‘Bowl out polio’: Pakistani cricketers Younis Khan and Imran Farhat give polio drops to a child at a UNICEF event in New Delhi, Jan 2013. Photo: PTI

Here’s something I wrote for Aman ki Asha recently, published in the June 5, 2013 edition:

India and Pakistan are working together against a common enemy. Pakistan’s new government must take up the baton

Over the past year, Pakistan has been studying how India dramatically eradicated polio, with the World Health Organisation striking it off its list of polio endemic countries in February 2012; the last case was recorded in January 2011.

India’s dramatic success against polio. Courtesy CDC

Responding to Pakistan’s need, India has offered to help its neighbour to achieve the goal of eradicating polio. Cooperating against this crippling disease that knows no borders is a no-brainer As long as polio exists in even one country in the world others remain at risk and children will continue to be crippled or die from an entirely preventable disease.

Pakistan is one of the world’s three remaining polio endemic countries along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.

The formal cooperation between India and Pakistan began in June 2012 when a nine-member government delegation led by Shahnaz Wazir Ali, then the Pakistan Prime Minister’s national focal person on polio eradication, visited India. The delegation included the District Commissioners of Pakistan’s high-risk districts for polio as well as President Zardari’s sister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, a member of the national task force on polio.

Shehnaz Wazir Ali (right) with cricket hero Shahid Afridi and Aziz Memon of Rotary Pakistan

“They studied the structure of India’s anti-polio campaign including door-to-door visits, and made field visits,” said the head of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Hamid Jafari of the Center for Disease Control.

India’s surveillance and monitoring system produce real time data that tracks children whom vaccinators have missed, in order to follow up and give them polio drops.

“That was the first time that there was a formal visit by a Pakistan government delegation to India for this purpose,” says Dr Jafari, speaking to Aman ki Asha over the phone from his office in Geneva. “Polio eradication experts had met before at international meetings and monitored each other’s programmes, but this was their first ever bilateral field visit.”

Dr Jafari worked in India from August 2006 to June 2012, leading the National Polio Surveillance Project. He was the main technical advisor to the Government of India for polio eradication and other immunisation programmes and directed the WHO’s extensive network of nearly 1000 field staff, including more than 300 surveillance medical officers.

Children at a polio awareness walk in Faisalabad. Photo: courtesy Rotary

The Pakistan government delegation on its visit last year met with India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and invited him to visit Pakistan. Delegation leader Shahnaz Wazir Ali further called for regular exchanges between polio expert groups from India and Pakistan. These are offers the new government in Pakistan must follow up on.

Pakistan has adopted best-practice modules from India like identifying high-risk areas, involving religious leaders in door-to-door campaigns, conducting health camps, obtaining celebrity endorsements including from sports heroes, and producing social mobilisation materials for information, education and communication on polio.

Aziz Memon: “Failure is not an option”

Rotary International is also actively taking these moves forward. Rotary’s Pakistan National Polio Plus team recently visited India, led by Committee Chairman Aziz Memon, to study India’s success in eradicating polio, particularly the campaigns in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where 741 polio cases had surfaced in 2009. Subsequently, India’s use of bivalent vaccines targeting Polio 1 and Polio 3 from January 2010 onwards was hugely successful.

“Concerted and sustained efforts on the part of all stakeholders, public and private entities, partnerships and the public, for polio to be finally eradicated from Pakistan are essential,” says Aziz Memon. “Failure to do so will leave open the perennial threat of wild poliovirus making a surreptitious comeback in other geographies too; that is something Pakistan, and the world, can ill afford at this crucial juncture.” (2012 interview)

Rotary aims to not only make India polio-free, but eradicate polio from the world, asserts Ashok Mahajan, former Director of Rotary International and chairperson of Rotary International’s Muslim Ulema Committee, formed in 2007. With neighbouring Pakistan still endemic to polio, “if the virus comes to India, it will be a disaster,” he says (Indian Express report, June 1, 2013).

Through Rotary International’s India National Polio Plus Committee, Muslim Ulema from Uttar Pradesh have offered to visit Pakistan to convince people and advocate polio vaccination.

Shahid Afridi’s Pashto poster: Vaccinate every child under 5 every time there is a vaccination drive

“The problem in Pakistan regarding misconceptions about polio vaccines is similar to that of India. Since we have been successful in convincing Muslims here, we can replicate the model in Pakistan,” says Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali, President of the Ulama Council of India, and an executive member of the Rotary’s Ulema Committee.

The Committee involves prominent Muslim religious leaders from different sects to advocate polio vaccination, including during Friday prayers and other religious congregations. This successful engagement has contributed greatly to awareness about polio and countering myths about the polio vaccine in India.

Leading Pakistan towards similar success will earn the new elected government a special place in history.

– Beena Sarwar

A Dutch journalist records her impressions of how Aman Foundation is changing the lives of Karachi’s underserved people

I have met Ahsan Jamil several times during my frequent visits to Karachi over the years. A modest, lively, kind man and a close childhood friend of my friend Beena Sarwar; when I met him once again a little over a year ago, he was positively beaming.

Engaged and committed: Aman Foundation CEO Ahsan Jamil and Manager Command and Control Center in discussion.

It was a cool summer evening in Karachi and we were out on the porch at Beena’s house. Ahsan was inviting her to come and checkout the new work he was doing. He could give us a tour of the facility, he said, extending the invitation to me as well.

Over the past year, he had been busy setting up an ambulance service in Karachi — one that would serve the whole city with its over 18 million inhabitants. I was amazed that this man, in his late forties, was finally doing what he had always wanted. He had quit the family business and was happier than ever heading the newly-formed Aman Foundation — a not-for-profit that aims to provide ground-breaking health and education services to Pakistanis — envisioned and funded by the entrepreneur Arif Naqvi and his family.

Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) answering calls for ambulance at the Aman Command and Control Centre (C&C)

The next morning Ahsan came to collect us. Steering through the mad Karachi traffic, it wasn’t long before he pointed to an ambulance, one of the Foundation’s brand new fleet. Painted a distinctive cheerful yellow, the vehicle was parked under a flyover. We were on our way to the headquarters of the ambulance service, which was then situated in the north of the megapolis. As we drove and Ahsan explained his passion, I saw several of these ambulances deployed at different strategic points to quickly respond to those in need.

We pulled up in front of a nondescript building, and walked through a long driveway into a neat office, clean and well organised. Young women in crisp green uniforms and headphones sat at their stations lined in a row along the wall. In front of them were laminated sheets of paper outlining the protocols they needed to follow with questions and directives when anybody called to report an emergency. Some uniformed young men were busy in a glass-enclosed cubicle in one corner, seeing to other operations.

On one wall hung a huge screen with a map of the city, featuring little red flags to mark the locations of the ambulances. Every move they made could be followed. It was quiet when we entered, but then the phone calls started coming in, keeping most of the operators busy. Repeating their questions: where are you precisely, can you give the name of a nearby street, no, please ma’am, don’t turn the person who is hurt on his back, sit next to him, talk to him, don’t worry, we’re on our way… While talking, they simultaneously flipped their meticulously spiral-bound protocols and typed in important information, like level of injury and exact location of the accident or emergency illness. In a small cubicle in the corner of the office, three young men, also in uniform, gave orders into their phones and before you knew it the red flagged dots on the screen started to move: ambulance drivers on their way.

The Emergency Medical Dispatch desk

Ahsan stood in the room clearly happy to bear witness to a smooth operation run by capable employees who had only just started this new enterprise.

In a poor country like Pakistan, a rescue operation that rushes you to a hospital after an unfortunate accident can’t be taken for granted. It is not something your government naturally provides for. Life is cheap in general and governments are distant bodies that can’t be relied on. Health services are often poor, with government hospitals providing subsidised, but often inadequate treatment. If you want better treatment, it will cost you. There are many things in Pakistan that could be improved that are screaming for help — education, health and housing are just a few of the problems in a sea of need. So where does one start if one has the means to help, to make things better?

Arif Naqvi, a few years senior to Ahsan at school in Karachi, had a dream long before he took off to the Middle East to make his fortune as an entrepreneur. His fortune he made — but he never lost his love for Karachi, the city he grew up in. And now that he had the means, he was determined to do something to help make things better.

Over the years, during the course of their lives, getting married, having children, and making their way in the world, he and Ahsan occasionally ran into each other. Ahsan had always done his bit to help others in his own way — helping a poor cleaning woman’s daughter to get an education, donating to private charity initiatives. Nothing extraordinary, just what most middleclass Karachiites do as they go about their lives, very aware of those in less fortunate positions than themselves.

Meanwhile, Arif Naqvi wanted to use his money to fulfil a dream: an enterprise unspoiled by corruption or mismanagement, a project he could leave to somebody capable and trustworthy. In August 2008, Ahsan joined hands with Arif to help him set up and shape Aman Foundation. This was a life-changing moment for both.

Arif Naqvi’s Aman Trust seeded Aman Foundation with USD 100 million to help achieve its mission of championing “dignity and choice for the underserved in Pakistan through sustainable, scalable, and systemic development in the areas of health and education”, with a special focus on capacity building and female empowerment.

The money has to be spent in less than a decade constructing a reliable and eventually self-sustaining Foundation, with impactful social businesses fulfilling its mission.

Karachi: Dial 111-11-2626 for prompt and efficient health care

Alongside the Aman Ambulance project, which has already conducted more than 400,000 interventions in Pakistan including flood-relief, preparations were made to launch a vocational training institute for boys and girls. It was an enormous project set up in a refurbished former warehouse in Karachi’s Korangi industrial area. Currently headed by the former regional CEO of Philips, the Institute, called Amantech, provides students access to all kinds of technical skills at a subsidised cost.

State-of-the-art classrooms equipped with all kinds of motor engines and machines to provide students with critical hands-on, practical training. However, the lure of attending an internationally accredited course with guaranteed jobs abroad and at home tops it all. Scholarships are provided to deserving students who despite the subsidy cannot afford to pay. So far, over 200 students have been accommodated in various organisations in Pakistan and abroad, I learnt.

The grounds of the school are vast. There will be a pool, a cricket field and all sorts of other facilities for boys and girls. In the weekend, when the campus is empty, other schools and organisations can make use of them. The ones who can pay, will pay; those who can’t will be welcome without cost. In a society where rich are often filthy rich and poor are extremely poor, this is Ahsan’s way of distributing wealth in an equal way.

Ahsan aims to make the Aman ambulance service financially self-reliant in the long term, while ensuring that those who don’t have the means to pay will not be left on the street. This is a concept he has to hammer into the heads of his fellow citizens. This is a concept that they are not used to, and for that, there is mistrust. For Ahsan, it’s crucial to get the message across. The practice now is that when an accident takes place — which is often — the bystanders turn away as quickly as possible. One never knows who will come after you and force you into testimony that will cost you in the end. As a consequence, the bleeding, suffering person is often left without any help. That’s one of the many ways lives are lost in this city.

He believes that with fully equipped interiors and trained staff (often including doctors), it would be a waste to use the vehicles merely for corpse transport.

Ahsan has learnt along the way. As he points out, many of the hospitals or rather so-called hospitals in this city are nothing more than mere buildings with beds. There have been many instances in which a nurse or doctor on the ambulance has been summoned to deal with this unsolvable dilemma. A dilemma that, in numerous cases, drove home the awareness that these state of the art ambulances are a solution to only one aspect of the problem, which formulates small speck of an inadequate system.

An Aman Telehealth doctor explaining how it works. Photos by Beena Sarwar

To the Aman team, it was soon clear that apart from the ambulance fleet it was essential to upgrade health facilities throughout the city. This led to the idea of the community health workers and telehealth programmes that have now materialised. The Aman Community Health Program and Aman Telehealth ensure that healthcare can reach the under-served, providing access especially to women who are often confined to their homes.

Since its inception in 2008 with the school feeding programme — Aman Ghar (1.7+ million meals served to-date) — the Aman dream has come a long way. However, it still has a long way to go, transforming millions of lives along the way. With global organisations such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, British Asian Trust and Fundacion Real Madrid joining hands with Aman Foundation, there is finally some positive news towards collaborative growth for social projects coming out from Pakistan.

Since I last met Ahsan, Aman Foundation has launched various other initiatives that have been making a difference in the lives of those ravaged the most by poverty, unrest and conflict in the city. They include: Teach For Pakistan, Amansports, BasicNeeds Pakistan and INJAZ Pakistan — all of which focus on the promotion of education and health to the under-served of Pakistan.

Tracing a peace sign together via a giant web-cam

Here’s something I wrote about how a soft drink giant creatively connected Indians and Pakistanis with ‘the other side’, with a three-minute video that was easily the most shared link on the Aman ki Asha facebook group last week (not that it’s going to get me to start drinking Coke, or any other soda); published in the Aman ki Asha page in The News, May 22, 2013

Quenching the thirst for peace

An innovative idea connects Indians and Pakistanis with ‘the other side’

“It saddens me that we have neighbours that we can’t even go visit.”

“The perception is that they’re the bad guy. But when you actually meet them you realise they’re just like me.”

Heart to heart, across borders

These are just a few of the comments you hear at the beginning of the innovative new advertisement launched on May 20 by the global soft drink company Coca Cola. The three minute film, aimed at “creating a simple moment of happiness between two nations at odds – India and Pakistan”, is based on footage filmed over three days in March when two “vending machines” were placed in upscale shopping malls, one each in New Delhi and Lahore.

“In March 2013, we set out to show that what unites us is stronger than what divides us,” says the ad, which exudes a feel-good mood with catchy background music.

Mall-goers in Lahore looking at the glass-fronted “vending machine” were actually looking into a webcam that brought them face-to-face with people in front of the machine at a mall in New Delhi. Live video was streamed through the opaque glass that doubled as a touchscreen, allowing actions to be mirrored.

“Make a friend in India,” said animated lettering on the glass “Make a friend in Pakistan”. The lettering guided people to “Join hands”, “Trace together”, “Take a photo together” or “Wave Goodbye”.

Through this live communications portal – a kind of giant video chat – Indians and Pakistanis were able to interact with each other in real time, making friendly gestures that people on the other side could see and mirror. They waved, “touched” hands, traced peace signs, hearts, smiley faces together, through touchscreen animation. And they danced.

Completing the shared actions together triggered a celebration screen and a free Coke that the vending machine dispensed for each participant. According to a report, more than 10,000 cans of Coke were given away during the experiment (but is that a ‘good thing’?).

“That whole idea of touching hands, it’s like communicating with each other without words and that action speaks larger than words,” comments a male voice.

“This is what we’re supposed to do, right? We are going to take minor steps so that we are going to solve bigger issues,” says a woman.

These and other comments featured over footage of mall-goers gathering in front of the “vending machines” were real, not staged.

“Crews filmed through the night, capturing more than 100 interactions between people of all ages and from all walks of life. None of the people featured in the film are actors, and their reactions are completely natural,” according to an article on the Coca Cola website titled “Happiness Without Borders”.

At the end of the nearly 10-hour shoot, both audiences cranked up the music, danced and waved goodbye to the other side, joined by the camera crews and the corporate teams on either side.

At the end of the nearly 10-hour shoot, both audiences cranked up the music, danced and waved goodbye to the other side, joined by the camera crews and the corporate teams from Pakistan and India.

“The experience struck an especially emotional chord for the Coca-Cola teams from India and Pakistan, who collaborated on the project,” says the article. “Ajay Naqvi, general manager, creative excellence, Coca-Cola India, said he got goosebumps the first time he saw the film. And the universal message will resonate with people outside India and Pakistan, he explained, ‘because cultural and social tensions exist around the world, and they exist for selfish reasons. But deep down – as this film shows – humanity is about togetherness and happiness’.”

The film captures amazed, dazzling smiles as Indians and Pakistanis realise that they are seeing and connecting with people on the other side.

The ad agency Leo Burnett conceptualised and developed the “Small World Machines” in conjunction with Coke.

“Being on the ground in India during the Small World Machines experience is probably the highlight of my career so far,” said Andy DiLallo, chief creative officer Leo Burnett Sydney. “To be able to take two countries that have been divided and to unite them… and see the purity of the experience was amazing.”

“After spending a year on this project with all the challenges we encountered, when Small World Machines started it was massive relief for me. And then joy, and then just awe to see the people connecting,” he said. “Hopefully it works as a symbol of how people can overcome differences and come together with a simple act of joy.”

Touching hands across the border, virtually

“The people of Pakistan and India share a lot of common passions and interests – from food and Bollywood movies, to Coke Studio music, to cricket,” said Saad Pall, Coke’s assistant brand manager in Pakistan. “What this project did was connect people who are not exposed to each other on a daily basis, enabling the common man in Lahore to see and interact with the common man in Delhi. It’s a small step we hope will signal what’s possible.”

“We wondered what would happen if people from these two countries came together, and the answer was clear: goodness and happiness,” said Wasim Basir, integrated marketing communications (IMC) director, Coca-Cola India.

Hearing people share their stories made the experience even more special, said DiLallo. “There was just a level of genuine joy and awe once the Small World Machines were activated. Seeing a little kid run up to the machine and try to high-five it was one. Another person came up to me and said he’d lived in India his entire life and had never ‘seen into’ Pakistan. It was amazing to him to see what they wore. That’s such a small thing you would never think about, particularly coming from the West.”

The Small World Machines have been sent back to their corporate headquarters. But the experience they contributed to is there on film, broadcast on television in both countries. And even beyond that, shared and re-shared through blogs, websites and the social media, moving and delighting millions around the world  — whether or not you are into soft drinks.

– Beena Sarwar

Lahore, Dec 9, 2007: (L-R): Nawaz Sharif. Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Imran Khan meet to discuss whether to boycott January 8, 2008 polls. “Boycott, and then what?” asked Benazir Bhutto who convinced Sharif to participate in the polls. The rest is history. Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

The recent elections in Pakistan show that the country is finally on the right track notwithstanding the rigging, the violence and the brutal prevention of women from voting in some areas by representatives of all the political parties. The huge turnout of women and first time young voters risking their lives to exercise their right to choose is something to celebrate and strengthen Beena Sarwar If there is one thing Pakistanis do whenever they are allowed to go to the polls and exercise their political will through general elections, it is to roundly reject religious extremism. The pattern was repeated this time too. Only once did parties campaigning on a religious agenda receive more than 7% of the votes polled, that was about 11% in the 2002 elections. It was when these parties united in the post-9 /11 scenario marked by heightened sympathy for the Taliban and their ideology, after the US invasion of Afghanistan, and when the top leaders of the mainstream political parties were in exile. In the elections that followed in 2008, the religious parties bagged barely 3% of the votes. The latest elections once again reflect this pattern, with the religious parties garnering a total of less than 5% of the votes. There is, however, concern about the historic connection between the winning party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) and the religious extremists. Nawaz Sharif came into politics through the military dictatorship that ran the country in the 1980s. But he has come a long way in the three decades since then — from being a protégé of the military dictator general Zia ul Haq, to locking horns with the military during his second term in power, until general Pervez Musharraf ousted him in a military coup and sent him packing for a decade of exile in Saudi Arabia.

Benazir Bhutto, arrival in Karachi, 2007. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

The late Benazir Bhutto facilitated Sharif’s return to Pakistan in 2007, with the much-reviled National Reconciliation Ordinance negotiated with Musharraf that also enabled her own return to Pakistan. United against their common foe Musharraf, the two erstwhile political rivals had earlier signed a charter of democracy, agreeing to prevent the military from interfering in the country’s politics. When Musharraf announced general elections even as the state of emergency continued, the response of many political parties was to boycott the polls. “Boycott, and then what?” asked Benazir, coaxing Sharif back into the political arena. Had he not agreed he would have been out in the political wilderness and Pakistan’s transition to democracy with the 2008 elections soon after Benazir’s assassination, would have been far less credible. Imran Khan disdainfully stayed away from these polls. Had “Kaptaan”, as Khan’s supporters call him, contested those elections, he would have been in a much better position this time around. He would have obtained valuable political lessons along the way in the past five years. As it is, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did not do too badly, pulling in third behind the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). PTI supporters are intensely disappointed having thought, unrealistically, that they would get a clean sweep. Like Sharif’s PML-N, Khan’s PTI is perceived to have a soft spot for the Taliban. Khan appears to see them as an anti-American force and is reluctant to unconditionally condemn them. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) actually promised not to attack PTI and PML-N, saying they would only target the “secular” parties namely the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP). None of these parties actually espouse secularism as an ideology.

One of the campaign tigers: Alive or dead? (file photo)

Campaign Advantage The TTP’s virtual carte blanche to the PML-N and the PTI gave both parties the freedom to campaign publicly with gusto (PML-N leaders actually drove around with the party’s electoral symbol in the form of live tigers, one of which collapsed and was rumoured to have died in the Punjab heat). Meanwhile the militants targeted the political rallies of the PPP, the ANP and the MQM in a series of pre-election attacks around the country that killed nearly 150 people, including not just political activists but also several children. On 11 May, the day of the polling, violence, including bomb blasts, killed 29 people at polling stations across the country. The pre-election violence essentially pushed the PPP and the ANP out of sight, barring them from mounting effective public electoral campaigns. Admittedly, neither was expected to do very well. Given the weak governance and performance whilst in power (the ANP was constantly under terrorist attacks that killed 700 of its workers and senior leaders) the incumbency factor was already set to work against them. Pakistanis are fed up of electricity and gas shortages, rising prices, and lack of personal security due to a disastrous law and order situation that has granted virtual impunity to criminals. The shades of grey – some may call it confusion or dichotomy – that have developed in Pakistan’s political landscape over the past years are evident in how well the right-wing, pro-Islamist PML-N and PTI did at the polls. This was so even as the electorate overwhelmingly rejected the Taliban and its violence-ridden ideology by coming out in large numbers to vote. A nearly 60% voter turnout is considered good by any standards, and particularly good in a situation where just going out to vote is a risk to life. This spectacular voter turnout was evident only in Pakistan’s three largest provinces. The turnout in the fourth, the largest in land area but smallest in terms of population, Balochistan, was a poor 10%. Balochistan has been riven by a separatist insurgency for some years now. The conflict has intensified due to the security agencies’ heavy-handed tactics. Their “kill and dump” policy features youth who disappear only to surface as disfigured corpses. All the Kaptaan’s Men

Age-wise list of Pakistani voters for general elections 2013 ww.dnd.com – direct link http://bit.ly/16nlITI

Even so, these landmark elections that drew the world’s attention were a good show. And the credit for enlivening the political scene and enthusing the people to vote must go to the new political entrant Imran Khan and his PTI. The party made inroads as the third force in the traditionally two-party dominated system. The PTI-enthused youth (disparagingly dubbed “youthiyas” by political rivals) made their presence felt initially on the social media. Their enthusiasm and passion forced the slumbering giants to wake up and get their own “youthiyas” involved. With a population of over 180 million and one of the world’s highest population growth rates (around 34% more than double India’s 15.9% and Bangladesh’s 14.1%), Pakistan’s “youth bulge” was expected to significantly affect these elections. Most of the 35 million registered new voters, out of the total of 86.1 million, are between 18 to 25 years old. And many of them are avid PTI supporters. Enthusiastic voters, many voting for the first time, turned out in droves at polling stations in the three largest provinces, often queuing up for eight hours in the sweltering May heat to cast their vote. In Chak Shahzad, a small village on the outskirts of Islamabad, over 1,000 of the total 1,500 registered voters in the village cast their ballots within the first six hours of polling. “I have never seen this many people at polling stations before. The number of youth coming out to vote for the first time is unprecedented,” said the presiding officer at the polling station, terming the turnout he witnessed as the largest in the district’s history.

Musharraf’s ‘farm house’, Chak Shahzad: As good a place to be, if under house arrest you must be…

But Chak Shazad’s most famous resident did not get to cast his vote. Days before the elections, the Supreme Court sent Musharraf off to judicial remand, put him under house arrest in his spacious “farm house”, and barred him from contesting elections for life. It doesn’t pay to mess with the judges. One of the three criminal charges the former army strongman faces is the “judges’ detention case”, for having detained over 60 judges including the chief justice, after imposing a state of emergency in Pakistan in November 2007. The other two cases relate to involvement in the conspiracy to murder Benazir Bhutto in 2007, and the 2006 killing of Akbar Bugti, the Baloch nationalist leader. Enduring Transition Each of these cases has affected Pakistani politics in the long term and certainly not for the better. In fact, the army’s direct interference in politics for more than half of Pakistan’s existence, and indirect interference for most of these 65 years has been the major factor in determining the country’s course. These elections signify the first step away from that self-destructive path. This was the first time that a democratic transfer of power took place in Pakistan, with one elected civilian government handing over power to the next elected civilian government. The democratic political process, which has never been allowed to endure in Pakistan so far, must continue. “No account of the elections and the post-election scenario would be complete without remembering the leaders from Benazir Bhutto to Bashir Bilour and, equally importantly, hundreds of political workers who sacrificed their lives to make this transition possible,” as Mohammad Taqi wrote in his column in the Daily Times.  Until now military dictators or military men behind the scenes have taken decisions related not just to security but to matters that were in the jurisdiction of elected civilian governments. This included foreign policy involving Pakistan’s relations with its neighbours, economy and defence. It is a direct result of these short-sighted policies that Pakistan today finds itself under attack by militants who claim to be jihadis (holy warriors) but are in fact fasadis (those who spread discord). The aim of these fasadis, led by the TTP and its allied groups is to force the state to run along the lines of their ideology, which is essentially that of the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan. For these fasadis and militants in Pakistan democracy is anathema. So is peace with India and so are women in the public sphere. Pakistani voters, by coming out in millions, armed only with the power of their vote, thumbed (literally, using the inked thumb that signifies voter verification at polling stations) their noses at them and voiced a resounding “No” to their misogynist, violent ideology.

Dehdan Village: women vote in Pakistan’s general election on May 11. More women were registered to vote than in any previous poll in the country. Photo: Ben Doherty/Brisbane Times

Women Power A record number of women came out to vote this time — 37.5 million, including in areas where they had never voted before.  In many areas, they did so in defiance of family traditions, political party orders, and the very real danger of fasadi violence. The turnout, say observers, was visibly different from the 2008 elections, when 564 women’s polling stations recorded zero votes, more than half of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP, formerly North West Frontier Province, NWFP). And yet, millions of women were also prevented from voting due to precisely these reasons — family traditions, political party orders, and violence. Militants in Peshawar detonated a bomb planted on a motorcycle outside a women’s polling centre, injuring 12 people, including children.

The dirty Dir deal: Ganging up against the women

In the lower Dir area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, representatives of political parties –PPP, PML-N, PTI and ANP, as well as the “religious” parties the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – Fazal (JUI-F) – actually signed a secret deal agreeing that they would all not allow “their” women to vote. For once there was documentary evidence of such a deal, flashed by the popular 24/7 news channel Geo TV, but there were reports of similar agreements from other areas too, which were communicated to the Election Commission, according to caretaker Information Minister KP Musarrat Qadeem, herself a women’s activist. There were other ways of preventing women from voting.

In North Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold, mosque loudspeakers announced that women would not be allowed to leave home to go to a polling station, and men in cars distributed pamphlets warning that those who allowed women to vote or who influenced women to cast a vote “will be punished”. This traditional, conservative resistance to women in the public sphere persists despite the fact that Pakistan has had a woman prime minister (twice), a woman foreign minister, a woman speaker of the national assembly and several other women in public office, including ambassadors to other countries. There were also cases in other areas of women voters being physically attacked, threatened, or bullied out of casting their vote, often by other women. Mahbina Waheed, an activist in Lahore supporting the PTI campaign, says she saw women who got their thumbs inked, but were pushed out of the polling station without being allowed to cast their vote. “The agents cast the ballots for those women. I met so many speaking of this in the poor localities of NA-124 and 125,” she said. “A recount will never show this. PML-N won by sheer badmashi (thuggery). I experienced it first-hand and the police was with them. At one of the polling stations I went to the police had locked the doors from inside and women voters were being turned away until we showed up. We banged on the doors till the policeman opened it a little and then helped shove everyone in. It was funny but sad. God knows how many women had already gone home without voting.” Such stories were heard from Karachi too, where the dominant party, the MQM traditionally wins and against whom there were serious allegations of rigging in the last election too. Women’s polling stations are traditionally where the most such “rigging” takes place. This time around it was different only so far as the level of awareness amongst the citizens and the access to tools like camera-equipped cell phones that were used in many cases to document evidence, was concerned. Someone inside a women’s polling station in Karachi used a cell phone camera to film a group of women literally stuffing ballot boxes while keeping voters out. One of the women, pushing a bunch of ballot papers into the ballot box, looks straight at the camera, puts a finger to her lips and gestures for secrecy. The video went viral. Such reports notwithstanding, international and local election monitors found that on the whole the elections were free and fair, despite sporadic reports of rigging and a fair amount of mismanagement. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has suggested various steps that can be taken beforehand next time around to ensure that the process is better streamlined and transparent. The Election Commission of Pakistan, headed by the widely respected and independent minded retired Supreme Court justice Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, extended voting in several constituencies around the country following complaints about voters not being able to cast their ballots. The ECP has also ordered re-election in six constituencies. At the time of writing this article, the PTI supporters are actively engaged in street protests demanding re-elections in more constituencies, while the leadership is contemplating legal action. Certainly, rigging complaints must be investigated and addressed. At the same time, the show must go on. These elections, for all the negatives have also brought many positive results.

Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan, 2007. Post election 2013 – allies again? AP photo

“Imran Khan, whether or not he is a closet jihadist, has played a vital role in strengthening the democratic process inasmuch as he has successfully brought apolitical people and young men and women of higher middle classes out of their homes and to the polling stations. This is no mean achievement,” comments Saleem Asmi, a former student activist and senior journalist who retired as editor of the prestigious daily, Dawn. His view that “a couple of elections should stabilise democracy forever” may be a bit optimistic given that it has taken 65 years to create the mess Pakistan is in. But let the democratic political process continue. There are pitfalls galore along the way, but Pakistan is finally on the right track. That is something to celebrate and support.

Screenshot of Sanaullah from a TV report last year, on Indian and Pakistani prisoners participating in a kite-flying festival together. “It’s really nice, I feel like a child myself,” Sanaullah told the reporter.

Tragically, Sanaullah, the Pakistani prisoner whom a fellow inmate had attacked in prison in Jammu in Indian administered Kashmir on May 3, finally succumbed to his injuries on May 9. The attack took place on the day of the funeral of Sarabjit Singh, the high profile Indian prisoner who died on May 3, after being in a coma following an attack by fellow inmates in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore on April 26 – ironically, the day that Indian members of the India Pakistan Joint Judicial Committee on Prisoners landed in Pakistan to inspect jails and meet Indian prisoners. The Committee’s recommendations have been made public, and if implemented, will go a long way towards alleviating the plight of cross-border prisoners.

Here’s a link to the note I wrote, published in the weekly Aman ki Asha page in The News last week – Condemnable attack on unarmed prisoner. A followup note regarding Sanaullah was published in the AKA page of May 8. I sincerely hope this is the end of the series. (If you’re on facebook, feel free to ‘like’ the AKA page and join the AKA group - both managed on a voluntary basis)

Sanaullah, 52, hailed from a desperately poor family in Sialkot – they didn’t even have ID cards and passports, until this incident got the Pakistan government scrambling to organise these papers so that India could issue family members visas to visit him in hospital where he lay in a coma. Read this report in The Hindu, about how India recruits spies from the poorest border areas. I can’t imagine that it’s much different in Pakistan.

Sanaullah had been incarcerated in Kot Bhalwal jail since 1999, with eight criminal cases registered against him including militant activities and murder. He had been awarded life sentence in two of them. Trial was underway in two cases while he had been acquitted in four. The inmate who attacked him, Vinod Kumar, a cashiered soldierm is already serving a life sentence for killing a colleague while posted in Ladakh.

Sarabjit Singh’s family prays for his soul

Both India and Pakistan tried to address the respective situations by suspending prison staff, charging the attackers, ordering inquiries, allowing consular access to the victims following the attacks, as well as granting visas to their families to visit them. All too little, too late. These prisoners had been incarcerated for years without any access to their families.

India had demanded that Sarabjit be repatriated for medical treatment to his home country – a demand Pakistan had refused. Pakistan then made a similar demand, that India refused. The demands seemed more about point-scoring than any genuine concern for the critically injured prisoners. Given the serious nature of the injuries and their comatose state, it’s unlikely that they would have survived anyway.

Both countries must acknowledge that they not only mistreat their own prisoners, but also each other’s nationals. Human rights bodies in India and Pakistan have condemned the attacks.

“The need of the hour is to stay calm and sane and to observe restraint,” said prominent advocate Hina Jilani, Chairperson South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) in a statement. “We need to uphold the virtues of decency and justice… The region’s best tribute to Sarabjit’s memory will be to make sure that no prisoner is ill-treated in any country.”

India’s right wing parties should not demand breaking off the dialogue process with Pakistan, “because dialogue is the key to a solution of any problem between the two countries. It should continue uninterrupted and uninterruptible.”

The unfortunate attacks have highlighted the prisoners’ issue and their safety. It is time for policy makers to “come up with a long term solution and policy to deal with fisher folk and other prisoners languishing in each other’s jails for years and some even after completion of their term.”

The South Asian human rights community has long been urging the states to formulate a policy on this, policy that must “include repatriation of prisoners with long term sentences to undergo imprisonment in their own countries”.

“Concrete measures must be taken to ensure prisoners’ rights by application of international standards. Indian and Pakistani authorities need to meet immediately to devise measures that would ensure the safety, security and humane treatment of prisoners,” concludes the statement, speaking for the South Asian human rights community.

Khalid Lottfi: “We will not let them hijack our religion”

“You know, I think the Chinese student who was killed, I took her there,” said the cab driver. It was a few days after the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15, and after the police had chased the perpetrators, killing one and capturing the other. Everyone was still talking about the unfortunate events that claimed three lives and injured over 260 more.

It turned out that the brothers Tsarnaev lived on our street, on the next block. Here’s a link to the piece I wrote about it for weekly The News on Sunday in Pakistan – and a shorter comment for Global Post – Boston bombings: A Pakistani perspective.

“I told my wife when I saw the picture, that looks just like the girl I took to watch the marathon. I hope it wasn’t her,” said the cabbie. As we drove down Cambridge Street towards Boston South Station where I was dropping my mother visiting from Pakistan, I caught a glimpse of the sadness in his light brown eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror.

My mother and I empathised with him. “When you’ve met or had some contact with someone involved in a tragedy, it hits you more,” I said after a while. “Still, even if the girl who died wasn’t the passenger you took, a young woman died. It’s still tragic.”

He agreed. We started talking about the eight-year old Martin Richards who had also been killed in the bombings. “He didn’t stand a chance,” said the cabbie. “He was standing right where the bomb went off. And do you know what the sign said that he was holding? ‘No more hurting people’. You know, it breaks my heart.”

“I am a Muslim,” he added after a pause. “My religion does not allow this.”

I wondered if he had mentioned his religion to us because he guessed that we shared the same faith.

“No, no,” he said. “I could not tell what religion you have. I have a friend, another cab driver, who is Sikh. You could be Sikh. No, I just like to tell my passengers who I am, to do my bit to spread awareness. These people have hijacked my religion. We have to speak out now.”

“Yes,” said my mother, a white haired retired professor with large, soulful eyes. “It is so good to meet someone like you. I hope your voice is heard by many.”

In the melting pot that is America, I could not have guessed that he was originally from Morocco. His name is Khalid Lottfi, and he has lived in the United States for over 25 years. Read his views among those featured in a comment titled, “How to respond to a terrorist attack” by my friend David Rohde, in Reuters a couple of days later.

I was reminded of Khalid’s words shortly afterwards, when I came across the moving report about Ehab Sadeek, the Egyptian Muslim bagel seller in Winchester in the greater Boston area, who is donating 100% of the profits from his bakery to One Fund Boston for the victims of the bombings, until they are all out of hospital “regardless of how long it takes”. It is a sign of the times that ordinary Muslims like Sadeek or Lottfi feel the need to assert their adherence  to peaceful values.

As we got out of the taxi and paid Khalid, we realised we didn’t have any extra cash for a tip.

“Please, no, I don’t need a tip,” he said, smiling as he pulled my mother’s roller bag out of the boot. Then, unexpectedly, he took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead respectfully.

“You are tip enough for me,” he told her, waving us off.

Parveen Rehman: A ‘selfie’ in Stockholm, 2008. Photo: courtesy Arif Pervaiz.

The cold-blooded murder of Parveen Rehman on March 13 this year came as no great surprise –  in the lawless concrete jungle that is Karachi, one always expects the worst. That doesn’t mitigate the shock and  immense grief at the gunning down of the gentlest of human beings, someone who had devoted her life to helping the poor, empowering the under-privileged. Below, my article on Parveen in Economic and Political Weekly, India, written on March 19, 2013. Also see the these beatuiful tributes by K. B. Abro (with audio), Zameen Kha Gayi Asmaan Kaise Kaise; Zubeida Mustafa, Rest in peace little sister; and Masuma Hasan, Parween Rahman: the legend lives on

Parveen Rehman

Keep the Torch Alight

Parveen Rehman headed the Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi and helped empower an entire community, especially women, and spoke out against the land and drug mafi as in the city. She was assassinated in Karachi on 13 March because she took on criminal and corrupt forces in Pakistani society on behalf of the poor.

Beena Sarwar

The cold-blooded assassination of the gentle, soft-spoken development worker Parveen Rehman (56) sent shock waves around her native Karachi, around Pakistan and around the world. Her murder leaves bereft her octogenarian mother, two brothers and a sister (the writer Aquila Ismail). Not to mention other relatives and a huge number of friends, students and admirers, in particular the people of Orangi township, the sprawling low-income locality in the north-west of Karachi to the uplift of which she devoted her life.

Illustration by K. B. Abro for his blog in Dawn

‘Dharavi’ of Karachi

Karachi is a sprawling megapolis of over 18 million, spilling into the rocky desert that surrounds it, the Arabian Sea and the Indus River delta to its south. It is Pakistan’s largest city, business hub and major seaport. The hum of traffic – heavy industrial transport, interspersed with public and private transport, motorised and animal-driven – is a constant background noise. Many of the countless roads and flyovers that criss-cross the city have displaced human settlements inhabited by the urban poor. It was near a flyover known as the Benaras Pul that two masked men riding a motorcycle waylaid Parveen’s vehicle on the afternoon of 13 March as she returned home from work. They shot her at close range and sped away, the targeted nature of the shooting apparent in their leaving alone her driver, Wali Dad. By the time he got her to the hospital, she had breathed her last, hit by at least four bullets.

Orangi where Parveen worked competes with India’s Dharavi for the title of “Asia’s largest slum”, winning hands down in terms of land area, 22 square miles compared to Dharavi’s one. Its population of about 1.5 million is a bit more than Dharavi’s million. But Orangi, Parveen Rehman always insisted, is “not a slum”. The word “slum”, she would say, does not do justice to its hard-working people. “People are poor but they are not destitute, they’re working class. It’s one of the poorest settlements. People have arranged their own schools, clinics and water supply. They are a great example of people helping themselves”, she told Dean Nelson of The Telegraph in 2009.

Self-help in Orangi. Arif Hasan. More photos at http://bit.ly/10JBD85

Orangi Pilot Project

Orangi’s development is so, in no small measure, due to the work of the groundbreaking Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) that the legendary development activist and social scientist Akhtar Hameed Khan, who was widely known as Khan Sahib, began in 1980. Parveen had just started working as an architect at a prestigious private firm after graduating from Karachi’s Dawood College of Engineering and Technology in 1981. A few months later, persuaded by Khan Sahib she joined OPP as its joint director in 1982. She had found her calling and she never looked back.

Khan Sahib had set up the OPP along the lines of the participatory rural development programme he had pioneered in Comilla in former East Pakistan in 1959. The model is, through technical guidance, social mobilisation, and microcredit, to help poor people to dig their own sewers or water lines, build their own houses and infrastructure, run schools and clinics, or set up their own businesses. The programme also helps build up partnership between people and government, and mobilises local resources “be it the community’s or the government, so that there is no need for any World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) loans or doles”, as Parveen put it in an interview with Fahad Desmukh in 2011.

A soft-spoken, humble, down-to-earth man, courteous to a fault, Khan Sahib was known as a dervish, uninterested in material gains, focused single-mindedly on uplifting the poor. His courage shone through in his quiet determination to continue his work, come what may. His protégée shared all these qualities in full measure. Khan Sahib was a great believer in the power of women. He compared himself to a grandmother – “not your grandfather, because your grandmother gives love…and through love she’s able to encourage and make people grow”, as Parveen told Steve Inskeep (the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi) of National Public Radio in 2010.

Women are active in Karachi’s development, but “they do not like to publicise their roles”, she said. A woman

“is in charge of the entire house, [the] entire budget. And if she’s not convinced, no money can be let out for the development. No house can be improved, no child can go and get educated. It’s a woman who [makes] the decision.

But when you go into some house, a man will come and talk and be very upfront and high profile, because by nature the women have been very gentle but persuasive. They know how to persuade their men…to do the things that they want to get done.”

That was how the women of Orangi learnt to deal with government officials who they initially found difficult, said Parveen. “If women told an official, ‘You do this, you do that’…he would start avoiding us. There are a lot of things he can’t do. The system is such. But now we go and we say, ‘We want your advice. Please tell us what to do’ and they feel very happy”, she told Steve Inskeep.

“I feel sometimes – not with men and women – with any group, if you come just upfront and try to be…the person taking credit for everything, that’s where things start going wrong. Once you rise up horizontally, you take everybody with you. But if you want to rise vertically, you will rise, but then nobody will be there for you.”

The Mother of Karachi

This nurturing, gentle approach earned her the title of “the mother of Karachi”, as many students and admirers referred to her at a protest outside the Karachi Press Club the day after her murder.

Parveen Rehman had taught at her alma mater Dawood College as well as at the University of Karachi’s Visual Studies Department and the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Her legacy includes “students who know the difference between a slum area and a squatter settlement”, says a former student Andaleeb Rizvi, a teacher at Karachi University, in a blog entry mourning the loss of “one of the best teachers I had a chance to interact with”.

“She taught me how ‘not to hate the poor’; not to refer to ‘katchi-abadis’ as slums and instead ‘squatter settlements’, for she said in her sweet melodious voice, Slums mean poverty, crime, hopelessness, while ‘squatter settlements’ are a hub of hope, cultural diversity, the will to make things better. Don’t you think so too? I feel we should not say ‘slums’. It sounds so wrong. She asked if I knew that people in squatter settlements take care of ebuach other more. ‘They stand up to support their neighbour if there is a problem’.

If I am aware of these nuances today, it is because of Parveen. If I disagree with the popular discourse that this country has gone to the dogs, it is because of teachers like her. People like her, who chose not to run away in the face of threats, fears of losing loved ones and being left alone to deal with problems.”

Criminality, Politics and Religion

The day after Parveen’s murder, her devastated colleagues made it a point to keep the OPP office open rather than close it in mourning as might have been expected. This in itself is testament to Khan Sahib’s legacy, to Parveen’s fighting spirit and to the OPP team’s determination not to buckle under threats. Hundreds of social workers and activists from all over the city came to Orangi in solidarity.

Police detain Dr Khan: My report in The Frontier Post, Oct 1992.

Khan Sahib had quietly and with dignity faced his share of adversities. Powerful interests, threatened by his work that empowered the urban poor, on two separate instances filed “blasphemy” cases against him, one in Karachi in 1989, and another in Multan in 1990. There was clearly no basis for the complaints, which were clearly meant to harass the elderly social worker.

“No one can help the poor without evoking the ire of one vested interest or the other”, said I. A. Rehman at the time. Rehman is the director of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan which had taken up Khan Sahib’s case. The cases were eventually quashed just a few years before Khan Sahib passed away in 1999 aged 83. Aamir Mughal, a former intelligence officer who conducted the enquiry into the blasphemy case against Khan Sahib in Karachi in 1991, says that he found that “the land mafia was behind it”.

And now, just over 20 years later, the land mafia is believed to be behind the murder of Khan Sahib’s protégée. She knew she faced threats from not one, but several quarters. Recounting one of those threats (among several) to Fahad Desmukh in 2011 she recalled, “We said all you can do is kill us, yeah? What else can you do? So kill us. We’re not afraid of you. I think that is important.” (Full interview, with transcript)

But it is not so simple anymore. Over the years, criminality, politics and religion (or rather, the pretence of religion) have become increasingly intertwined in Pakistan. Many of the militants who are engaged in relentlessly attacking civilians and security forces personnel, besides schools, mosques, shrines, marketplaces and government offices around the country, draw sustenance from Karachi. Extortion, kidnappings for ransom, vehicle and cell phone thefts, burglaries and donations from shopkeepers deluded into thinking that they are contributing to an “Islamic cause” largely fund the “terror network”. In this situation, there are cases of target killings by the “Taliban” at the behest of one or other vested interest.

Parveen Rehman, photo by Steve Inskeep, NPR

So it is not surprising to hear that shells from the 9 mm pistol used to kill Parveen Rehman reportedly match a 9 mm pistol found on a suspected Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander’s aide. The man was killed in a police shootout in Manghopir on the outskirts of Karachi the following day, reports The Express Tribune.

The police raid was based on information obtained from their network of informers, who “told the police Bilal was involved in Rehman’s murder. The TTP has said it was not involved. It usually claims responsibility if behind an attack”.

“The bullet shells of a 9 mm pistol used in Rehman’s attack and a 9 mm pistol found on Bilal were sent to the forensics division for a match. The expert who did the match confirmed this and that the record of Bilal’s pistol was also being cross-checked with data of around 9,000 records”, says the ET report.

Even if the TTP has denied responsibility, it is entirely possible that some of their affiliates were involved – instigated perhaps by the land mafia, which includes people from all the political parties.

A Woman in Man’s World

Parveen was not a high-profile person who came much into public view. But she was a woman in a man’s world. A woman who did not don a chaddar or a veil, although she dressed simply and conservatively, with a dupatta always draped over her shoulders completing the shalwar kameez she typically wore. She was a woman who was helping empower an entire community, which included women. There are elements in Pakistani society who do not like that.

In her few interviews Parveen spoke out clearly against the land mafia and the drug mafia, as well as the political parties involved in violence in the city. She was also clear that the violence, while given an ethnic colour, was not due to ethnicity. After her murder, a mutual friend disclosed that the Taliban had in recent months attacked three of her colleagues for their work on school reforms; two were killed and one injured.

“She never sought the limelight and was rarely interviewed but her work had international recognition – she won the United Nations Habitat Award in 2001. It appears that she was aware of the threats to her life and had been so for years, probably because her work impinged on the activities of assorted land mafias and others who exploited the poor”, commented The News in an editorial:

Thus Pakistan loses another brave, devoted and resourceful person who gave her life freely in the service of the poor. Under her leadership, the OPP had managed to avoid the taint of corruption that dogs the steps of so many NGOs. Within minutes of her murder, tributes were pouring in on various social media networks from not just Pakistan but across the world. But tributes, honour and respect are no shield against a gunman’s bullet. The evil forces that killed Parveen Rehman have free range in this country, ruled as we are by the corrupt at every level who are bent on self-interest rather than the uplift of a population that is mostly poverty-stricken, has inadequate sanitation and poor drinking water supplies – all issues addressed by the OPP and Parveen Rehman. Whoever killed her, whether it was a “banned organisation” or thugs working for land mafias and encroachers, is unlikely ever to be caught, much less punished. The culture of impunity that has grown on the cancer of corruption ensures protection for even those committing the most heinous of crimes. Rest in peace, Parveen Rehman – your country is the poorer for your passing but it will only be the poor and your fellow-workers who will keep your memory alive ).

Cartoon by Zahoor, reproduced in Nadeem Farooq Paracha’s article on Pakistan ‘ideology’, Dawn, April 19, 2012 http://bit.ly/10Nfsg7

Pakistanis are vocally protesting the trend of over-zealous Returning Officers knocking down prospective electoral candidates like nine pins on “moral” and “religious” grounds related to Articles 62 and 63 inserted into the Constitution of Pakistan by the military dictator Gen. Ziaul Haq. Recently, former MNA and prominent newspaper columnist Ayaz Amir’s candidacy was rejected on the grounds that he has written articles opposing the ‘two nation theory’ and the ‘ideology of Pakistan’. (Here’s an online petition in his support that I have signed). Here’s the HRCP statement slamming “this latest plot to deny people the right to determine who governs them”; Khushal Khattak’s blogpost on “the kind of pre-poll rigging that ANP faces”; The devious Article 62: How pandering to the extremists made it stay, by Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad. Below, prominent citizens statement against the “unethical and undemocratic” electoral process that is allowing the “ignorance and personal prejudices of the Returning Officers” to rule.

Ayaz Amir: “This is the first time in Pakistan that nomination papers have been rejected on the basis of journalistic writing.”

Concerned citizens in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, including writers, poets, artists, journalists, public policy experts, political activists and human rights defenders, in a joint statement have expressed their apprehension on the current electoral process being undertaken by the Election Commission of Pakistan and unnecessarily led by the superior judiciary. This process is not only unethical and undemocratic it is also unprecedented in the electoral history of the country. The statement raised objections to the manner in which the candidates are being questioned about their private lives. This reflects a combination of ignorance and personal prejudices of the Returning Officers in question.

The statement further endorsed the findings and recommendations of the 2012 annual report on status of human rights in Pakistan, released by HRCP, particularly the encroachment of judiciary on the legislative sovereignty of the parliament and the executive authority of the government. This, according to them, is in complete contradiction of established international values of democracy and people’s representation. They reiterated that parliament is the only institution representing the will and aspiration of the people.

The citizens particularly criticised the rejection of the nomination papers of Ayaz Amir on the basis of his newspaper columns, which is a gross violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens and their representatives. There are clauses within Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution related to a person’s faith and religious practices which create a lot of confusion and provide room for manipulation by undemocratic forces. These cannot be translated into legal and tangible questions to be posed to the candidates. Besides, the term ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ is interpreted differently by different people. It was first introduced officially under Gen Yahya’s martial rule. Gen Zia’s regime used it to castigate political opponents. The citizens asked why Quaid-i-Azam’s first speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947 may not become the preamble to the Constitution.

The signatories of the statement include Ashfaq Saleem Mirza, Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, Nasir Zaidi, Fayyaz Baqir, Harris Khalique, Mazhar Arif, Syed Arshad Rizvi, Dr Tanweer Ahmed, Zafar Zaidi, Dr Hafeezur Rehman Chaudhry, Ashraf Kakar, Zamarud Tanweer, Nasreen Azhar, Ali Akbar Natiq, Rehana Hashmi, Farooq Sulehria, Shabana Arif, Naeem Mirza, Dr Arif Azad, Dr. Hassan Nasir, Marvi Sirmed, Zahra Arshad, Shabana Zafar, Hamra Khalique, Amir Shah, Sirmed Manzoor, Zafarullah Khan, Raza Rumi, Romana Bashir, Adam Malik, Bilal Naqeeb, Kishwar Sultana, Asif Rana, Farman Ali, Muhammad Arif, Faisal Buzdar, Ismail Khan, Lala Hassan Pathan, Abdullah Dayo, Zeeshan Noel Christopher, Malik Shahbaz and Zohair Zaidi

Speaking at MIT recently, invited by an Indian colleague, a leading Pakistani academic and physicist makes the case for peace

Indian and Pakistani scientists for peace: Pervez Hoodbhoy and Subrata Ghoshroy last week at MIT

By Beena Sarwar

In the midst of ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan amplified by hyper media on both sides, an Indian scientist warmly introduces a Pakistani colleague at one of the world’s most prestigious universities – and that too for a talk on “Pakistan’s Bomb – Past, Present, and Future”.

The Indian scientist is Subrata Ghoshroy who leads the Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project at the Science, Technology and Global Security working group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Pakistani scientist is Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, an alumnus of MIT where he obtained his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees.

Prof. Hoodbhoy is a well-known supporter for peace between India and Pakistan and a campaigner for global nuclear disarmament. He has consistently and courageously spoken out against nuclear weapons programmes in Pakistan and in India. The recently published book he edited, “Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out” (Oxford University Press, Karachi, Pakistan, 2013) is a collection of essays by Indian and Pakistani scientists. The essays underline how amassing bombs in the region can only lead to disaster, not military triumph.

The essays are compiled from papers researched by visiting scientists at the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia, run by Dr. Zia Mian at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. Prof. Hoodbhoy was one of the project’s visiting scientists in 2011.

At his talk at MIT, he outlined the history of the nuclear race in South Asia that began with India forming its Atomic Energy Agency in 1948.  The Indian physicist Homi Bhabha enthused Prime Minister Nehru into the idea of nuclear energy; eventually the government deliberately left the purpose ambiguous.

Pakistan Prime Minister Z. A. Bhutto wanted the bomb “for revenge” after India fought against West Pakistan in the 1971 war with East Pakistan – where the current movement at Shahbag Square relates to crime committed then, as Prof. Hoodbhoy pointed out.

Bhutto convened a meeting of the country’s scientists at Multan in 1972. Two years later, India conducted its first ‘peaceful’ nuclear test. The term ‘Islamic bomb’ was mentioned for the first time by Bhutto in his book “If I am assassinated” (1977), written while he was on death row.

Clearly, building nuclear weapons has not enhanced security or the wellbeing of the people of India and Pakistan. On the contrary it has led to bravado and aggression, as Prof. Hoodbhoy pointed out, causing several ‘nuclear crises’ since 1986 when Pakistan developed nuclear weapons capability.

Matters heated up in Kashmir where over 90,000 people have since been killed – with India responsible for most of the deaths, as Prof. Hoodbhoy pointed out. The Kashmir situation led to a nuclear crisis in 1987 that was narrowly averted.

Pervez Hoodbhoy: Nuclear weapons have not enhanced security or people’s wellbeing, only led to bravado and aggression.

In 1990, the Kashmir situation led to another crisis as Indian troops movement began building up towards Pakistan, and Pakistan reportedly moved its nuclear weapons from the lab at Kahuta to the Chaklala air base to be loaded on to F-16s waiting on the tarmac.

The Kargil ‘war-like situation’ that erupted on the heels of the nuclear tests of 1998 by India, followed by Pakistan, led to another crisis. Another crisis was precipitated by the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad. Then in November 2008, the terror attacks on Mumbai led to yet another crisis.

After the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, Washington had lifted the sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan following the 1998 nuclear tests, Prof. Hoodbhoy reminded the audience. In fact, by 2006, according to a Reuters news report, Washington considered Pakistan and India’s acquisition of nuclear weapons as legitimate.

Over the next few years, the USA increasingly saw India as an ally and its legitimisation and rewards to India severely damaged nuclear non-proliferation.

Each period of extreme tension between India and Pakistan has carried the threat of a nuclear war breaking out. The threat was averted at the last minute each time. However, peace advocates like Prof. Hoodbhoy point out that the situation would not have reached that point had it not been for the increased aggression in mindsets after nuclearisation.

Dr Hoodbhoy found himself surrounded by people wanting to meet him and ask more questions.

In one television talk show following the Mumbai attacks, a Pakistani general went so far as to say that the Indians themselves were responsible, motivated by wanting to make Pakistan look bad. Or that the USA or Israel were behind the attacks. The general said that Pakistan should mount a nuclear attack on India before Indian tanks could start moving towards Pakistan, recalled Prof. Hoodbhoy. “That was the sort of threat being bandied about”.

About whether India and Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence would continue to work, Prof. Hoodbhoy said that Pakistan must act against the militants. “It is essential,” he said, “for Pakistan and India to make peace.”

Also essential, added Subrata Ghoshroy, winding up the discussion, is the “democratic political process”. For the first time, an elected government in Pakistan was completing its tenure and getting ready to hand over power to the next after holding general elections. “This is a positive step and must be celebrated and supported. It shows the underlying strength of Pakistani society and polity, which we must build on rather than hyping the notion of a ‘failed state’,” he stressed.

This family refuse a tent so they can squat in front of their home. Photo: Nadia Jamil

In the midst of the despair and anger caused by the insane, cold-blooded attack on the Christians of Joseph Colony (also known as Esa Nagri), in Badami Bagh Lahore, it is heartening to see Pakistanis come together not just to unequivocally condemn the attack, but also to help those who have lost everything. Please join this effort. Friends that I trust are working with the Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation, run by Cecil and Michelle, whose father the late Sqdn Ldr Cecil Chaudhry I knew as a wonderful human being, and a dedicated peace activist and educationist (although he was more famous for being a war hero). Please see below for information on how to help, as well as photos and updates.

Urgently needed

• Clothes – for men, women, children, and babies
• Slippers – for men, women, children, and babies. (“Children are cutting their feet on rubble”).
• Buckets, mugs, utensils etc
• Sheets, pillows, blankets (“People need razais – quilts – which they can lay on the floor or take for cover if need be. Women were sleeping in trash bags.”)
• Women’s hygiene products, soaps etc
• Diapers, children’s undergarments
• Water / Juices / Milk
• Mosquito repellent (“V IMP lots of mosquitoes”)
• Toys for very young children
• Coloring Books / Color pencils / Storybooks

In Lahore, please drop off donations to the Tamasha office, 16 C/1-A Gulberg II. For details please contact: Cecil S. Chaudhry on +92-300-840-0602, or Farooq on +92-300-424-6813.
In Karachi, drop off donations to the Interflow Office at Tipu Sultan Road, off Sharah e Faisal. Contact Usama from Amal Team +92-314-201-7112

Wire money for the affected people to:
Standard Chartered Bank
Account title: Michelle Chaudhry
Rupee Account no. 01529304901
Dollar Account. 05529304979
Swift code: SCBLUS33.

You can also send money via the photo journalist Saad Sarfaraz (cell number: +92-300: 2009779) who made the video posted earlier; he is also working with the Cecil and Iris Choudhry Foundation. See his photos of the attack at this link.

Paypal: saadsarfrazsheikh@gmail.com
OR to Allied Bank Ltd
Account title: Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
BRANCH CODE: 0634 (EME SOCIETY LAHORE)
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 01-200-1194-7

Please send an email mentioning your donation to nadojamil@gmail.com or michelle.chaudhry66@gmail.com so they can confirm receipt.

“ALL THE KIDS there universally have requested for drawing and writing material. They said, we don’t want toys as much as we want pens and drawing book, writing pads. They lie around in tents all day with nothing to do and we are collecting writing pads, coloring pencils, pens for them. Ten kids fought over one writing pad. The children are missing school desperately” - Nadia Jamil, an old friend and well-known actor in Lahore who is working with the Cecil and Iris Choudhry Foundation to provide relief

Khushi of #BadamiBagh calls herself Kochee. No clothes,no shoes & a tipper in school missing her classes the most twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

According to the DCO office, the displaced families include approximately 600 children aged between 0-12 years. Thanks to generous donations, the Cecil and Iris Foundation is setting up a Children’s Camp with the Punjab Government’s permission at Badami Bagh. This camp is a recreational space for children of the basti – “A play area where they will be able to paint, draw, read , write, and get out of their tents for a while. Please donate any recreational activities you can. Preferably drawing, painting and creative stuff,” says Nadia.

This man broke down in tears,thanking”aap sub log”said he was broken “Dil har cheez se uth Gaya hain,hamesha ke liye” twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

The Punjab government has given Rs 500,000 to each family, begun 24/7 re-construction of the damaged houses, and is providing food has stocked all tents with dry foods. (Yes, elections are coming up, but still, good going – although some PML-N leaders are known to be among those who incited the attack in the first place).

Once the houses are rebuilt ” they will need to be painted and refurbished with furniture and other necessities. GO YOURSELF & HELP REBUILD THE TRUST so bitterly broken…,” urges Nadia. “People will attack you for goods if you try to distribute on your own so best to go via an organized group.”

Caritas has opened a small voluntary dispensary at #BadamiBagh twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

My 2 new friends Maria in yellow LOVES Wong photographed & shy Alizeh.Both need 2 change their clothes & Hv no shoes twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

Mother in a tent with her baby.this baby had fever.we got Panadol for it but its clothes soaked.Had no more clothes:( twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

ShadBB:a widow who cleaned ppls homes all her life 2 build her own.2day her whole lifes work/her home reduced 2 ashes twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

Nelson,grandson 2 ShadBB.Everything hs family owned is burnt.He hs no clothes,no shoes.He misses writing,drawing most twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013

Shad Begums tent w her grandson Nelson.Widowed whn her son ws 1 she worked all her life in homes 2build her own house twitter.com/NJLahori/statu…

— Nadia Jamil (@NJLahori) March 12, 2013