of JIhad in Kashmir

CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT: THE MISSING LINK

CENSUS WITHOUT CONSENSUS

COMMUNICATION: IN WORDS AND IMAGES

The Idea of Civil Society: Reviewing Gellner

The F.E. Choudhry Gallery: A Story of Normalcy, or of Displacement?

Nadeem Omar Tarar

Posted at All Things Pakistan.http://pakistaniat.com/2008/05/14/fe-chaudhry-flood-1950-pakistan/

Posted at All Things Pakistan.

http://pakistaniat.com/2008/05/14/fe-chaudhry-flood-1950-pakistan/

The F.E. Choudhry Gallery: Ba Adab, Ba Mulahiza

F E Chaudhry Gallery: Personal Hygiene

F E Chaudhry Gallery: Women at Work

NORMS AND FORMS OF DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVING IN PAKISTAN

POLITICS OF CONFLICT: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW

NGOs, CIVIL SOCIETY AND STATE: AN ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE

CAN FUNDAMENTALISM OF NEO-LIBERAL THOUGHT BE AVOIDED?

CAN THE GOOD GOVERNANCE DELIVER?

PAKISTAN TURNS FIFTY: CULTURAL NATIOANLISM AND HISTORICAL IDENTITIES

SEEING WOODS FOR THE TREES: AGHA KHAN RURAL SUPPORT PROGRAM NORTHERN PAKISTAN

Posted at All Things Pakistan.
http://pakistaniat.com/2008/05/14/fe-chaudhry-flood-1950-pakistan/