⚖ Governance & Human Rights
Naseer Memon
Defusing the census controversy
April 28, 2023
UNLESS extended again, the first-ever digital census of Pakistan will be concluding at the end of the month, with the results expected soon after. The census has been a chronic source of controversy in Pakistan, at least for the last three decades.
The census of 1991 was not carried out and that of 2011 was aborted at the stage of house counting. On both occasions, the data deviated from the previous trend by a wide margin and was deemed unrealistic..................
A census without a consensus
January 29, 2023
Breaking with the ten-year norm, arrangements are currently being made for a mid-term census in the country. The last census was taken in 2017. However, its results were discarded for most practical purposes.
A census is primarily a planning tool.It generates vital data to set the contours of national planning. However, in Pakistan, it frequently goes beyond addressing planning needs and becomes more of a political tug-of-war. The constitution has made the census a benchmark.................
A mirage of autonomy
April 2, 2017
Pakistan Resolution Day was celebrated with the traditional thunder of canons. The day is a reminder of a promised destination that has been turned into a moving mirage by the oligarchy of the country. Amid an elongated hegemonic colonial subjugation, Muslims of the subcontinent scrambled to carve a separate homeland to secure their political, economic and cultural rights.
The Lahore Resolution envisaged autonomous states in which the constituent units were purported to be autonomous and sovereign. The promise prodded political leadership in Sindh to adopt a seminal resolution in March 1943 demanding a separate country for Muslims of the subcontinent. The struggle came to fruition in 1947 and the country came into existence...................
The fettered freedom
February 19, 2017
Civil liberties are under attack in several countries. Dissenting opinions are being muzzled and divergent views are being insinuated as treachery. Intolerance to disagreement is attaining new peaks in several countries.
Human rights defenders and those who amplify demand for rights of people are facing traumatic conditions. Obsessed with controlling society through iron-fist, many governments disdain civil society for its propensity of challenging extra-constitutional and undemocratic measures of governments. Sense of insecurity among rapacious ruling elite is triggered by the valour of defiant voices that refuse to stay indifferent to.................
The census scenario
January 22, 2017
Like local government elections, it needed the Supreme Court’s gavel to wring out census schedule from a reluctant federal government. Delayed by almost a decade, the census became almost a forlorn hope after an aborted household count in 2010-11. Finally, sensing the rising temperature in the courtroom, the government announced to organise the next census in March 2017. The Council of Common Interest (CCI), in its meeting held in December 2016, chaired by the prime minister, formally took the decision..................
No Finance Commission
December 11, 2016
Distribution of financial resources in a federation like Pakistan involves mind-boggling complexities. Pakistan carries a baggage of mistrust between the provinces and the centre. Particularly three smaller provinces have been complaining of an autocratic attitude of the federal government in every sphere of governance, more specifically in the resource distribution arena.
The country paid a colossal price when exploitation of resources and an appalling
.................
The quota controversy
October 2, 2016
The quota system has remained a contentious issue and a politically divisive factor in Sindh. Leadership of the Urdu-speaking community has been debunking it as discriminatory whereas Sindhis consider it as an affirmative action plausibly in line with principles of fairness.
Allocating special quota in education and job opportunities for any disadvantaged groups is not an alien concept. Reverse discrimination against dominant groups in favour of marginalised groups is a well-recognised approach adopted to redress social imbalance for the sake of socio-political stability. Quota system is in vogue in many countries in various forms...................
Undermining the civil society
April 3, 2016
A recently released document "Freedom in the World-2016" released by the Freedom House depicts a grim picture of human freedom in a turbulent world. Epilogue of the report narrates a depressing reality "the world in 2015 was battered by overlapping crises that contributed to the 10th consecutive year of decline in global freedom".
This steady fall of human freedom is a least debated tragedy of the so-called modern and civilised world. Relishing material gains for a small proportion, the world often glosses over the shackled minds and muffled voices of the hapless billions strewn over a larger part of the globe. How lack of human freedom distorts societies and impedes their overall productivity is a proven reality and an undeniable fact...................
Demographic concerns of Sindh and Balochistan
February 21, 2016
Addressing a youth parliament event, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani proposed that apprehensions of the Baloch people, that they would be demographically converted into a minority as a result of the population census, should be looked into through a possible legislation. His view was that the right of vote of immigrants should be limited to the place of origin, instead of Gwadar. Almost a decade back, Gen Musharraf had also offered the same gambit to the people of Balochistan. Similar concerns have also been echoed by Sindh.
A deluge of non-local population in Sindh and Balochistan has raised the anxieties of the local population; the data of 1998 census explains the reasons..................
Making sense of census
February 7, 2016
After having delayed the matter for eight years, the government has announced to conduct the sixth national census in March. The decision was taken in a meeting of the Council of Common Interests chaired by the prime minister himself and attended by the chief ministers of the four provinces in March 2015.
Census is normally considered a decennial activity that has been frequently postponed under one or other pretext. After the 1981 census, the subsequent census was conducted in 1998 i.e. delayed by seven years. Similarly, the census scheduled in March is already overdue by eight years...................
Understanding liberalism
December 13, 2015
Prime Minister Nawaz Shari invited vituperation of religious lobby when he claimed that nation’s future lies in a democratic and liberal Pakistan where the private sector thrives and no one is left behind. He made these remarks during his speech on the occasion of Pakistan investment conference.
The statement and the occasion show he was implicitly referring to a liberal economy only yet the very term "liberal" was good enough to be misconstrued by the right wring elements. Terms like liberal and secular are much demonised by orthodox right wing political and faith groups in Pakistan...................
Context to the chaos in Karachi
June 28, 2015
Pakistan People’s Party co-chairperson Asif Zardari’s diatribe against security establishment has ruffled the political landscape of Sindh. In stark contrast to his usual mellow demeanour, Zardari’s verbal whipping has created ripples in the national politics.
Although the retreat was not too late, many consider it too little. His party stalwarts painstakingly retrofitted his speech by summoning every bit of creativity; but their vacillating explanations could hardly mollify the enraged establishment...................
Silencing civil society
June 14, 2015
Drastic measures followed the tragedy of Army Public School Peshawar. The incident was one of the series of macabre events of our recent history. The scale of barbarity was outrageous and shocking beyond imagination. Yet the equanimity of a society is best judged at such testing times.
Half a year past while the wound still bleeds, it would be pertinent to take a stock of the much touted actions and the promised results. Tragedies are not meant to mourn only; learning lessons and realigning strategies should be the prime outcome...................
Federal formula
February 22, 2015
Most, if not all, wars are fought over or have some link with natural resources. All other ostensible reasons and excuses are mere fig leaf. The trait does not characterise only prehistoric eras but dominates the course of history of modern states.
According to a study by the Canadian government, between 1937 and 1996, some $15 billion worth of diamonds were exported and sold from Sierra Leone. Yet the people of Sierra Leone live on about 30 cents a day.
The situation is not very different in Pakistan where more than 180 million people are blessed with unexplored wealth of natural resources...................
A missing State
December 14, 2014
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has once again pleaded the government of Pakistan to ratify "international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance", and shun the barbaric practice of enforced disappearances and killings of compatriots.
Recent torrent of abduction and killing of political workers has once again brought Pakistan in the limelight.
HRCP and other civil society organisations have criticised the government and the law enforcement agencies for perpetrating these crimes against citizens...................
Far from reality
March 9, 2014
The demand for a new province in Karachi is based on distorted facts and misperceptions -- that people living in Karachi are being exploited at the expense of rural communities. Such insinuations are far from reality; a disservice, to maim the fragile communal harmony in Sindh.
Although such statements are immediately rescinded to avoid an ensuing political catastrophe, they leave a bad feeling among the people of Sindh.
One would certainly accept demand for a better Karachi, but a demand for a separate ethnic province would only exacerbate a fractious political ambience in the province...................
How the East was lost
December 15, 2013
December dusts searing past to remind a reality that was preposterously denied for a quarter century and was recognized only after leaving an indelible trail of blood. While creation of Bangladesh entails a petrifying human catastrophe and an everlasting reference to state-perpetrated fratricide, it also trivialised a waffle narrative of Islamic-nationhood.
The episode reiterated that a multi-nation federation can only exist with socio-political justice, absence of which derides all ideological conjectures. Creation of Bangladesh reinforced the fact that Pakistan was not a creation of any Islamic......................
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PAKISTAN’S stance on India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is rooted in its legal rights concerning the Indus basin’s western rivers under the treaty. Walking away from the treaty is a breach of obligation by India. Moreover, the threat to stop flows to the lower riparian is a human............
Canal controversy
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The corporate farming dream
February 23, 2025
The Punjab government has launched a project to develop agriculture in Cholistan.
However, the Sindh government has expressed reservations over the initiative. The latter has submitted a summary to the Council of Common Interests, a constitutional forum mandated with addressing concerns of provinces, including those related to sharing and use of water resources. However, a CCI meeting has not been convened for one year although the constitution mandates a quarterly meeting...........................
Water deficit
December 1, 2024
RATHER than augmenting water productivity, our planners are obsessed with building new reservoirs and expanding irrigated areas. The reason? More structures mean more money. Barring the wet monsoon years, the Indus basin frequently endures water scarcity. For the last 25 years, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has declared water shortages every year and has not allocated water shares as enshrined in the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord.
Sindh has thus questioned the water availability certificate for the Cholistan irrigation scheme issued by Irsa early this year...........................
Parched Sindh
January 11, 2025
SINDH comprises 18 per cent of Pakistan’s land mass and 16pc of its total cultivable area.
While the agricultural sector is the lynchpin of the provincial economy, Sindh also contributes about 23pc to the country’s national agricultural value added: 41pc to the national output of rice, 31pc to sugarcane and 21pc to wheat. The rural communities and urban markets rely heavily on the performance of this integral sector...........................
Decaying delta
December 21, 2024
THE Indus Delta, once a pristine ecosystem, has lost its glory. Listed amongst the 40 most biologically rich ecoregions in the world, it is also a Ramsar site. Unfortunately, its mangrove forests and fish stock in its estuaries are dwindling and communities are abandoning their abodes due to scarce livelihood resources. Abject poverty, food insecurity and morbidity are rampant. The prosperous past of the area has given way to deprivation over the decades........................
A dying lake
August 26, 2023
ONCE glorified as Pakistan’s largest freshwater lake and a pristine wetland ecosystem, Manchar Lake has degenerated into a polluted pond. In fact, Manchar is a case study in how nature’s endowment can be annihilated by poor planning; in this case, by the ill-conceived Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) project.
Historically a natural depression fed by hill torrents of the Kirthar range on its western boundary, the pond......................