Issue 52 Vol III, November 30, 2007

F E A T U R E S

A déjà vu of Sorts
Ishtiaq Ahmed

MANY of us have experienced déjà vu -- the unsettling sensation that one has been in a particular situation before, but knowing almost equally well that such a situation did not exist until then. For someone believing in rebirth or spiritualism this is the strongest argument of having been there before. However, scientists are of the view that déjà vu is simply a momentary disturbance of the electrical signals our brain shoots all the time. What happens is that for a fleeting split second or two we experience those signals in a distorted manner, and hence: déjà vu.

How should I describe the fact that on Sunday, November 4, 2007, I found myself standing outside the police station of Model Town, Lahore, where some 55 human rights activists and some chance visitors to the office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had had been brought against their will? I had a distinct feeling I had experienced all this before, but not in a past birth or because of some crazy movement of electrical signals of my brain.

My earliest memories of standing outside police stations date from the time of the street protests in 1964 when the combined opposition had put up Miss Fatima Jinnah as their presidential candidate against General Mohammad Ayub Khan. Many students took to the street to support Miss Jinnah, and that resulted in clashes with the police and subsequent detentions in police lockups. That experience was repeated in 1968 when students and political activists were at the forefront of a mass movement that brought down Ayub's government finally. Police stations were filled then as well with students and political cadres of different sorts.

But on this particular Sunday of November 4 it was just chance that I was not inside the police station along with the 55 being detained, because only a casual invitation to attend the HRCP meeting called to discuss the imposition of a state of emergency by General Pervez Musharraf would have been interesting for me to accept. Only an hour earlier I had met one of the detainees, Neelam Shah, the elder sister of my friend Haroon Shah. Had she mentioned that the HRCP was meeting to discuss the emergency I would have been very keen to attend the meeting, out of sheer curiosity to learn how the liberal-left intellectuals viewed the current situation.

Anyhow, it was only good that she did not mention the meeting, because had I been arrested along with the others my situation might have landed me in greater trouble than others. I have acquired the Pakistan origin card but misplaced it somewhere in Stockholm before shifting to Singapore. So, I was in Pakistan on a Swedish passport and that might have complicated matters for me.

I believe all those arrested from the premises of the HRCP were simply interested in discussing what to do now that an emergency had been imposed. They had no particular plan or line of action or policy in hand that was going to be put into action. To arrest people who just assemble peacefully to discuss a new political situation makes no sense, because it is possible that not everyone wanted to have a showdown with the government.

That the HRCP was particularly targeted is rather disturbing. If at all any group of people poses the least threat to the government of President Musharraf it must be those who subscribe to the Charter of the United Nations. They want all the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) to be respected by Pakistan in letter and spirit. Who takes their calls for respect for human rights seriously either in the government or in the opposition?

Had the Declaration and its 30 clauses been important and authoritative for those who have ruled or want to rule Pakistan, we would neither have had corrupt, elected and unelected civilian governments nor military and quasi-military dictatorships in power because a polity that respects its citizens and claims their loyalty must of necessity subscribe to the rule of law.

The rule of law in its most elementary meaning stands for decisions taking place according to objective principles and procedures, where the innocent are free and the guilty are punished only through due process of law. This probably does not happen to perfection anywhere in the world because the rich and mighty can always find ways and means of bending the law. But in Pakistan we have specialised in producing a legion of statutes and ordinances which subvert the principles of constitutionalism and progressive legal theory.

Ironically, only the Musharraf regime has dared to remove separate electorates from the election system and also changed the laws on rape which required the victim (a woman, of course) to produce four pious witnesses who could testify that such a crime took place. I talked to someone from the minorities who said that they felt more protected under Musharraf than at any time during earlier regimes since 1974, when the Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims.

Returning to the déjà vu feeling, another dimension dawned upon me while standing that Sunday evening outside the Model Town Police Station. Thirty-nine years later the situation I experienced was very similar to that which obtained in 1968. A quasi-civilian government with a military strongman at the helm had increasingly acquired authoritarian and dictatorial characteristics. In reaction, an opposition had sprung up, hell bent on getting him removed in the name of democracy, but with very questionable democratic credentials itself.

If memory does not let me down completely, even in 1968 the combined opposition of left, right and centre forces had little in common except their opposition to General Ayub Khan. Abul Aala Maududi and his Jamaat-e-Islami were in it because during his time the Muslim Family Ordinance had been introduced which put restrictions on the right of Muslim men to have four wives simultaneously. The left found him to be too pro-American and the centre forces had nothing ideological against him except that he had replaced the parliamentary system with the presidential one. The current opposition is the same mix and with the same sort of one-person agenda in mind: to dislodge Musharraf from the corridors of power.

My intuition is that Musharraf's time is out. It too is a déjà vu of sorts. He will fall now or sometimes soon but the old circus will be repeated, unless the battle for democracy qualitatively changes from a ritual to establish majority tyranny to a genuine universal democracy for all Pakistanis.

[The author is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, on leave from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg]

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No Migrant Labour, No Green Revolution
Manjt Singh

‘PUNJAB is the grain bowl of India’. This is a popular belief among the economists as also the policy planners. The traditional agriculture, located within peasant culture and economy, slowly metamorphosed to commercial capitalist agriculture ever since the high tide of green revolution swept over the sprawling plains of Punjab. The invisible hand of the market penetrated the organic bond between the means of production and social structure and they were transformed from within. The direct cooperation of hands was displaced with larger social division of labour, coordinated by the market forces and expanded under the impulse of competition. Everything is reduced to either production or factors of production, labour power being one of them. It was here that the migrant labour stepped in to fill the gap created by the fresh demand for labour, particularly at the peak periods of sowing and harvesting.

Two streams of migrant labour were attracted to Punjab agriculture, one free-flowing from the hinterlands of Bihar to work as contract labour on the peak periods of labour demand and second to work as bonded labour who were recruited from the Jharkhand area and were of tribal origin.

The latter phenomena emerged in the Doaba belt of Punjab where the land holdings were small and local labour refused to work at the harsh terms and conditions of employment. The migrant bonded labour came out to be handy to look after the small size of farms and also to tend cattle. Though this phenomenon started way back during mid 1970s, it is still rampant in the Doaba region of Punjab. The number of bonded attached agricultural labourers should not be less than 25 thousand, according to our estimates. They are bonded as they are not paid their due wages regularly, and the same amount is withheld by the employer, lest the worker flee from the clutches of his master. The wages agreed upon are almost half of what is statutory minimum wage rate fixed by the state government. And even that is not paid regularly.

The entire credit of the introduction of paddy crop as cash crop in Punjab goes to the migrant labour from Bihar. They are not only cheap but also more efficient compared to the local labour. Over a period of more than three decades many changes have occurred in the agrarian structure of Punjab. Mechanisation of various agricultural operations and extensive use of insecticides / weedicides, instead of manual hoeing and weeding has drastically squeesed the demand for labour. In their struggle for survival the migrant labourers have also learned to face the new challenges squarely and, unlike in the past, do not depend solely on agricultural work for their economic survival. They have to supplement their earnings by working in construction industry, on rickshaw pulling or any other casual labour before they go back to their respective village in other states. At the same time, besides Bihar, other states too supply their surplus hands to work in rural Punjab. Our continuous monitoring of migrant labour to rural Punjab since 1980 shows that there is no real wage increase for the migrant labour. In certain agricultural operations there is actually slight decrease in the real wages.

The flow of migrant labour to the urban industrial sector of Punjab preceded the rural migration. And today, all the menial and manual work, whether in construction, in manufacturing or in unorganised sector in general, have been taken over by them who themselves live in hell to maintain heaven for the rich. Brick kiln industry is one where not less than 1 lakh migrant labourers work, and all of them are bonded labourers. In this industry, the entire family is engaged, including small kids, and they work for the season against the debt advanced to them right in the beginning. Thereafter no regular wage is paid, and the entire amount of wages is settled at the end of season in the month of July.

According to our estimate, migrant labour constitute nearly 5-6 per cent of the population of Punjab though the official number of migrant workers, as recorded in census 2001, are as low as 83,000. Many politicians are trying to give communal colour to the presence of migrant labour in such a large number. The tirade against them includes: that the migrants are spreading habit of chewing tobacco in Punjab, that many of them are criminals, that they are drain on the economy of Punjab, and above all that they may tilt the balance of political power by their sheer fact of their presence in a large number. Recently, even some of the protests have taken place against the presence migrant labour. Paradoxically, on the economic plane the employers of migrant labour look at them as a big asset whereas in the political arena they are conceived of as a threat to their survival. In other words, everyone wants to use them as a source of cheap labour power but do not want to give them a respect of an autonomous citizen who has social, cultural and political ambitions too.

Those who are trying to stoke communal fire in the name of ‘sons of the soil’ should also realise that the number of Punjabis in USA, Canada and U.K. alone are to the tune of 25 lakh. Among the Punjabis, Jat Sikh community is particularly mobile, and in search of larger chunks of fertile land has moved out to the neighbouring states within India. Whenever there is some achievement in any field by an NRI we go out of the way to parade them as ‘Indian/ Punjabi’ and as if that too is our own achievement. However, any such achievement by a migrant to Punjab at best is envied, and at worst is seen as a threat to the culture and politics of Punjab. How can we have double standard, one for the home state and another for the destination state/ country?  We should take humanist approach towards migrant labour and help them in securing bare minimum facilities such as education, medical help, and clean drinking water, which they need desperately at the moment. We as Punjabi employers should take pledge to ensure human conditions of work and fair wages to all the migrant labour so that they are in a much better position to serve the land of Punjab.

[The author is professor Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh and can be reached: manjits@pu.ac.in]

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Poor Sanitation takes Millions of Lives
L.K.Verma

IN developing countries like India the poor sanitation conditions are creating major havoc for the people. You can see piles of garbage and dirty muddy water clogging everywhere. Basic amnesties like clean drinking water, minimum housing and sanitation are denied to millions even after sixty years of independence. According to a survey by an international NGO, WaterAid, India is at second place on the list of the world’s worst places for sanitation after China. There are around 700 million people that have no toilets. Situation in the slums has become grim, so a huge population has to use open areas to answer nature’s call. No doubt 700,000 children die every year due to diarohea and dehydration caused by poor hygiene.

Since Independence we have made progress in every field, but even now over half the population does not have access to safe sanitation. From 1 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban population having access to sanitation in 1998, the coverage has jumped to 48 per cent (rural) and 93 per cent (urban). Let us take the example of Delhi, where the sewers were designed for a population of three million. But the population now has increased to 14 million.

Beside lack of social organizations in sanitation projects of India, the political will to do it is also required. If we need to have a clean country, another freedom struggle to bring in hygiene and public health will have to be launched. Many diseases are spreading due to this improper sanitation, which includes Diarohea, Malaria, Dengue and Tuberculosis. Yet wonder of wonders, those engaged in sanitation, the Dalits are at the lower rung of social hierarchy and subject of derision by the upper castes. Forget their all important role that should place them equal to physicians.

Malaria

The mosquito continues to be a bitter enemy of man for centuries. Beside India, Malaria is still widely prevalent in most of the tropical world, affecting 500 million people and killing one million every year. The annual incidence of malaria was estimated at around 75 million cases in 1953 with about 8 lakh deaths annually. To combat this menace, the India government launched the National Malaria Control Programme in April 1953. The programme proved highly successful and within five years the incidence dropped to 2 million. Encouraged by this, the programme was changed to a more ambitious National Malaria Eradication Programme in 1958. By 1961 the incidence dropped to a mere 50,000 cases a year. But since then the programme suffered repeated set-backs due to technical, operational and administrative reasons and the cases started rising again. Malaria has now staged a dramatic comeback in India after its near eradication in the early and mid sixties.

Malaria parasites are transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes. The parasites multiply within red blood cells, causing symptoms that include symptoms of anemia (light headedness, shortness of breath, tachycardia etc.), as well as other general symptoms such as fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness, and in severe cases, coma and death. Malaria transmission can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites with mosquito nets and insect repellents, or by mosquito control measures such as spraying insecticides inside houses and draining standing water where mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Dengue

After malaria the dengue is also spreading in India. In spite of the hundreds of deaths it has caused in the last few years and the government acknowledging that prevention is the only cure for dengue, India’s response to the disease is not up to the mark.

According to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, about 13,000 cases of dengue were reported in 2006. The disease killed nearly 200 people. Delhi topped the list with nearly 28 per cent of the cases followed by Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Yet, prevention remains low.

Other tropical countries like Vietnam, Cuba and Malaysia have launched successful biological battles against Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the tiger mosquito, which spreads the disease in humans. Vietnam successfully used a bug, mesocyclops that eats mosquito larvae but is harmless to humans. Within a year of launching the programme, Vietnam brought down the incidence of dengue by nearly 77 per cent.

Tuberculosis

Nowadays the AIDS has been receiving much attention and funds in India, the real big killers like malaria and tuberculosis are often overlooked. The share of the Centre funds for these diseases has declined in place of providing more measures to control these diseases.

The figures of those affected with the disease are more astonishing. One Indian dies due to TB every minute, that is, over 5 lakh every year. Over 2.2 million people in India are infected afresh every year. Official figures put the reported malaria cases at between 1.8-2 million every year, but experts say that they are a gross underestimate since most cases are not reported to government-run clinics, especially in rural areas.

Studies are indicating very ominous trends in both diseases. An increasing proportion of the TB-causing bacteria are developing resistance to the drugs used to fight it. This may happen if the prescribed drugs are taken irregularly or insufficiently. Over one-third of the world's population has been exposed to the TB bacterium, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second.

The decline in the funds for fighting TB and malaria has made the situation worse. Of the total money annually spent by the Central department of health, the share of funds dedicated to malaria control has gone down from 9.2% in 2000-01 to a mere 2.4% in the current year, while for the TB control programme, it has declined from 5.4% to 1.6%.

The World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency in 1993, and the Stop TB Partnership developed a Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis aiming to save 14 million lives between 2006 and 2015.

The situation can be improved if proper measures are taken and the funds are allocated for the purpose. The spreading of diseases can be controlled if we can maintain proper sanitation in and around. If we do not take proper measures the situation is going to be worse and uncontrolled.

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Cement factories, lesser rain and snow hit saffron cultivation
Ajmer Alam Wani writes from Srinagar

IN Pampore as the time to reap the fruits of their hard labour draw near, farmers here are worried. Reason: the yield of the saffron crop, the glory of  this part of the Kashmir Valley, has been falling year after year.

Some 14 km away from the Jammu and Kashmir summer capital, Pampore, the heartland of saffron, where a stone memorial greets you with the message ‘World's Best Saffron Grows Here”, has been losing its sheen slowly but surely.

Farmers and experts believe that changing climatic conditions and cement factories around the area are fast affecting the production of the world's costliest spice; the best quality Kashmir saffron fetches Rs 55,000-60,000 per kg.

For commercial purposes, saffron is grown primarily in India, Spain and Iran. Kashmir has the proud privilege of producing the best quality saffron, known for its unique aroma.

The time for its flower to bloom is autumn. Its orange stigmas are harvested and used as flavouring and colouring agent in various recipes. Saffron is also added to Qahwa, the traditional saffron Kashmiri tea. It is an object of  purity  that decorates the forehead of the holy and loved ones.

According to the Agricultural Department, the production per 'kanal' (505 sq m) has reduced from the normal 150 gm to as low as 70 gm, terribly hitting the trade, with which nearly 10,000 farmers are directly associated.

According to experts, scanty snowfall and rainfall are the major causes of the yield decline. The area, as per official records, has been receiving less rain and snow in the past many years than other parts of the Valley.

“Pampore gets only one to three inches of snow during winter, which is far less than in any other part of the Valley,” says Henna Qadiri, an Agricultural Assistant.

“Lesser rain and snow has resulted in the drying up of various streams and other water bodies in the area, which are big factors contributing to the agricultural debacle,” added Qadiri, who is also pursuing research on saffron cultivation.

“A rise in average temperatures and the early and fast meltdown of glaciers in the Pir Panjal mountain range have affected water availability to a great extent during the last one and a half decade thus badly affecting the crop cultivation,” Qadiri mentioned.

However, climate is not the only cause, says Qadiri, adding that the cement factories established in the area are continuously emitting smoke and dust which is making saffron cultivation more difficult.

“The dust coming from cement factories causes imbalances in the nutritive contents of the soil due to the high content of mercury present in it which results in the retarded growth of plants,” she said.

Farmers allege that the cement factories do not use filter bags during night on their emissions, as a result of which the cement dust settles on everything, including the saffron fields.

Officials also blame the construction boom for the decline of crop produce. A survey conducted by the Finance Department says that 5,361 hectares of land was used for cultivation of saffron in the early 1980s. This stood at 2,928 hectares last year.

In order to save the receding crop, Qadiri suggests more scientific techniques, proper harvesting and better processing.

The government last year had promised to introduce post-harvest technologies to save the cash crop but nothing has been done so far. “We have been approaching the government to save this crop, which gives not only bread and butter to us but also brings us cultural glory but to no avail,” alleges Mohammed Subhan, a farmer of Kadlabal village near the town.

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