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Tyranny of power asymmetry
urdu translation,
Maleeha Lodhi | June 29, 2020
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The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

PAKISTAN’S foreign policy objectives have been remarkably consistent over the years.
They have principally been shaped by its geostrategic location in a tough
neighbourhood which imposed heavy security burdens on the country. This explains
why security concerns — given Pakistan’s enduring quest for security — had such a
dominant influence on the evolution of its foreign policy. The sweep of the country’s
foreign policy over the decades also reveals a complex interplay between internal and
external factors, and between domestic goals and an ever-changing international
environment.

Of course, big power interests in the region had a major impact on policy, intersecting with
elite interests to sometimes complicate if not aggravate Pakistan’s challenges. An unedifying
aspect of this was a mindset of dependence fostered among officials during prolonged
periods of the country’s alignments. This dependence proved to be habit forming. Reliance
on external financial assistance — as a consequence of these alignments — created a
perverse incentive for urgent economic reform and serious domestic resource mobilisation.
It also encouraged ruling elites to constantly look outside to address financial deficits and
other sources of internal vulnerabilities, even see outsiders as catalytic agents to promote
development and solve problems at home.

Abdul Sattar’s book Pakistan’s Foreign Policy 1947-2019, whose fifth edition has been
published this year, does not examine this linkage between the internal and external and
how they have been intertwined in such a consequential way. But it offers a useful
beginner’s guide to the many twists and turns of foreign policy. Meant primarily for students
of international relations, it remains a valuable starting point for anyone interested in
learning — in concise form — about the factors driving Pakistan’s external engagements
since the country’s inception.

Sattar witnessed first-hand many of the watershed developments in foreign relations during
his 39-year career in the foreign service. As foreign secretary he was a participant in several
key policy decisions. I had the privilege of working briefly with him in the immediate
aftermath of 9/11 when I served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and he became foreign
minister. I found him anxious to listen to the assessment and advice of the mission — rarely
done now — and eager to share his perspectives with our team. His visits to Washington at a
challenging time were marked by candid conversations with our interlocuters, often
punctuated by a dry wit. He passed away last year, a month after he finished updating his
book.

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Pakistan came to rely on itself for defence

but financial dependence remains a habit.
The central theme of his book is summed up in the foreword by a towering figure in
Pakistani diplomacy, Agha Shahi. The “tyranny of power disparity” in the region was
brought painfully home when the country was unable by its efforts and those of the UN to
achieve the settlement of disputes after independence. To address this situation, Shahi
writes, Pakistan “began to look outward for friends and allies” to “safeguard its
independence, strengthen security and build the economic sinews of the infant state”. The
need to address this power asymmetry tyranny drove Pakistan into alliances during the Cold
War and beyond.

This led, until the Cold War ended, to a prolonged pursuit of a strategy of external balancing
though Sattar does not use this expression to describe Pakistan’s search for alliances. The
cost of alignment with Washington was high, he asserts, and second thoughts arose on the
wisdom of this policy, but Pakistan couldn’t afford to abandon this course aimed as it was to
“contain the Indian threat in which the US had little interest”. But in those early Cold War
years, Pakistan, by abjuring a non-aligned policy, lost the support of influential Arab nations
and found itself isolated among African-Asian countries.

Meanwhile, Pakistan sought to engage the US, when it became America’s most allied ally, in
efforts to promote a settlement of Kashmir. These attempts were blocked by an intransigent
India and its Cold War ally. In 1962, when the Security Council took up the Kashmir issue,
India’s foreign minister Krishna Menon reneged on New Delhi’s commitment to hold a
plebiscite. The US president then persuaded his Irish counterpart whose country held the
Council presidency to sponsor a resolution recalling past resolutions that called for a
plebiscite. Despite support from seven members the resolution was vetoed by the Soviet
Union.

In reviewing the history of Pakistan’s foreign engagements Sattar identifies a number of

turning points. The first was alliance with Washington and turning away from non-
alignment, “dictated by the necessity of containing the tyranny of power-disparity”. The
second was the growing strategic relationship with China and end of the alliance with the US
when it failed to help Pakistan in the 1965 war. The third was the post-1965 turning to the
East and distancing from the West. The next turning point came with the 1971 debacle and
the lesson Pakistan drew, which dictated the pursuit of the nuclear option. The Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 marked another turning point which led to Pakistan’s long
involvement as well as resumption of the alliance with Washington. This ended with the
Soviet exit from Afghanistan. Then came the turning point after 9/11 when Pakistan “was
dragged into partnership in the war on terror”, which Sattar argues “brought more
problems than benefits”.
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The most recent turning point that Sattar did not live to write about has seen Pakistan tie its
strategic future more firmly to China while facing an implacably hostile India that has
sought to illegally change the status quo in occupied Kashmir. In fact, the country’s daunting
foreign policy challenges in the present phase call for a more imaginative strategy to
navigate a more complex and unsettled multipolar world.

The world has changed fundamentally but habits ingrained over the years by the ruling elite
have yet to do so. Pakistan learnt to rely on itself for its defence when it pursued and
acquired the strategic capability to deter aggression. But the habit persists of seeking help
from foreign donors to deal with chronic financing gaps — frequently dramatised by frantic
trips to Arab capitals. A similar lesson has yet to be learnt about financial self-reliance which
is only possible through bold fiscal reform and a reordering of budget priorities. The tyranny
of dependence waits to be overcome.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

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 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

Urban welfare in Pakistan

Umair Javed | June 29, 2020

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

CONVERSATIONS around the coronavirus response have talked about the need for
localised interventions, especially given the constraints and socioeconomic trade-offs
faced by urban areas in developing countries. One of the things that has emerged from
this analysis, particularly for Pakistan, is how the absence of strong, representative
local government platforms may have hindered more effective containment and more
efficient and wide-ranging distribution of welfare.

The importance of urban local governments in strengthening service delivery,

developmental outcomes, and democracy has been talked and written about repeatedly. All
mainstream political parties have, to varying extent, shied away from substantive
devolution, even when appropriate legislation has been developed. Unfortunately, the
pandemic has exposed this weakness and placed it in full view.

The prolonged centralisation and bureaucratisation of governance around municipal

management, in particular, manifests in a variety of ways. One often ignored consequence is
the related fragmentation and erosion of civic action and the broader space of localised civil
society. The more decisions are taken opaquely, by political fiat from the provincial or
federal tier, and by committees that are closed off to a variety of groups (due to structural
and institutional inequities), the less likely they are going to have ownership or
accountability. This subsequently sterilises the broader space for citizen participation.

The history of municipal politics in Pakistan actually shows a regression from strong local
institutions of philanthropy and social service. Lahore, for example, had a variety of
foundations and philanthropic ventures during the colonial and early post-colonial era (such
as the Ganga Ram Trust); much of which was gradually eroded by the bureaucratisation and
expansion of the state apparatus. Karachi too had a long-standing history of social ventures
in health, education, and local infrastructure financed and run by members of various
communities. Many of these ventures continue to exist while the space for new initiatives
has reduced.

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Many cities across the world owe their

developmental legacies to the role their
residents played, and were allowed to play.

Attempts at urban development and welfare through centralised state control is a

characteristic feature of cities across the Global South. The development of big
infrastructure, such as housing schemes, roads and highways, bridges and flyovers, has been
presented as testaments to state capacity, serving as a source of legitimacy for political and
bureaucratic elites. While this has allowed some modicum of growth and development to
take place, it has often come at the cost of welfare considerations and long-term
sustainability.
Research from Latin America, for example, has shown that welfare outcomes have been
strongest in polities that allowed devolution in decision-making, and where local
governments were able to create substantive ties with civil society, such as local community-
based organisations and housing and mobility rights movements. Cities in Brazil have shown
remarkable welfare gains since the 1990s, precisely because of the changes in their
governing architecture, the entrenchment of democratic politics, and the proliferation of
civil society initiatives. If the 1980s were marked by futile top-down state attempts to
improve welfare and development outcomes, the subsequent decades have marked a very
clear departure from that legacy.

Historically, these trends can also be observed in states that had devolved structures of
municipal management prior to the creation of large and expansive central state structures.
The history of urban life and politics in the US is very instructive in this regard. In the US,
cities were governed through charters and incorporation, and were responsible for raising
their own revenues and managing their own developmental affairs. Many local elites saw
the benefit of incorporation, yet also struggled with the real welfare responsibilities that
came with the influx of large migrant populations.

In an interesting account of urban development in the 19th-century, sociologist Elisabeth

Clemens points to the role of civil society organisations, such as ‘community chests’ (funding
arms for welfare initiatives financed by local businessmen and philanthropists) in picking
up the slack as far as development-related spending was concerned. What they received in
return was political and social acclaim and the opportunity to occupy key decision-making
offices.

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As a result, this model of community-led development led to considerable expansion in
health, education, and infrastructure-related outcomes for American cities throughout this
period. Even today, not too different from what we’ve seen in Lahore and Karachi, many
cities across the world owe their developmental legacies to the role their residents played,
and were allowed to play by the state.

Much of this becomes relevant in Pakistan’s case given its trajectory of urbanisation, the
increased expectations of higher quality of life from urban residents, and the stagnation of
opportunities in agriculture and rural areas as a whole. The state is already struggling as far
as its financial health is concerned. There are also related questions of state capacity, with
bureaucrats — even if well-intentioned — unable to intervene as effectively, given the scale
and complexity of many of these issues.

So what are some of the key steps that can be taken to create the kind of state-society
synergy needed to address the developmental questions currently facing Pakistan’s urban
areas? The devolution of political, fiscal and administrative capacity is obviously the first
step, and one that has been reiterated multiple times over. We need to shift the locus of
politics from the centre and the province to the municipality. The second step needed is to
improve and simplify the legal regime around civil society initiatives. The securitisation of
the NGO/Trust/CBO space has contributed to it being mired in red tape, and as a result,
experiencing greater fragmentation and informalisation of philanthropy.

These two steps are important ones to take for a number of reasons, no less because the
Pakistani state’s fiscal and capacity woes continue to hamper large and effective outlays on
development. If Pakistani cities are going to evolve and develop, they need representative
government, strong civil society organisations, and socialised solutions to developmental
challenges.

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The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

Long hot summer

Editorial | June 29, 2020

AT the height of the blazing Karachi summer, a grim annual ritual is playing out in the
bustling metropolis. As the sun beats down mercilessly on the city and high humidity
makes conditions stifling, long power cuts — announced and unannounced — have
become routine across the metropolis, heaping further misery upon the frazzled
dwellers of Karachi. K-Electric, the city’s sole power supplier, says the additional cuts
are due to furnace oil and gas shortages. However, the federal government does not
appear to be buying its explanation. The power division, for example, says inadequate
distribution and transmission capacity of KE has exacerbated the crisis. The Sindh
government, meanwhile, has pointed the finger at Islamabad, blaming it for short fuel
supplies. As the stakeholders shift the blame, the people of Karachi have to bear the
consequences in suffocating heat.

While load-shedding in the summer months is an excruciating experience every year, this
time, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, power cuts are putting increased pressure on the
people. With partial lockdowns still in place, many people continue to work and study at
home. Moreover, many patients are also self-isolating at home, so there is an added urgency
to solve the issue without delay. Already there have been protests against the power cuts in
several city areas, as people have been compelled to take to the streets due to the scarcity of
electricity and water. To prevent further deterioration of law and order, and for the sake of
public health and well-being, the crisis needs to be addressed immediately. The KE chief met
the Sindh governor on Friday and assured him the situation would be resolved soon, while
Nepra has also taken “serious notice” of Karachi’s power crisis. Instead of pointing fingers at
each other, all stakeholders — the centre, the Sindh administration as well as KE — need to
identify the problem and resolve it quickly so that power cuts are brought down to a bare
minimum, or eliminated altogether.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

NFC appointment
Editorial | June 29, 2020

IT was obvious to everyone that the presidential order appointing the prime minister’s
adviser on finance as a member of the 10th National Finance Commission and
authorising him to preside over the deliberations of the NFC in the absence of the
premier, who also holds the finance portfolio, wouldn’t withstand judicial scrutiny. The
adviser’s appointment as a stand-in for the federal minister for finance and the illegal
TORs seeking to slash provincial shares from federal tax resources anticipated
political opposition and legal challenges. Therefore, the Balochistan High Court
decision last week invalidating Hafeez Sheikh’s appointment for being unconstitutional
wasn’t a surprise. Nor did the ruling against the agenda other than determination of
the formulae for vertical and horizontal division of tax resources between the centre
and provinces, set in the notification that constituted the new commission, shock
anyone. The “President of Pakistan and NFC are bound to fully implement the
Constitution ... Hence, the federal and provincial governments should utilise joint
efforts in order to strengthen the federation rather than racing for a major share of
NFC,” the court ruled.

The PTI government has seldom tried to conceal its dislike of devolution of administrative
powers to the provinces under the 18th Amendment or their greater fiscal space under the
seventh NFC, which continues to operate despite the expiry of its five-year term in 2015. It
wasn’t unexpected. The increasing expenditure — especially on account of debt payments,
and internal and external security — and shrinking tax collections have widened the
resource gap in the past two years. In a contracting economy, the centre is struggling to pay
its bills. Even austerity measures and expenditure cuts aren’t helping. Such gimmicks can
help only so much. Instead of enlarging the size of the tax pie by widening the net to meet its
rising expenditure, the government, like its predecessor, wants the provinces to contribute
funds to pay for growing security expenses, SOE losses, subsidies, debt repayments and the
development of Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and KP’s tribal districts. Even if the provinces
agree to pay 7pc of the undivided tax pool at the cost of their own development as demanded
by the centre, the problem will remain. The solution lies in urgently expanding the tax net
for doubling the existing tax-to-GDP ratio and not in ambushing the provinces through
unconstitutional ways.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

‘Dubious licences’
Editorial | June 29, 2020

PAKISTAN’S commercial aviation industry is embroiled in a scandal unprecedented in

scope. Indeed, the affair of the pilots’ dubious licences has even eclipsed the findings in
the preliminary investigation report of the PK-8303 crash. Minister for Aviation
Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s stunning admission on Wednesday that of 860 pilots, 262 had
appeared in exams through proxies has left not only this country but the world aghast.
On Friday, Mr Khan gave further details. Of the 860, he said, 753 were working in
Pakistan and an inquiry is underway into their suspect credentials, while the rest are
flying for foreign airlines. No less than 450 of the 743 are working in PIA; the remaining
are employed by local private airlines, flying clubs, etc. According to him, the 262 pilots
found to have taken exams through proxies have been indicted by a board of inquiry
and will be barred from flying. The opposition has roundly condemned the minister for
bringing these facts into the open. While this will admittedly have a grievous impact on
the country’s aviation industry, the public has a right to make an informed choice when
it opts to take to the skies.

Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association has expressed concern over the
“serious lapse in the licensing and safety oversight by the aviation regulator” — and rightly
so. The Civil Aviation Authority is solely responsible for licences issued to all pilots receiving
their training in Pakistan. Moreover, every airline selects instructors from within the pilots
employed by it, who are then approved by the CAA, and the final check flight is monitored
by a CAA inspector. In that respect, every licence issued by the CAA is ‘genuine’. The
‘dubiousness’ lies in the fact that certain elements within the CAA, particularly in its
licensing and IT departments, have gone beyond international regulatory guidelines to
deliberately queer the pitch so as to make the examination procedure perverse and
convoluted. The option to take recourse to unfair means thus becomes that much more
tempting, enabling pilots to ‘pass’ the exam while corrupt CAA personnel line their pockets.
This is not to say that the pilots are blameless, but the buck stops with the regulatory
authority.

The PK-8303 tragedy has opened a can of worms: a thorough overhaul is called for, both in
PIA and the CAA. Besides the licensing fiasco, there is also the issue of what becomes of
investigations into air accidents, and not only the ones that have claimed lives. There have
also been several non-fatal incidents in recent years in which inquiries, if begun at all, have
been mothballed. Why? To cite but one example, an ATR-42 skidded off the runway at Gilgit
airport in July last year. Thankfully, all passengers remained safe, but the aircraft had to be
written off. The CAA has much to answer for.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

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 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

Shattered dreams
Syed Saadat | June 29, 2020

The writer is a former civil servant.

LEGEND has it that thousands of years ago, human beings had very long lifespans and
lived for hundreds of years. A sage of those times was telling his disciples that there
would come a time when people would not live that long and the average lifespan
would be less than even 100 years.

An old lady interjected, “Then surely those people would not build any houses at all; why
build a house for such a short span?” The sage smiled, “They would make the strongest of
houses; expensive, lavish and elaborate.” And, he added, “they would not mind going to any
extent to do that”. Neither the woman nor the sage lived long enough to see those times, but
they are well and truly here.

When everyone was busy worrying about the outcome of the coronavirus, 13 federal
secretaries, including some retired ones got themselves plots in the most developed and
beautiful sector D-12 right at the foot of the Margalla Hills of Islamabad — even though the
regulations clearly state that any new plots emerging in already developed CDA (Capital
Development Authority) sectors must be auctioned to earn maximum revenue.
Had these plots been auctioned, the average sale price would be at least Rs50 million for
each. That is not the only problem here. In 2007, then president Musharraf, to win over the
civilian bureaucracy, introduced a perk for federal secretaries to receive a plot in addition to
their normal service benefit plot, which means at least two residential plots in the federal
capital. This policy in itself is controversial, contentious and discriminatory.

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The CDA could earn billions by initiating the

process of regularisation.

Even in these uncertain times, the secretaries benefited themselves instead of getting their
act together to question the failure of the CDA to develop sectors G-14, E-12, I-15 and many
more despite getting development charges from the allottees decades ago. So much so that
1,400 out of 4,200 allottees of E-12 have passed away without getting anything.

Such loot and plunder has happened too often right under the nose of the prime minister to
give him the benefit of the doubt that he is not aware of it. In cricketing parlance, it seems to
be a case of LBW— loot before watchman.

When it comes to himself, everything falls into place. The prime minister’s Banigala
residence had been found to be illegal. It will be regularised in one way or the other and the
time it takes does not really seem to bother him as he continues to occupy the property.
However, since the court verdict almost three years ago declaring the construction in
Banigala and other similarly classified areas illegal till they are regularised, all construction
has stopped on buildings in these zones. Some buildings were complete, others were near
completion, and people had invested millions and the CDA had no objection.
Mr Saqib Nisar, then chief justice of the Supreme Court, took notice of the construction in
Banigala on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s application. It would seem that Mr Khan was not
in favour of poor people building their humble abodes in the vicinity.

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Since then, while he continues to enjoy his dream mansion, the general public in the vicinity
suffers every day as they cannot sell their property and are even denied basic amenities.
Does the prime minister know that no new gas or electricity connection has been provided
to any house in the Banigala area for the last three years?

Imagine if the CDA had sealed his residence until it had been given proper legal approval. He
might have survived given his experience of living in a container or having the right
connections, but imagine the same happening to someone who has invested all his savings in
his dream house. The cabinet gladly clubbed the fate of these cases with the approval of the
revised master plan of the city as the delay does not bother any of the privileged individuals
sitting in the cabinet. The CDA takes a long time to perform even little tasks like fixing a
streetlight, so one can very well imagine how long something as big as formulating a new
revised master plan for the city would take. Will the fate of thousands of people having a
stake in plots or high-rise buildings in Banigala, E-11, the Islamabad Expressway and other
zones hang in the balance till then?

The CDA could earn billions in fees and other charges by initiating the process of
regularisation on an urgent basis. This would not only generate revenue but would also ease
the pain of the general public. But it seems that to those in power or with influence, the woes
of the general public do not matter — after all, what can be more urgent than the allotment
of their own plots? The PTI-led government is turning out to be a tale of too many shattered
dreams.
The writer is a former civil servant.

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syedsaadatwrites@gmail.com

Twitter: @SyedSaadat55

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020

 TODAY'S PAPER | JUNE 29, 2020

Learning dilemma
Huma Yusuf | June 29, 2020

The writer is a freelance journalist.

AMONG the longest legacies of the pandemic will be learning losses suffered by
students, impacting livelihoods and the national economy. No wonder, then, the prime
minister last week reiterated the need for a joint strategy across provincial authorities
to resume educational activity as soon as possible. The problem is well-identified, the
solution — a haphazard mix of virtual and traditional broadcast offerings — less so.

The government should be clear that the biggest challenge lies on the demand, not supply
side. Pre-pandemic, Pakistan already had the second-highest global rate of school-age
children who do not attend school, more than 40 per cent. Going forward, the main
challenge will be to get students who stopped attending school during lockdown to come
back. The economic and health impact of the pandemic means that many leavers will be
forced to work instead, while others, especially girls, will be compelled to take up unpaid
caring responsibilities. Before spending on e-learning platforms, the government should
budget for stipends to incentivise attendance.
When students do come back, the focus must be on plugging the learning gaps. In a recent
UKFIET blog, Rabea Malik cites research on rural government schools showing 10pc learning
gains after a year of regular schooling for children in grades three, four and five. She
emphasises the need for returning students to be assessed to determine where they have
fallen behind, and argues that teachers will have to respond to a diversity of needs given
that children in lockdown will have had varying access to educational support and
technologies as well as varying health- and economic security-related experiences. In other
words, post-pandemic education initiatives must be responsive, adaptive and localised.

This means that the seductiveness of virtual learning as a catch-all solution demands
scrutiny. The state’s excitement about e-learning predates the pandemic, and may need to be
tempered. It is highlighted in the National Education Policy 2017-2025 as a route to
upskilling Pakistan’s youth; recently, the education minister has touted the imminent launch
of an e-Taleem portal.

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Post-pandemic education initiatives must be

responsive.

The main critique of virtual learning is that it threatens to exacerbate educational

inequalities. Around 22pc of Pakistanis had internet access in 2018, meaning any substantive
shift to virtual education would exclude the majority of the school-age population.

To their credit, government officials and the education sector have recognised this challenge,
and have experimented with a mix of education delivery options. The launch of an
educational television channel is being followed by plans for Radio Pakistan to broadcast
educational content for students on the wrong side of the digital divide. Unicef and the
Balochistan Secondary Education Department have launched a blended learning initiative,
Mera Ghar Mera School, which provides access to WhatsApp groups offering guidance on
home schooling. Sindh launched an Android learning app for kindergarten and primary
students, though it has reached around half the target student population.

Several edtech start-ups have also seen a boost to business, particularly those offering game-
based learning, digital textbooks and STEM videos. These companies’ partnerships with
mobile service providers and government school networks hint at how such platforms could
be scaleable. Indeed, in a country as diverse as Pakistan, effective education delivery will
always necessitate a mix of pedagogic approaches and technologies.

The danger is that we focus on the medium at the expense of the message. The time and
resources expended on exploring Covid-appropriate delivery platforms will necessarily
detract from the emphasis on educational attainment. This is something Pakistan can ill-
afford. According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey, the
population’s literacy rate increased only 2pc to 60pc between 2015-16 and 2018-19. Literacy
statistics also have little correlation with learning, as fewer than 20pc of third-graders can
read and comprehend a short passage.

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Despite this context, the question of what constitutes an effective curriculum remains a
political and ideological battleground. The focus on educational outcomes — eg literacy,
critical thinking, STEM skills — remains scant. Instead, there is a push to launch a national
curriculum that promotes populist nationalism (and undermines the post-pandemic need for
tailored, responsive teaching) as well as a right-wing-washing of educational content
(consider Punjab’s recent curriculum bill that requires Urdu literature and Pakistan studies’
textbooks, among others, to be vetted by the Muttahida Ulema Board).

Ultimately, one wonders whether the powers that be truly comprehend the value of
education to the nation’s progress. What else explains the budget cuts for educational
expenditure just as the need becomes truly critical?

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Twitter: @humayusuf

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Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020