Sindh in the trap of poverty

Recently I had an opportunity to visit Interior Sindh, and was anguished to see the degree of deficit in development side. No wonder you will witness the roads, bridges, parks for recreation, colleges and universities but intercity roads are in total shambles. One of my colleague told me that since 1970’s, there has been no major development and each dictator from Zia to Musharraf patronized their few feudal who were loyal to them and put the development on the back burner.

Majority of people are still living in shabby conditions and are deprived of basic amenities of life for instance, proper housing, sanitation, Medicare and availability of drinkable water. The underdevelopment and deprivation people are facing is not new but have been piling up since long and ironically no government, democratic or dictatorship has done anything substantial to alleviate the sufferings of people. Every year budget is announced for the social and economic development but the flip side is that, we don’t see any collision on the ground in terms of change in life style and livelihoods of people; it looks people are still living in medieval era.

What perturbed to my mind was the level and scale of poverty people are living in and perhaps the poverty has further been augmented by the floods of last years. Still people are reeling around the pains caused by torrential rains. The reason for this situation is soaring volume of unemployment. Perhaps John Maynard Keynes (An economist) had rightly said that the key function of state is to create employment, and for that he opined that it is good if private sector comes forward to invest in the industry but if private sector is not coming forth to invest for any reason then it is state responsibility to invest in the Industry in order to create employment. But here, Sindh government, which is being led by PPP has totally failed and the soaring unemployment has given rise to crime such as kidnapping for ransom, tribal conflicts and other social evils that are affecting the transition of society from traditional to modern one and pushing it under the rug of feudalism.

Here the role of feudal reminds of Mancur Olson (American economist an social scientist) story of "Roving Bandits and Stationary Bandits". Feudal are working like roving bandits plundering and stealing the vital resources of Sindh which otherwise can be used for alleviating mass poverty through the generation of employment by investing and establishing industry.

It hurts when to see the plight of Sindh. It is being ravaged by the tyranny of terrorism and poverty, despite being rich province in natural resources. It has large reserves of oil and gas and coal. It has ports and Karachi as commercial hub of Pakistan, contributing almost 68% to national revenue generation but ironically the lower parts of lie in shamble economic conditions, with no industrial base though there are some districts which have industrial zones to be developed by the district government but due to worsening law and order situation in the province no investor is ready to invest and establish industries.

In addition to that Sindh is oil and gas rich province – it produces 71% gas and 61% oil, and altogether it produces almost 72% of total oil and gas production of Pakistan. The daily production of oil and gas in Sindh is about 67,140 barrels and 3.99 billion cubic feet respectively. Yet economically it is still one of the backward provinces, with soaring poverty, high rate of unemployment and widening inequalities between rural and urban Sindh.

A New York Times book review of a titled “A New Deal in Pakistan” by William Dalrymple says the following about Sindh: “.. in fact, it is one of the most backward areas in all of Asia. Whatever index of development you choose to dwell on-literacy, health care provision, daily income, or numbers living below the poverty line-rural Sindh comes bumping along close to the bottom”.

When oil and gas was explored, it was believed that poverty will be history and Sindh will be rich like Dubai. But so far it has mere remained pipe dream due to unethical policies of oil companies, trampling down their social responsibilities towards society. According to CSR principles, oil companies have to spend 1% of their earnings on the development of the local areas to establish schools and hospital and building roads but nothing of the sort is happening and people are dependent on Zakat and Rs 1000.00 given to poor families under Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

According to research archives of Participatory Development Imitative (PDI), oil companies are supposed to give production bonus to be spent on the development of the area. But instead production bonus was given to federal government. PDI took initiative to talk to Sindh government which was quite negligent of production bonus. Finally, after long advocacy and struggle Rs 2.5 billion were given to Sindh government and surprisingly that money is still lying in the coffers of Sindh government, not being spent on the socioeconomic development of oil producing districts? For example, Look at the plight of Badin districts, one of the major oil producing districts almost produces 60% of oil but its socioeconomic plight is alarming. It ranks at number 90 in the Human Development Index of 106 districts of Pakistan.

In addition to oil and gas, Sindh is home to one of the large reserves of coal, proverbially known as ‘Black Gold. According to different studies, the reserves of coal are estimated at 850 trillion cubic feet (TFC) of gas, about 30 times higher than Pakistan’s proven gas reserves of 28 TCF. Further studies show, if all the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran put together these are approximately 375 billion barrels. But a single Thar coal reserve is about 850 trillion TCF, which is more than combined oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

According to some studies, these reserves of coal worth $25 trillion cannot only cater the electricity requirements of the country for next 100 years but also can save almost $4 billion in soaring import bill of oil.

According to experts, just 2% usage of Thar coal can produce 20,000 mega watts of electricity for next 40 years, without any single second of load shedding.

These experts opine that the coal power generation would cost Pakistan Rs 5.67 per unit while power generated by independent power producers cost Rs 9.27. These experts are of the view that the development of Thar coal just requires initial investment of Rs 420 billion. The good and inspiring thing is that at the moment work on the development of Thar coal is going on under the supervision of Pakistan’s imminent nuclear Samar Mubarak-Mand.

As matter of fact, the development of all these vital resources of Sindh needs good and democratic governance which Benazir Bhutto widely talked about in her book Reconciliation: Islam , Democracy and the West” published posthumously. She considered democratic governance central to sustainable development, strengthening of democracy and democratic institutions. And in fact, democracy is about enhancing people capacities and giving them choices. To achieve this goal, there is need for proper planning which requires government to give first priority to the improvement of law and order situation, encouraging people to open up business and for that they should be provided with loans easily. Youth, especially business graduates should be encouraged to open up business; new training centers should be opened in order to meet out the needs of skilled labor which is a key to the whole process of development.

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Published in Business Review, Dawn

Our film industry. Either no hope or less efforts?

All these idle cinemas in Karachi used to be as crowded few years ago, and they were 1000's of them through out the country and now we are left with only 200. It's indeed the plight of our Pakistani film industry. We are not that much groomed as we should be not as compare to Bollywood because we just can't simple compete them, anyhow we can still try to some extent of their films level.

I came across reading some articles, newsletters on media, there I found almost every actor and actress complaining, assuring that govt. should give them incentives to the local talent and so the new comers, in order to nurture our industry. In my view it's not just easy because since then when Pakistan got independency, we have been facing political turmoil. India on the other hand is safe and sound, its democratic institutions are working effectively and people have very lesser complaints then here in Pakistan.

Its not that we have less talent, we have abundant of talent here in Pakistan too but equal utilization and opportunities can provide those talents a bright path. I guess it’s the era of new singers; we have such great talent both in classical and rock, in Pakistan. Singers like Shafqat Amanat Ali, Atif Aslam and etc. But it's just not our government who has to be blame every time, somehow we lack in actors and actress, no offense.

Way back in 1980's and 1990's and still in 2000 we have been making such disgusting films which we cant enjoy them in public, actress acting in those movies are not worth acting. And plus these films weren’t successfully came on the edge of the industry, people from rural, interior and from countryside enjoy them more then a literate citizen of Pakistan. And people hardly remember the name of such movies which lacks in decency and performance and of course the story. If we compare movies of 80's, 90's and 2000 the most popular movie came totally with its urge is "Khuda kai liye" (In the name of God) and "Ye dil ap ka dua", why? Because they have come up with the different story and idea which strikes to almost everybody's heart. And we need producers like Shoaib Mansoor, if would be unfair if I don't mention those new faces in the movie, although they were already working in the industry as musician, model and etc but they haven’t appeared in any movie yet. This movie I am sure would have given them a direction to work in films again.

I was talking about some actress and actor who have been demanding from the govt. to give them incentives, but our govt. is already facing deficit, either its democratic institution is deteriorating in terms of efficiency. We are currently facing judiciary crises, wheat crises, hyper inflation, sugar crises, poverty and what not? It's important for govt. to get rid of these problems first in order to pay attention to other thing; a drop of hope is not even visible to make it happen. Sad but true.

Indians are always making films in their own mother tongue, although its said be to be "Hindi" but it's so very similar to Urdu, that even a Pakistani can understand it easily. And we on the other hand make films in Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, and so on. I am not bias for the language here but I am criticizing the room provided for us and the language which is commonly understood by masses is Urdu, not Punjabi, Sindhi or Pashto. It's indeed the plight of our Pakistani film industry if we don't keep in mind these things, we always take it as granted. If we watch the American movies they do have unity in terms of language, although America is too wide in area and so does in population, there u may find a lot of local languages and speakers but in order to make it broadly understood they keep their movies in "English".


If we noticed that in every Indian movie they want their culture to be alive and grow each and every day. You will always find their movies full of culture and persuading Indians towards their cultural and their values, they always show their traditional practices in their movies; either it’s a low budget movie or high they always try to make it alive. In order to keep their culture grows. They have the message in every of their movie. But here in Lolly wood it's not the case, we have such pathetic story and people working in the movie which spoil the mood of the viewer. That is the one reason that why our Pakistani's are more into Indian movies, by and large they enjoy watching Indian movies in comparison to Pakistani movies. Once in a blue moon director like Shoaib Mansoor came in front and showed its creativity which clicked to everybody's heart and people appreciated it, that was the time when trend of watching movies got all alive, the hope of good movies alive, and still we Pakistani's are waiting producers like Shoaib Mansoor and his movie like Khuda Kai Liye. I don’t know how Shoaib Mansoor did it, nobody knew him before as we all know him, we know him for what he did, we know him for what he came across and no director after such long time could come up with such a brilliant talent and coherency in term of story. If Shoaib Mansaoor can did it so why cant us? There's always one step needed for everything to make it happen!

Blaze of ethnic fire

By Anam Tanveer
Co-anther: Manzoor Isran

Blaze of ethnic violence has again engulfed Karachi. It has witnessed the orgy of vicious circle of ethnic strife, leaving behind the trail of death, destruction and painful memories of ethnic divisions besides resulting into the unnecessary death of hundreds of people, disruption of businesses and colossal losses to the crippling economy of the city which has already witness bloody bouts of ethnic conflicts, ravaging its multicultural and multiethnic fiber.

Ethnic strife is eating into the economic vitals of Karachi which is the commercial hub of Pakistan and contributing national exchequer of Pakistan 65% in taxes. It suffers the loss of Rs 2.7 billion daily if businesses come to halt.

 In Metropolitan city like Karachi, economic imperatives bring people of different ethnic shades under one umbrella and they work for their individual prosperity and for the development of the city. There are numerous cities in the world where different ethnic and cultural groups live side by side peacefully eking out their lives without disrupting the peace of the cities and economic activities. London, New York, Delhi and Mumbai are prime examples where people live together peacefully.

The reason for such ethnic integration is attributed to the existence of institutions and prevalence of law which treats everyone equally despite their ethnic differences. People get justice without discrimination. But in case of Karachi, we don’t have institutions and we don’t have law to provide socio-economic justice to people.  In that situation, what people do, they go to unit or sector in charge for the resolution of their problems. This way ethnic politics rears its ugly head in once the city of lights integrating everyone its economic and cultural embrace.

The malaise of ethnic politics came to surface when in 1985, there were disputes over land between Pathans and Beharis living in Orangi and Aligarah colony. The death of Bushra Zaidi, students of Sir Syed College, Liaqatabad, by Pathan bus diver further fuelled the ethnic fire.

Land disputes and transport problems laid down the basis for ethnic divisions of Karachi and those ethnic disputes turned into bloody violence  when Afghan jihad  brought to Karachi a flow of arms and drugs which gave birth to a culture of violence amongst the city youth, for whom Russian TT-pistols and AK-47 became the hottest commodity in town.

Apart from land and transport theory behind the bloody ethnic violence, there are political factors as well responsible for ethnic polarization.

Some theories attribute ethnic segregation in Sindh, especially in Karachi, to the policies of dictators. Zia promoted ethnic and bradari politics in order to marginalize PPP. Musharraf further sharpened the edges of ethnic politics by providing blank cheque to MQM as he needed its support badly in order to perpetuate his rule. The carnage of 12 May, 2007 was glaring example of support to Musharraf, which was in return for favours Musharraf extended to MQM in the form of merger of five district of Karachi into one and division of Hyderabad into four districts.

According to analysts, the decision of PPP about revival of five districts of Karachi and Hyderabad to what they were in the pre-Musharraf years while the MQM wants the status quo to continue is the main bone of contention behind the decision of MQM to quit Sindh and Federal government on June 7, 2011, and current wave of bloody violence, crippling city to halt for couple of days, causing city a loss of billions of rupees.

Revival of Karachi into one district, restoration of Hyderabad as district and delimitation of constituencies are seen by MQM as its political death, according to analysts. It wants to maintain status quo at any cost but due to shrewd politicking of Asif Ali Zardari, MQM has been thrown into isolation, even it has lost its traditional ally in Sindh, that is,  Muslim Leagure- F of Pir Pagara.

It is not time for political scoring but it is time for ethnic harmony which demands that all the stakeholders should sit together on one table to sort out the issues in order to put off the simmering fire of ethnic violence for the sake of long-lasting peace and prosperity of Karachi. More importantly, state has to work out strategy to fill the security vacuum which is being exploited by ethnic entrepreneurs.

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Officially published in Dawn - http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/18/vicious-circle-of-violence.html