The government and the national media will both find a new set of principles, just unveiled by a group of Commonwealth associations in London, extremely useful in protecting freedom of expression in Pakistan and enabling the media to play its due role in securing the people’s right to good governance.

I.A. Rehman

The inspiration for drafting these principles came from the 2003 enunciation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values on separation of powers of the three organs of state, and the realisation that “Government transparency and accountability is promoted by an independent and vibrant media, which is responsible, objective and impartial, and which is protected by law in its freedom to report and comment on public affairs”.

What expedited the effort to frame the new principles was the Commonwealth secretary general’s address at a function in April 2017 in which she referred to the killing of scores of journalists across the world each year as “a serious indictment of our collective efforts to build a safer and more inclusive future”. The killings of media persons, their harassment in various ways and their imprisonment made a new effort necessary to protect press freedom and the safety of journalists, uphold the rule of law and fight corruption in public life.

A new set of principles on the freedom of expression must be complied with.

The principles “are intended to serve as a set of guidelines to assist member states and their agencies, as well as Commonwealth legislatures, judiciaries, civil society and media to make appropriate contributions to promoting and developing democratic, accountable and open societies in accordance with Commonwealth values, international norms and standards and the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals”.

The first of the 12 principles reiterates the fact that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy and underpins good governance, public accountability and respect for all human rights, and reaffirms the UN-recognised right to receive and impart information in any form from anywhere.

The second principle describes the nature and scope of restrictions that can be imposed on freedom of expression. These must be in accord with international human rights law, covenants and treaties. Where warranted by incitement to crime etc, the curbs should be prescribed by law and must be necessary and proportionate. The Commonwealth states are urged to revise their press legislation and sedition laws that criminalise free speech. Truth and public interest should be accepted as adequate defence, and sources of information as well as whistleblowers should be protected.

The third principle upholds the right of access to information and urges member states to enact and implement the right to information legislation and construe regulatory and restrictive laws narrowly and subject to the public interest test.

The fourth principle calls for open, two-way flow of information between parliament and the media. All elected bodies should encourage maximum media coverage of their proceedings and respect the media’s right to comment on their performance.

The fifth principle calls upon the judiciaries to promote open justice, and facilitate fair and accurate media coverage of court proceedings. Criminal law and contempt proceedings should not be used to restrict legitimate debate on the judiciary’s affairs. Courts, judges and lawyers must not be threatened or abused.

The media’s right to cover electoral processes is the subject of the sixth principle. Election commissions and other officials should ensure impartiality of electoral processes and equitable access to the media for all parties and candidates.

The seventh principle urges member-states to put in place effective laws and measures to ensure a safe and enabling environment for journalists to work without fear, intimidation and interference. Journalists should be trained and equipped to work during emergencies.

A call to end impunity in cases of killings of or attacks on journalists and to respect the UN plan of action and Unesco’s requests for judicial follow-up to killings of journalists is the theme of the eighth principle.

The ninth principle calls upon the media to set its professional standards and observe its code of conduct and instal a mechanism to address complaints against itself.

The 10th principle defines the limits of plans to regulate the various media forms without interfering with their rights. The last two principles, 11th and 12th, stress the observance of these principles and the upholding of Commonwealth values.

These principles cover some of the ground with which journalists have long been familiar, but they also address their concerns that are of recent origin, such as killings of media persons, demands of duty in conflict areas, and matters related to elections, the judiciary and impunity.

The principles discussed here are more relevant to Pakistan than many other countries of the world. This country has long been identified as one of the most dangerous places for journalists. It is about to hold a general election that is likely to determine the form and substance of democracy the state may be able to practise.

Corruption in public life and administration is endemic, and the state has yet to display the will and capacity to defeat the monster. Neither the much-touted development projects nor the campaign against extremism and militancy meets the minimum standards of transparency and accountability. The national media has a heavier than normal responsibility. It must help both state and society overcome the challenges confronting them with as little pain as possible. It is difficult to find any among the 12 principles that is not applicable to this country.

The government would thus do well to take definite steps to ensure the fullest possible compliance with these principles and support their adoption and implementation by fellow members of the Commonwealth.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

As the rain clouds are slow in offering relief, vast numbers of people in the country continue to experience disruptions in normal life due to the fog and smog. It is doubtful if the federal and provincial governments have fully comprehended the causes and consequences of the phenomena for which nature alone cannot be blamed.

I.A. Rehman

The first reaction of the authorities to environmental degradation was to blame the neighbouring country for filling our atmosphere with smoke while anybody driving along the motorway from Islamabad to Lahore could have seen crop residue being burnt across a large area. As usual, our own contribution to the creation of the serious problem began to be realised much later.

Our own contribution to the creation of a serious environmental problem was realised much later.

As has been pointed out in this paper, air pollution in Pakistan, particularly in Lahore, has been going on for years. Winter after winter we have been watching a great column of particles hanging over Lahore at dusk. Punjab’s Environmental Protection Department has been concentrating only on the monitoring of air pollution although its ineffectiveness, as well as the non-serious approach adopted, can be judged from the fact that some of the monitoring equipment imported has been lying in unopened boxes. Later on, the EPD rightly gave some credit to the Punjab government for efforts to reduce dangerous emissions from motor vehicles and factories.

The hazards to people’s heath became extremely grave when particle readings in Lahore’s air touched 880 (against the permissible 35-40) on Nov 8, warranting a declaration of emergency (closing down of schools, etc.) which was never done. The situation again became unbearable on Nov 12.

However, in addition to the factors mentioned above, it is necessary to take into account the increase in environmental degradation caused by deforestation and neglect of agriculture.

Pakistan needs to extend its forest area to prevent carbon gases from escaping into the atmosphere, which is essential for reducing the effect of pollutants being released into the atmosphere all the time. But what is being done to forests was graphically demonstrated recently by photographs of huge quantities of timber from Gilgit-Baltistan flowing down a river. The latest Economic Survey approvingly notes a substantial rise in revenue from increased production of timber in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2016-2017, without acknowledging the damage to ecology done by the indiscriminate, and often illegal, felling of trees.

The authorities cannot forget that the cutting down of each tree for any purpose — to widen roads in cities, for constructing motorways or for outlandish projects like Lahore’s Orange Line — not only causes damage to the ecology, but also reduces the country’s ability to meet the challenges of climate change.

The state’s neglect of the country’s forest cover has a long history.

Nearly 10 years ago, the Planning Commission prepared a five-year Rs13 billion project to substantially increase the forest cover. The plan was duly approved by Ecnec (Executive Committee of the National Economic Council) and formally launched. For some reason, the project was abandoned with the change of government. The government would do well to retrieve the files from its junkyard and consider the possibilities of reviving the afforestation plan as early as possible.

It is impossible to deny the large contribution to environmental degradation made by the neglect of agriculture though it still accounts for 19.5 per cent of GDP and employs 42.3pc of the civil labour force (a conservative estimate given in the Economic Survey). Although some progress in agriculture due to higher crop output in 2016-2017 has been claimed, the fact remains that livestock accounts for 53.8pc of the agriculture sector’s input; livestock’s contribution to GDP at 11pc clearly indicates a smaller one by the farming sector.

An expansion of the farming sector by bringing cultivable wastelands under cropping or by turning deserts into pastures will significantly improve Pakistan’s capacity to sustain a healthy ecology and enable it to overcome the grim challenge that climate change is posing.

A sound project for raising farming sector’s output, called biosaline agriculture — raising certain crops in saline conditions — was launched a decade ago, and it attracted international attention. Quite a few countries acknowledged Pakistan’s lead in this area. A pilot project was carried out but this plan too was shelved following a change of government. The scheme offers possibilities of developing vast tracts of barren land in all provinces into pasture, to begin with, according to Dr Kausar Malik, former head of the Agriculture Research Council and former member of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Planning Commission — and an authority on the subject.

Unfortunately, successive governments in Pakistan have failed to discharge their responsibility towards promoting and modernising agriculture. We need a major breakthrough in this sector through land reforms and improved agriculture development strategies. This is necessary to rescue the 58pc of the people of the country who were found food insecure in a 2011 survey — and their number may have gone up.

This is also necessary to reduce losses due to fog and smog, to meet the threat of climate change and, above all, to fight the mother of all ills ie poverty.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

The 100th anniversary of the October Revolution fell on Tuesday (according to the Gregorian calendar) and was duly observed. The several meetings organised in Karachi and Lahore in this connection caused quite a flutter in many hearts, especially those belonging to older people.

I.A. Rehman

A recollection of what the October Revolution meant for the people of the Soviet Union and for the rest of the world is in order. The transformation of the population of the Soviet Union, including the Central Asian Republics, from serfs under the czars or feudals in the east into citizens of the First World is a glorious chapter in humankind’s history. The same goes for the Soviet soldiers’ sacrifices and triumphs in the struggle against fascism and the Soviet Union’s role in advancing the frontiers of knowledge and scientific research.

The Soviet Union played a leading role in hastening the end of the colonial era. The 100 or so former colonies that gained independence during 1945-1969 owed much to the Soviet Union. It also helped the recognition of economic, social and cultural rights at par with civil and political rights, which made human rights indivisible.

The events of 1917 infused new life into freedom movements on the subcontinent.

While recalling the Soviet achievements many are likely to wonder whether much more could have been accomplished had the October Revolution run a different course. They might want to know whether the excesses of the Stalinist period were the only way to consolidate the revolution. Was a competition with the capitalist world in manufacturing nuclear weapons essential for the socialist world’s survival? Many socialists themselves now question Lenin’s economic agenda. And did the Soviet Union collapse only because bread could not be supplied to retailers, the bureaucracy was incompetent and corrupt, and the White Russians’ nationalism had re-emerged? Or did it collapse because the Soviet Communist Party lacked theoreticians who could plan for the satisfaction and progress of their society?

But this is for social thinkers to discuss and debate. What concerns the common citizens of Pakistan is the impact the October Revolution had on their history and its relevance to them today.

The revolution gave new life to freedom struggles in all colonies, especially India. The intrepid revolutionaries started travelling to Moscow to seek Lenin’s guidance and help. After the collapse of the provisional government of India (set up in Kabul by Mahendra Pratap and Ubaidullah Sindhi), the Communist Party of India was formed at Tashkent in 1920.

The first young men from the subcontinent to enrol at Moscow’s Communist University had among them 10 young men from Lahore (including Firozuddin Mansur and Fazal Ilahi Qurban) and nine from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (including M. Shafiq from Akora Khattak, Gohar Rehman from Haripur and Abdul Karim from Kohat). And the incomparable Dada Amir Haider was in the presidium of the world conference of the colonised nations. These activists were mercilessly hounded by the colonial power, and never received from their own people the support they deserved, but their contribution to the freedom of the subcontinent can never be forgotten.

The second generation of those inspired by the October Revolution not only made a significant contribution to the subcontinent’s freedom struggle in its last phase but also tried to persuade the governments of Pakistan and India to hold the public interest supreme. In Pakistan, the Communist Party became a notable factor in national politics despite the aggressive hostility of the state, but eventually succumbed to relentless suppression of which the killing in custody of Hasan Nasir and Nazir Abbasi were two extreme manifestations. It also harmed itself by over-dependence on the Soviet party, and after the Sino-Soviet split on the Chinese party. The attempts by the leftists to operate through multiclass parties did not go far due to flawed strategy and tactics.

Today the left in Pakistan is in a state of disarray. The more significant reasons of its decline in this country are, firstly, a lack of adequate theoretical work on developing a national thesis along Marxist lines. Secondly, there is a tendency to ignore the lesson of history that no Marxist strategy that succeeded in one part of the world can be transplanted in another area where the objective conditions are different.

More crucial is the left’s disregard for the fact that the element of progressiveness in national politics is determined by the level of the people’s consciousness. All over the world the left has come to grief for forcing radical changes in societies that were not prepared to adopt them. The various communist parties in Pakistan may keep holding their ideological bastions, but the widely dispersed leftists must try to find their role in whatever politics at the mass level is possible.

Pakistani society has been regressing for decades. It was never ready for a socialist revolution. Pre-1971 Pakistan could accept a diluted version of bourgeois democracy and the possibility of movement towards social democracy could be seriously considered. The break-up of the state increased the pace of withdrawal from democratic ideals and a slide towards militarisation and theocratisation of the polity. Today, the bourgeoisie is weakening itself though factional fighting and the extreme right, comprising armed religiously inspired militants, is mobilising itself for the kill. In this situation, the left’s intervention is needed as never before, to save the centre from collapsing and to gain time to reverse the state’s drift towards the complete loss of its democratic identity.

Are the ordinary leftists ready to face the challenge? They may find some space for a positive role in politics with a thesis resembling the ones they had evolved in the 1950s.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Thar, one of the prettiest and sweetest-smelling flowers in Pakistan’s national bouquet, is dying. It is dying because those working under the banner of ‘development’ are not open to reason, because the people of this unique region have been abandoned by their compatriots.

I.A. Rehman

Thar is the only Hindu-majority area in Pakistan and any change in its demographic character will mean the state’s failure to fulfil its constitutional and humanitarian obligations to protect a minority community. As descendants of the original settlers on this land, the people of Thar are entitled to enjoy all the rights enumerated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially their rights to ownership of land, to preservation of their culture, language, belief and historical monuments, and to have access to employment, health, education and social security.

This is the only region in the country where people of different faiths interact on an equal footing.

Moreover, the people of Thar possess qualities for which they deserve the love and admiration of the entire Pakistani nation. They have preserved their great ancestors’ legacy of peaceful coexistence. They have saved many monuments of historical, religious and archaeological significance that form a rich part of Pakistan’s heritage. They put their seal on their loyalty to the state when some parts of their land were occupied by Indian forces. They themselves raise the resources needed to feed the thousands of birds that add colour to their arid landscape, and offer lessons in ways of loving animal life. Above all, this is the only region in the country where people of different faiths interact with each other on an equal footing and jointly celebrate each other’s festivals. For keeping their doors closed to purveyors of communal discord alone, the people of Thar have fortified their right to live as they wish.

The development wallahs are likely to declare that they know all about the Thar people’s rights and that everything is being done to protect them. But they are looking only at the good things they are doing for the people of Thar. Their brief might be impressive, but they are ignoring the cost to the Tharis, that is absolutely prohibitive.

The first requirement of finding a just and equitable solution to the problem is to have a decent and civilised discussion on the issues that the people of Thar have raised. The ‘development’ projects have, after all, been drawn up by persons who cannot claim to be infallible. They should be open to debate. By dismissing their critics as a mafia they only betray the poverty of their argument.

The issues in debate, or the threats to Thar and its people, stem from the work going on in connection with the Thar coal energy project. The country’s civil society has serious reservations about this project and its right to a hearing cannot be denied. Some of these concerns were expressed at a very useful meeting organised by the National Commission for Human Rights in Karachi last week. The commission has been watching Thar for more than a year and had been induced to hold the Karachi meeting by media reports of “forced conversions and increased influence of extremists’ groups in the area”, complaints of “violation of local community rights by coal-mining companies”, and protests against the Gorano dam.

Civil society is no longer interested in debating the rationale for the Thar coal project. That part of the story has been overtaken by events. But it does challenge the definition of development that bypasses the dictates of human development. At the moment, we are concerned with two parallel consequences of the project.

The first line of concern proceeds from the impact of the project area of 9,000 square kilometres, out of the total Thar area of 19,000 sq km. As a result of digging to reach the proper water level, trillions of tons of soil will be thrown up and create mountains of dead earth that will affect the area’s ecology. The extent of environmental hazards the project will cause was ably demonstrated by advocate Rafay Alam at the Karachi meeting, One wishes somebody was listening. Then Sono Khangharani, whose consistent defence of his people’s rights over several decades commands respect, explained the plight of the people of 52 villages who have been displaced. And that is a serious humanitarian crisis.

Some of these concerns have no doubt been partly addressed and there have been complaints of the young Tharis’ failure to benefit from schemes of training for alternative jobs. But this is due to the difficulties in replacing a pastoral style of living with the nine-to-five work discipline. The young Tharis could have performed better if they had been initiated into the social change process earlier.

The second, and perhaps more important, issue is what Arif Hasan, who knows Thar better than anyone — having been involved in the region’s uplift for about 40 years — calls the absence of a vision for the people living on the remaining 10,000 sq km of land. The challenges facing them are really enormous.

There is not enough grazing land for the 3.5 million animals of the area. Speculators and land grabbers are depriving the locals of their land. Misguided religious zealots are offering people dreams of prosperity if they convert to Islam, which is totally contrary to Islamic principles.

Nobody knows what the effect of a large influx into Thar of alien people will be on the culture, language, arts and crafts of the area. All one can say is that the people might lose their identity.

All this could have been avoided. The situation can still be salvaged; you can have electricity and you can generate revenue from the desert if the authorities are prepared to sit with civil society representatives and work out a plan to save Thar. The task is not impossible.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Should the state appreciate or even acknowledge the work of Pakistani citizens, especially women, that is recognised abroad?

The government’s information paraphernalia often hails Pakistani males’ achievements abroad, particularly in sports. As soon as the Pakistan cricket team managed to win the second ODI against Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi the other day, the Punjab chief minister lost no time in issuing his congratulatory message.

I.A. Rehman

Pakistan’s women have achieved much through their own efforts and often in spite of the state.

No, we are not talking of sports. We are only talking of small things, such as the Anna Politkovskaya award won by Gulalai Ismail and the Emmy award won by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

The officials’ reasons for denying Gulalai Ismail a word of encouragement may be rooted in the fact that she shared the award with an Indian woman journalist, Gauri Lankesh, who was murdered, apparently for her fight against intolerance. Moreover, Gulalai not only sympathised with Gauri, she also spoke of “our common struggle and courage”. These things upset Pakistan’s patriotic officials. ‘What is this struggle that brings together a Pakistani social activist and an Indian journalist? The story has a security angle that cannot be ignored’, they are likely to say.

They get more worried when they find out that Gulalai Ismail is from Peshawar and runs an NGO and claims to have received threats from extremists for working for women’s rights. Since officials generally share Gen Musharraf’s view — that women make up stories of victimisation to gain publicity — they set about to probe her NGO. Did Gulalai get a no-objection certificate from the deputy commissioner for accepting this award? Has her NGO been cleared by all the security agencies? Does the local police have the particulars of the staff working with Gulalai — down to the chowkidar — their spouses and the schools their children attend? The probe could go on and on.

Likewise, it may not be considered advisable to show indecent haste in greeting Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy for winning an Emmy award which is said to enjoy greater prestige than the Oscar she has won twice. Better than Oscar? That means ‘more dangerous’ in the eyes of officials. She seems to have made collecting awards a regular business. And what has she done this time? The Girl in the River. Oh, that story again. Was she not satisfied that the film was shown at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and that, when in power, Nawaz Sharif had made all sorts of promises for protecting women against ‘honour’ killing? That should have been enough.

The rejection of Sharmeen’s claim to recognition could run like this. Why should Sharmeen be allowed to defame Pakistan with this concocted story of a village girl who broke the family code of honour by choosing a husband for herself? The shameless girl not only survived her noble-hearted father’s and uncle’s attempt to end her sinful existence but also dragged herself out of the river and had the audacity to have the guardian of the family’s honour put behind bars. Thank heavens, he was not punished as society did not allow the misguided girl to disgrace the whole community.

Further, such incidents occur everywhere and they are not common in Pakistan. Even if they do occur sometimes, it is our internal matter and we don’t allow anyone to tell us to clean up our own house.

The media does not fail to report if Pakistani women win plaudits abroad. But approval of these women’s work is subject to clearance by the powers that be. However, if women of Pakistani origin get elected to the British House of Commons, the media is overjoyed as if these successes are due to something Pakistan or its media has done. The media was also extremely happy when a Muslim lady was elected president of Singapore. As if the ummah deserved the credit.

What the media fails to inform the public is that that these women of Pakistani origin succeed in getting into the political institutions of Britain or the United States because these countries are still faithful to a certain degree to the political ideal of guaranteeing their citizens — regardless of their national, ethnic and religious origins or affiliations — equal opportunity that has been described as the foremost ideal of a progressive society. These women can realise their potential because the system in which they are living facilitates their rise. In Pakistan, equal opportunity is like a distant dream, even for men; women are far, far behind.

The women of Pakistan have achieved much through their own efforts and often in spite of the state. At the present speed, they will take decades before coming close to acquiring the same kind of recognition that the men have. But their journey could be greatly shortened if the state stopped blocking their creative energies in the areas of their choice — even if it cannot learn to honour what Gulalai Ismail or Sharmeen want to do to liberate their fellow women from a feudal legacy.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

THE government might have been surprised at some foreign governments’ expressions of concern at the enforced disappearance of five social activists/ bloggers. Instead of taking umbrage, it should look for the causes of friendly countries’ uneasiness.

I.A. Rehman

Besides, the international community has been watching enforced disappearances in Pakistan for many years.

In 2012, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances visited Pakistan and made several recommendations, including calls for ratification of the convention on disappearances and criminalisation of enforced disappearances. In its report in July 2016, the WGEID regretted that most of its recommendations had not been implemented.

Pakistan’s third universal periodic review at the Human Rights Council is due.

Pakistan has also been asked to explain some issues arising from its initial report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. With reference to Articles 6, 7 and 9 of the covenant (the right to life, freedom from torture, and the right to liberty and security of person). Pakistan has been asked to “provide information on the measures taken to address the large number of allegations of enforced disappearance … comment on allegations that the practice of enforced disappearance is often used to target political or human rights activists. Please indicate what steps have been taken to implement the December 2013 judgement of the Supreme Court in the case of Mohabat Shah … Please provide information on the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, including on its mandate, power, composition and financial and human resources…”.

This year, Pakistan’s third universal periodic review at the Human Rights Council is due. Questions will be raised about implementation of the recommendations made after the 2012 review. Four recommendations relating to disappearances were made and Pakistan accepted all of them. Two recommendations that called for criminalisation of enforced disappearance and the strengthening of the Commission of Inquiry into Disappearances were included in the list of suggestions that “have already been implemented or [are] in the process of implementation”.

None of these recommendations have been implemented. It is not difficult to imagine the situation Pakistan will face at the coming universal periodic review. The government could say it does not mind becoming a pariah in the world. That will not harm any foreign party; only the people of Pakistan will be left to mourn the loss of their rights.

The government has itself to blame for the embarrassment it is going to face, for it had ample time to prevent it.

Six years ago, a commission of three retired judges found evidence of the intelligence agencies’ involvement in enforced disappearances and deplored the “uncivilised method adopted by the police and agencies’ personnel for arresting the victims” and denying them any contact with their families during their detention. The commission also recommended a fairly reasonable way out.

“In order to put an end to the issue of enforced disappearances/ missing persons,” the commission said, “the intelligence agencies should be restrained from arbitrarily arresting and detaining anyone without due process of law. Generally, it would be appropriate if the government evolves a mechanism for intelligence agencies to share information and leave it to the police to make arrests and proceed under the relevant law.”

What has prevented the government from accepting this sane piece of advice?

In January 2012, the Justice Saqib Nisar commission on the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad also tried to help the government. “If the agencies conduct their activities completely beyond the purview of the law, and without maintaining any sense of transparency and accountability in their conduct,” the commission said, “they risk losing their most precious strategic asset — the trust of the people, whose security they are supposed to ensure. Currently, it seems that we would be better off with more accountability than we presently have even when it means a little less of secrecy.”

Further, the commission suggested a mechanism for the accountability of intelligence agencies at three levels; “within the agency and before the minister-in-charge; before a Parliamentary Committee (and thus parliament and the public); and before a judicial forum”.

Now the Senate has forwarded to the government the draft of a law to regulate the working of intelligence agencies and declared that, if the government failed to sponsor the proposed legislation, it would be introduced in the house as a private member’s bill.

The government may ask itself a simple question: why does every attempt to probe the issue of enforced disappearance lead to calls for making the intelligence agencies accountable?

We are told now that the police are investigating a complaint that the five bloggers have been guilty of blasphemy. This reminds one of the strictures passed by the commission of 2010 on the police officers who were involved in such affairs and found guilty of “intellectual dishonesty by registering fake FIRs against the persons picked up by the intelligence agencies and handed over to the police after a long time”.

If those who picked up the five bloggers had good reason to deprive them of their right to liberty, they should have informed their families, allowed them to contact their counsel and produced them in a court of law within 24 hours, or explained the reasons for failing to do so. The foreign governments, the parliamentarians, and civil society are mature enough to respect proceedings held according to due process, and would only demand in such cases a fair trial and punishment of the guilty in proportion to the severity of their offence.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2017

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

This year, Pakistan’s women activists are observing 16 days of activism against gender violence (Nov 25 to Dec 10) with greater fervour than previously. At the same time, no sooner is a law to curb forced conversions adopted in Sindh than the orthodoxy is out in battledress to kill it. The fight for women’s rights in this country is going to get even more bitter.

I.A. Rehman

Each year, the women of Pakistan march a step forward and are pushed more than two steps back by the formidable knights of orthodoxy, patriarchy and pseudo-religious militancy. Thus, on balance, year by year the condition of women becomes bleaker and bleaker. Why is this so? But let us first pay some attention to the women’s dirge.

There is no systematic monitoring of the impact of women-friendly legislation.

At most of the meetings held in connection with 16 days of activism, the audiences were reminded of Pakistan’s being the third most dangerous country for women in the world, where 90pc of women experience some form of violence, and where the daily violence chart shows six women abducted, another six murdered, four molested and three driven to suicide.

Some other indicators of women’s plight include the Gender Gap Index 2015 that found Pakistan second from the bottom among 145 countries; the maternal mortality rate that shows Pakistan has slipped from 147th to 149th position in global ranking; and other disturbing figures showing that 55pc of girls do not go to school and 35pc are married before they turn 16.

While no form of women’s oppression can be condoned, violence is the worst affliction they are subjected to. And we use the term violence in the broad sense it has been defined by WHO ie “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation”.

That violence against women is on the increase cannot be denied. The causes are known: the state’s growing reliance on physical force to settle any matters; brutalisation of society especially as a result of indiscriminate hangings; legalised and illegal torture/ detention cells; social customs that discriminate against the poor; the spread of evil customs of vani and swara, from peripheral districts to metropolitan centres; and poor implementation of women protection laws. The state has displayed neither the will nor the capacity to tackle these issues.

While there is some hue and cry when a Qandeel Baloch is murdered by a family member, few attempts are made to deal with less visible violence that women like her undergo.

Sindh has been criticised for raising the marriage age for girls to 18 years and extraordinary efforts are being made to block similar laws in other provinces. The laws made to curb violence against women run into two big obstacles. Firstly, they could be denounced by the Council of Islamic Ideology; its edicts against the Sindh child marriage law or the protection of women acts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are glaring instances. Secondly, they may not produce the desired result for want of serious effort in implementing them. The Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act is very much in force, but even magistrates are not aware of this fact.

Moreover, there is no systematic monitoring of the impact of women-friendly legislation. Have the authorities assessed the effectiveness or otherwise of the law to protect women against social evils?

Above all, violence against women, or any form of discrimination against them, cannot be curbed by only punishing the criminals directly responsible for such acts. The evil of women’s persecution cannot be fought without adopting a two-pronged strategy for their uplift.

Firstly, all those who preach hatred against women, from any pulpit or any platform, must be treated as criminals. Secondly, women must be offered the fullest possible opportunity for economic independence and advancement. This can be done, for instance, by eliminating unpaid women’s labour in agriculture, and by opening up to women jobs in sectors where they are still unwelcome.

A fair deal for Pakistan’s women would require political will and a multidimensional drive to ensure more attention towards them in the Vision 2025 projects than is visible at the moment and meaningful interpretation of the Sustainable Development Goals; these two programmes will offer measures for women’s progress or lack of it that no government can ignore.

Tailpiece: Sixteen months have passed since Zeenat Shahzadi, a young human rights activist, who dreamed higher than her family’s means permitted, was picked up from a bus stand near her home in Lahore. Her crime: she represented an Indian woman whose young son had ‘disappeared’ in Pakistan while trying to rescue an internet friend in distress. That man was traced and is now in prison for trying to be a good Samaritan. He is alive and his mother can hope to see him. But hope is deserting Zeenat Shahzadi’s mother; she is not sure if her daughter is alive.

The Commission of Inquiry into Enforced Disappearances looked at her file again in Lahore last Thursday. It only looked at the file. It had no word of cheer for Zeenat’s mother. The investigators’ faces — and perhaps their hearts too — were as impassive as ever. The inspector general of police was told to appoint a new investigation team!

What more horrible example of violence against women could be offered during these 16 days of activism?

Published in Dawn December 1st, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Several international rights organisations have jointly issued a global civic charter for the defence of four basic freedoms — the rights to freedom of expression, information, assembly and association — and Pakistan is among the countries for which the campaign is especially relevant.

I.A. Rehman

Attempts to prevent citizens from contributing to the solution of national problems take many forms in Pakistan.

Pakistan is still caught in the post-9/11 wave that has undermined human rights worldwide.

Human rights activists are threatened, abused, intimidated and illegally confined in two Balochistan cities for mobilising citizens against extremism and violence, which is supposed to be the principal national concern.

The prime minister has thanked rights activists for facilitating legislation on ‘honour’ killings while security personnel have been hounding, harassing and intimidating women activists for voicing their concerns and preventing them from holding peaceful meetings.

And scores of Pakistani journalists, particularly in Balochistan and the Fata/ KP region, are facing serious threats to their rights to freedom of expression and information.

It is obvious that the right to freedom of expression is the most crucial of the four basic freedoms under attack because freedoms of information, assembly and association are means for citizens to record their concerns, voice their aspirations and offer solutions to national problems, including alternatives to official policies.

Although the right to freedom of expression belongs to all citizens including political parties, professional associations and NGOs, media persons have traditionally been identified as the principal party that should defend its and the people’s entitlements.

For Pakistan’s media community, defending the right to freedom of expression means protecting the fruits of nearly 200 years of struggle that began in the days of the East India Company when Raja Ram Mohan Roy closed down his newspaper instead of submitting to censorship. A large number of editions/ journalists followed him and suffered imprisonment, seizure of printing presses and forfeiture of security deposits for the sake of people’s freedom from alien rule. A couple of signposts on this journey are worth recalling.

The Quaid was chairman of the board of the Bombay Chronicle in 1919 when its editor, B.G. Horniman, was deported for supporting the Indian people’s cause. He was prevented from returning to India by being denied a passport. The matter was raised in the central assembly and the Quaid made a blistering attack on the governments of India and Britain for punishing Horniman through an arbitrary executive action. It was on this occasion that he declared that liberty of an individual was the dearest thing in any constitution and that could not be taken away by any executive authority.

Then there was the case of the reporter of The Times of London who offended the government of India by his somewhat truthful account of the suppression of the Quit India movement in 1942. The viceroy protested to secretary of state Amery in these words: we are facing a 1857-like crisis and hanging to power by the skin of our teeth. Kindly intervene with the editor.

Amery couldn’t meet The Times editor and the assistant editor who accepted his invitation to lunch declined to get the reporter gagged. In the end, Amery obliged the viceroy by sending a lightweight journalist, Beverley Nicholas, to keep the British national interest in mind. (Incidentally, Nicholas wrote a book, Verdict on India, which greatly pleased the Muslim League.) Even during an emergency, a British reporter was free to interpret the ‘national interest’ differently than the government of India.

The term ‘national interest’ was interpreted in Pakistan very broadly 50 to 60 years ago. The report of a patwari’s corruption could be suppressed in the ‘national interest’ and the same logic was applied to detain Sobho Gianchandani for holding communist ideas until Justice Lari of the Sindh High Court declared that this was no crime, and an article on Imam Husain’s resistance to Yezid could be censored in the 1980s.

Things have surely changed, but Pakistan is still caught in the post-9/11 wave that has undermined human rights and due process worldwide, even though the world is beginning to realise the havoc the wars waged in the name of ‘threats to security’ have caused over the last two decades.

The Pakistani journalists’ struggle to get the oppressive press laws — from Adam’s Regulation of 1867 and the Press Act of 1931, to the Press and Publication Ordinance of 1963 — rewritten so as to protect media persons against the executive’s punitive actions is recent history. The central issue all along has been the journalists’ right to be treated in accordance with normal laws if any offence has been committed.

Unfortunately, old-style legal steps to force media persons to fall in line have gone out of fashion. Incidents of covert arms-twisting, involuntary disappearance and even death after abduction have made Pakistan one of the most dangerous places for journalists. How to rid the country of this stigma and ensure that efforts in this direction, such as the Salim Shahzad commission report, are not suppressed should be at the top of the agenda for both the government and the media.

There will be a need to take care of some sticking points. First, neither the government nor the media can claim infallibility. Second, the official attitude of treating civil society, including the media, as pestilential will have to be discarded. Thirdly, the question of any restrictions on freedom of expression, through open censorship or otherwise, must be determined in accordance with the Johannesburg Principles, which oblige government to show not only that any restrictions are absolutely necessary but also that they do not violate fundamental due process obligations. It was this principle the US supreme court upheld while rejecting the Nixon administration’s bid to prevent The Washington Post from publishing the Watergate story.

Those who wish to ignore the cost paid by Pakistan for curbing freedom of expression — the state’s disintegration in 1971 — will be guilty of pushing the country towards a greater catastrophe.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced Ahmad al-Mahdi of Mali to nine years’ imprisonment for his part in the destruction of heritage monuments in Timbuktu about four years ago.

I.A. Rehman

The court found Al Mahdi responsible for the destruction of five heritage monuments. The crime was especially serious, the court said, in view of its impact on the people, as “the buildings targeted were not only of religious character but were also of symbolic and emotional value to the inhabitants of Timbuktu,” and that these people considered the monuments a “source of protection” for their city.

Since all but one of the six monuments were on the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites, their destruction affected the entire population of Mali as well as the international community, the court said.

Al Mahdi’s trial before the ICC became possible because the definition of war crimes in Article 8.2 (e) iv of the Rome Statute, that lays down the court’s charter, includes “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives”.

Mali ratified the ICC Statute in 2000. On the request of its government, the ICC office of the prosecutor investigated the crimes alleged to have been committed on the Mali territory by religious extremists during January 2012-January 2013.

Al Mahdi’s case should interest our legal experts, anti-terrorism authorities and heritage lovers for several reasons.

After the warrant for the arrest of Al Mahdi was issued by an ICC bench in September 2015, he was surrendered within a few days to the ICC by the government of Niger and transferred to the court’s detention centre in the Netherlands.

The 41-year-old Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, also known as Abu Turab, was a member of the radical Ansar Eddine group reportedly linked to Al Qaeda. As one of the four commanders of Ansar Eddine who controlled Timbuktu after it was occupied by armed militants, he was also head of the religious police in the city. Until September 2012, he was head of the Hesbah (the moral brigade) and also helped the religious court of Timbuktu to enforce its decisions. The charges against him before the ICC related to the destruction of heritage monuments during June-July, 2012.

Incidentally, human rights organisations had also pleaded for Al Mahdi’s conviction on charges of crimes against the people, especially women, but the court did not look in that direction.

The monuments Al Mahdi was accused of destroying included five mausoleums of renowned Islamic leaders and scholars, belonging to the period of Timbuktu’s political and educational glory, and the Sidi Yahia mosque.

The ICC has authority to punish individuals for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court was established in the Hague, under the Rome Statute in July 1998, and the Statute came into force on July 1, 2002. Several features distinguish ICC from the International Court of Justice; it has been created under a world treaty; it acts independently of the United Nations; and it can try individual offenders who have traditionally enjoyed a high degree of impunity. However, in accord with the spirit of UN mechanisms, the petitioners and defendants both must belong to states that have ratified the Rome Statute.

Al Mahdi’s case should be of interest to Pakistan’s legal experts, anti-terrorism authorities and lovers of heritage for a variety of reasons. Since the state is under attack by extremists who have been targeting mosques, schools and heritage sites, it is only fair to ask the government to consider ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

This case allows one to see the destruction of heritage by extremist groups in various Muslim countries in a new light, even if it does not reopen the controversies generated by the destruction of graves and mausoleums in Saudi Arabia in the last century, and the efforts made by the people of the subcontinent to save Masjid-i-Nabvi.

It may be necessary to hold to account the elements responsible for destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas. The penal codes of the Muslim countries will need to be revised to provide for adequate punishment for destroying monuments of historical, religious, educational and scientific value. This will include review of the criminal code provisions applicable to terrorist attacks on shrines, mosques, universities, schools and hospitals.

The ICC verdict should not cause anxiety to anyone in Pakistan who threatens the status of heritage sites in the name of development so long as these are not blown up with dynamite. However, there has been at least one attempt to blow up the Rahman Baba mausoleum/ shrine that surely falls under ICC jurisdiction. And a strong case can be made for prescribing stiffer punishments for terrorist attacks on mosques, churches and educational centres.

At the same time, this case should persuade the government to bring heritage protection laws and procedures in accord with the international community’s (especially Unesco’s) standards and prescriptions. Not only that, the authorities will have to stop dismissing heritage issues with contempt.

The foremost requirement seems to be a revision of the Antiquities Act of 1975 and the Punjab law on the protection of buildings of historical/ cultural value. For instance, the maximum punishment for destruction of heritage in the 1975 law, that is three years’ imprisonment, is too low to deter anyone. Likewise, the power allowed to the director of archaeology to permit in his sole discretion any encroachment within 200 feet (approximately 60 metres) of a protected monument is not only ridiculous in the extreme, it also amounts to negating the very purpose of the enactment.

Published in Dawn October6th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

The outpouring of anger and revulsion at the recent spate of murders of young women who tried to exercise their basic rights will go to waste if the causes of increase in such cases are not seriously tackled.

I.A. Rehman

In Kasur a young woman paid with her life for arguing with her husband and the latter was helped by his female relatives to burn her alive.

A woman in Lahore strangulated her daughter for taking a spouse of her choice and then set her on fire. In another incident in a village near Lahore, a man shot dead his daughter for having exercised her right to marry of her free will a year earlier, along with her husband and a bystander.

It has not been possible to make women-friendly laws due to the orthodoxy’s opposition.

Apart from confirming the continued brutalisation of society these incidents reveal a growing intolerance for women’s rights not only among men but also among women themselves.

While civil society organisations, women activists and some politicians have felt outraged, the public outcry has not been as loud as it is sometimes in other cases of violence against women, such as gang-rape under panchayat orders. Obviously, a section of society, including women, has been influenced by the orthodoxy’s opposition to women’s rights to the extent of justifying violence against all those who rebel against unjust constraints.

Oddly enough, in the debate over the surge in violence against women, the remedy is generally sought in developing new legal instruments to punish the culprits. This became abundantly clear from the brief debate in the Senate a week ago, thanks to chairman Raza Rabbani’s decision to suspend the business of the house and invite members to discuss woman-burning. All the members who are reported to have joined the discussion backed the chairman’s call for a strong law to punish the burning of women to death.

The Senate proceedings, though welcome, underscored the limited nature of the debate. First, no member of a religious party is reported to have considered the burning of women worth talking about, and that betrays how far Pakistan’s religio-political elements have gone in their psychopathic hostility towards women. Secondly, except for one senator’s reference to the role of the Council of Islamic Ideology in increasing society’s hostility towards women, the honourable senators seemed reluctant to discuss the causes of the failure of laws to protect women.

It is perhaps not correct to assume that there is no law to deal with burning women to death. The offence is recognised as premeditated homicide punishable by death. What is needed is only a reversal of the process whereby rich criminals or gangsters can escape punishment by forcing the victim family to forgive them.

The real issue is the fact that it has not been possible to make women-friendly laws, nor to fully implement such laws, because of the orthodoxy’s opposition. Only the other day the prime minister’s special assistant for law and human rights revealed how two bills, one on ‘honour killing’ and the other on rape, have been stuck in parliament due to the opposition of a single religio-political party, which is, incidentally, as indispensable an ally of the present government as it was of the previous one.

The seeds of misogyny in Pakistan were sown 66 years ago when the authors of the fundamental rights chapter of the Constitution ignored Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which upholds the right of both women and men to marriage by choice and equal rights of spouses. (The article has been excluded from the fundamental rights chapter in all of Pakistan’s constitutions.) Ever since then, the state has acted on a one-sided understanding with the most obscurantist among the religious lobby that women’s fate will be decided by the latter.

That women’s rights will forever remain subject to the veto of those who abuse religion for political purposes is a proposition the people of Pakistan cannot afford to accept. Their right to challenge the professional clerics’ invocation of religious injunctions cannot be denied. Also, the rise in woman-bashing in Pakistan since the Zia period, to a greater extent than in any other Muslim country, is a question the ulema must ponder over.

The reality is that the combination of patriarchal constraints, feudal emphasis on male supremacy and misogyny has left Pakistani women with little space to even breathe. That the party of Mufti Mahmud, who had backed the Family Laws Ordinance, should be represented by Senator Hamdullah only shows that arrogance has been added to the obscurantist’s armoury.

Unfortunately, the state has failed to convince the religious scholars of the disastrous consequences of a retrogressive interpretation of the scriptures for women, Pakistan society in general, and for Islam itself. One hopes that the few religious authorities who have begun to denounce ‘honour killings’ as un-Islamic will devote more time to converting their community of ulema than informing laymen of their sympathy for women.

However, a vast world of opportunities for women lies beyond the religious rigmarole in which the state has trapped itself; women can be enabled to fulfil their hopes through a strong social force of enlightened women and men. Such a force will surely materialise if women are given weightage in their share of jobs in the education and health sectors, are allowed a leading part in the local bodies, and if their role in policymaking institutions and services, including the judiciary, is progressively enhanced.

Much of this can be done if the state discovers its will to move earnestly against misogyny.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Pakistani visitors to India, usually beset with anxiety about their country`s future, are sometimes relieved to find a good number of Indians similarly worried about their country.

This is perhaps due to the fact that the twin states face many identical issues, and their people thus try to find solutions in the subcontinent`s shared culture.

For instance, last week in Delhi the discussion at gatherings of left-inclined intellectuals and social activists was dominated by queries as to what will happen to India if the saffron brigade continued to bring all matters under the stamp of Hindutva.

Sparks of resistance were not denied such as the resistance by writers and artists (in renouncing state awards) or the defiance of the Jawaharlal Nehru University student leaders. But generally, the conclusion was that these actions, highly morale-boosting though they were, did not generate the kind of movement for the rejection of humbug that was needed.

One also noticed a receding enthusiasm among optimists. Perhaps most people were more disappointed with the showing of the liberals (who should not be relied upon in any case) than was objectively necessary. But in the end, somebody or the other would cut the discussion short by claiming that India would never go down in the duel with fundamentalism because the traditions of tolerance in its society were so deep-rooted and strong.

One could not help drawing parallels with similar gatherings in Pakistan where those lamenting the uncertainty of civil society (along with the state authorities) see no silver lining on the horizon.

Does this mean that India and Pakistan both are condemned to suffer for a long time at the hands of people who are equipped with mantras that cannot be spurned without inviting the charge of sacrilege? That said, it is impossible not to find the judiciary challenging the executive or the legislature for transgressing its authority. Last time, it was a former Supreme Court judge taking parliament to task for amending the law so that an 18-year-oldcould be hanged.

This time it was Uttarakhand High Court in a fiery mood in the case of the dissolution of the state government by the president. The president can be an exalted person but he can also go terribly wrong, the court said.

The crisis arose when nine of the chief minister`s supporters joined the BJP opposition and the president accepted the establishment`s view that the government had broken down. Now the BJP was eagerly waiting for an invitation to form the state government. Whatever the final outcome, the BJP will be blamed for manipulating the fall of the state government.

For Pakistani students of politics, there is nothing surprising in this story. In the early years of independence, the ruling parties in both India and Pakistan were extremely unwilling to allow any opposition party to form a state-province government, but one thought the process had ended in India after an Andhra chief minister flew into the capital with all his supporters in the assembly and compelled the centre to take back the orders of his sacking. In Pakistan, the process continued somewhat longer and was overshadowed by frequent sacking of the National Assembly by all-powerful presidents.

With regard to judiciary-executive ties, it is not clear if India is now following Pakistan`s example or whether Pakistan was earlier copying an Indian pattern.

Although Pakistani chief justices in distress might have shed tears in private, there is no record of their breaking down before the political authority. But it must be said for Chief Justice T.S. Thakur that he was pleading the cause of justice and not seeking a personal favour.

One hopes, however, that his tearful plea does not embolden the sarkar to the extent of filling the courts with Modi loyalists. Justice Thakur could have a better bargain with the executive by holding firm as the head of his brother judges.

The Delhi state government`s decision to prohibit fee increases by private educational institutions should not fail to remind the people of Punjab of a similar step taken by their provincial government sometime ago.

The reasons advanced by the educational institutions on both sides are the same: mounting expenditures on teachers, rent and extracurricular facilities. The parents complain of their inability to pay fees they consider exorbitant but they are unlikely to win their case in either Delhi or Lahore.

Although the Indian government earned credit for forcing the private institutions to give relief to poor students, the patrons of private schools are likely to surrender to the argument that they cannot wish to have for their kids anything less than the best. The neo-liberal stalwarts are unlikely to cow before parents who admit to being less affluent.

It is not possible to be in Delhi and not be caught by surprise at the expansion of the metro train network or the odd-even scheme to restrict traffic that has increased the gains of operators of public transport.

The privileged car owners make no secret of their tactic to beat the system by having two cars for each user, one for odd number days and the other to be plied on even number days.

What makes Delhi a lively place despite the heat and shortage of water is the pace at which cultural activities continue.

It was good to see the tomb of Abdul Rahim Khan-i -Khana, the son of Bairam Khan who had secured the throne for the child-king Al Journalists in the doghouse: Pakistan enjoys the dubious distinction of being among the most dangerous places for journalists. In Sri Lanka, before the change of government, journalists were commonly meted out unsavoury treatment. Now Bangladesh too has taken to targeting journalists rather indiscriminately.

But what has happened to the democratic government of Nepal that Kanak Mani Dixit has been jailed? He is not afraid of making enemies, if he is being punished for that, but he must be respected as a leading exponent of the South Asian identity.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

By I.A. Rehman
Feb 25 2016 (Dawn, Pakistan)

The Lahore Literary Festival has ended in a blaze of success. The uncertainty about its being held at all and the doubts about the people`s capacity to defy fear and much else made the event all the more enjoyable. But the issues regarding the ways of dealing with security threats that it gave rise to still need to be seriously addressed.

The Punjab government has a good record of guaranteeing security at religious and cultural events that have been held in the provincial capital since the beginning of November 2015. The three-day Thaap conference on history, art and culture was held on private premises without bothering the lawenforcement agencies. Then there were three big events at Alhamra: the Faiz Festival, the Khayal Festival, and finally, the Lahore Arts Council`s own literary extravaganza. Only a few days before the LLF was to begin a Faiz Aman Mela was held at the Open Air Theatre. Since Lahore has never been free of threats from extremists the administration could claim credit for extending security to all these functions.

One is at aloss to ñnd a reasonfor the panic the authorities created by going to the extent ofundermining a festival that not only the city of Lahore but the country as a whole had begun to feel proud of.

Assuming that the threat-makers had a special reason to target the LLF guests or the crowds how did the authorities calculate that security could be guaranteed at Avari and not at Alhamra and how did they fix the number of foreign guests they could protect? Any precise answers to these questions would imply that the authorities knew more of the extremists` plans than is ever possible.

While faced with such a situation the authorities are required to deliberate on two interrelated points: the significance of the event under threat and the cost of asking for its cancellation. The first question was answered by the crowds the LLFattracted. No elaborate thesis is needed to demonstrate the role literature, art and culture play in enabling any people to realise themselves, especially to retain their sanity in times of conflict and despair.

Thus, LLF should have been treated as an essential activity that needed to be protected and encouraged.

As regards the cost of disallowing a major undertaking such as LLF, the cost caused to the people, in addition to the increase in the expenditure borne by the organizers, can be judged from the consequences of the change of venue and curtailment of activities.

Many people felt that the change of venue from a cultural complex open to the public to a hotel meant for the rich made the festival less foll(sy an affair.

The compulsion to trim the festival programme from three days to two led to dropping some of the activities. It is to be regretted that activities related to Punjabi language and literature had to be sacrificed and that was a huge loss. That the literary treasure and tradition of Punjab should not figure prominently in a literature festival held in Lahore is simply unthinkable. The Punjab government should be brave enough to accept at least a part of the blame.

A more important matter is the need to evolve a rational theme for dealing with terrorist threats. It goes without saying that each threat should be taken seriously, whether the target is a public figure, a state establishment or a private institution. It is also clear that the government and the targeted citizens should cooperate with each other in developing as dependable a security cover as possible. A serious cause of concern to the public is the casualness with which the authorities sometimes pass on the entire responsibility for security to the party under threat.

The orders to banks and petrol pumps to pay for security plans devised by the administration, the way schools are being ordered to meet the securityneeds, or some people are being told to go abroad are only a few illustrations of this approach.

One apparent flaw in the fight against terrorism is the absence of the role of the community/neighbourhood in protecting itself. There were times when communities threatened with communal riots or armed gangs of criminals used to organise collective defences. Similar actions were reported in the recent past from some tribal areas. We no longer hear of such initiatives in cities or villages.

Are local communities unaware of the need or justification for fighting terrorism? The mosques and shrines have been the targets of terrorist attacks. Is it impossible to develop these mosques and shrines as the nuclei of resistance to extremism? If the lawenforcement personnel and the targets of terrorists do not have the cushion of community/neighbourhood support the danger to them is much greater than is generally reckoned. Here is one of the most unbearable consequences of not having a counterterrorism narrative the inability to mobilise the people at large to take up the fight against terrorism as their own rightful cause.

Above all, there has to be a limit up to which normal life can be allowed to be paralysed by extremists` threats. Suppose the authorities receive information about a possible attack on the civil secretarlat in Lahore or the parliament house in Islamabad.

Will these institutions be closed down? Let us not forget that each time a public function is cancelled because of threat to security, or a school is closed or a public figure is told to go into exile the terrorists are handed over a victory they do not deserve. There has to be a balance between the steps that citizens and public/private institutions must take by way of precaution and what the state must do to protect its citizens. surely a state that does not promise its citizens freedom from fear in fact denies them the right to life in its real sense.

(End)

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