Plight of stranded Pakistanis in Dhaka and billions in frozen fund

Pakistan has not been able to learn anything from the secession of East Pakistan as it still continues to follow the same policies and methods that led to the country’s disintegration on 16 December 1971, particularly the unequal distribution of resources and authoritarian as well as repressive attitude towards ethnolinguistic diversity in the country. 

The country also needs to recover funds of billions of rupees meant for the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh, that lie in the Habib Bank Limited and had been frozen by the United States over allegations of terror financing after 9/11. 

These view were expressed by speakers at a seminar titled “The East Pakistan tragedy: contemporary concerns,” organised by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) at its library here on Saturday. 

Speaking on the occasion, PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan said the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan was a monumental catastrophe which happened due to various factors that had accumulated over the past many years and that the effects of that tragedy had lingered on till this time.

Addressing the key issues that led to the separation of East Pakistan, Executive Director of Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi Dr S. Akbar Zaidi said the country was doomed from the beginning as West Pakistan had prejudice and racism against Bengalis. 

They were looked down upon on the basis of colour and height and were kept marginalised, he added. 

Dr Moonis Ahmar, meritorious professor at the department of International Relations and former dean faculty of social sciences at the University of Karachi, highlighted the plight of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh, who are languishing in camps for decades. 

He said there were 66 camps in Bangladesh where thousands of ‘forgotten’ Pakistanis were living in a poor condition for the past 52 years as Pakistan had failed to repatriate them. 

He said efforts had been made to bring them back but those efforts were not successful. In 1988, the government of Pakistan took an important step and established a fund for the repatriation and rehabilitation of the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh with the help of The Muslim World League, an international Islamic NGO, Dr Ahmar said. 

However, that process was stopped and the fund of millions of rupees — now in the Habib Bank Limited and has multiplied over the years into billions of rupees — was frozen by the United States over allegations that it would allegedly be used in terror financing, he added. 

He said the people stranded there also complained that Pakistan accepted millions of Afghan as well as Bengali refugees, but they, the loyal Pakistanis, remained forgotten. 

The way out now was that the frozen funds be taken out and utilised to repatriate the stranded Pakistanis, or, if that’s not possible, to help them provide an honourable way of living in Bangladesh with equal rights and citizenship, Dr Ahmar suggested. 

Addressing fault lines in Pakistan’s nation building experiment, Dr Farhan Hanif Siddiqi, director and associate professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University, said nation building was mostly seen and practiced in Pakistan, as was many other countries, as manufacturing homogeneity, or unity, through hegemonic practices, in which cultures, myths, symbols, and histories were manufactured with the intention of homogenising social and ethnic diversity in the service of nation building. He said:

But this is where the problem lies because ethnic identities and social diversity are denied and suppressed in such hegemonic practices.

He added that all this had been happening in Pakistan since its inception and contributed mainly to its disintegration. 

Therefore, he said, Pakistan needed to normalise diversity, multilingualism and multiculturalism and it was high time that these problems were addressed. 

He said it was very important for a country to be self-reflecting and self-critical for the purpose of nation building but such was not the case with Pakistan as the political leaders and establishment of the country always shifted the blame onto others and never accepted criticism. 

Dr Farhan also said that in Pakistan, the issue of majoritarianism had also become a major challenge where the majority was afraid of monitories and tried to keep them suppressed. 

Zafar Shafique, member of the council of PIIA and CEO of Paradise International Group of Companies, discussed the economic effects on companies, institutes and people after the fall of Dhaka. 

He said Pakistan faced various economic problems after the secession. There was industrial and economic disruption, loss of employment and termination of international contracts, all resulting in severe loss of profit.

Published in Dawn 17 December 2023

Experts call for using predictive AI cybersecurity to thwart attacks

Pakistan is not ready for cyber warfare, PIIA conference told … those who believed their privacy remained intact in cyberspace lived in imaginary world

The conference — Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Cyber Security — was organised by the Paki­stan Institute of Interna­tional Affairs (PIIA) here.

Experts at a conference on Saturday said that the country was more than 20 years behind the world in the field of digital security and it must move forward on a very fast track by adopting predictive cybersecurity infused with Artificial Intelligence in order to have a standing in the world of information in cyberspace.

There was a consensus among speakers that awareness of cybersecurity must be spread through educational institutions, particularly universities, and webinars and seminars should be conducted to make the general public aware of the challenges.

They were also of the view that the government should also let people work freely to bring required changes in the field.

Speaking on the occasion, Ammar Hussain Jaffri, a former senior official of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) who also headed the National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (N3RC), said that he had been working on cybersecurity for the past 20 years. He said:

When I started working in the cybercrime unit of FIA 20 years ago we were ahead of India considering the initiatives we took for cybersecurity. But right now, we are even behind the place where we were standing 20 years ago.

Pakistan has been working on reactive cybersecurity up till now, but it’s time we start looking into predictive cybersecurity, which needs to be infused with AI, where possible attacks are predicted and the results are also accurate up to 90 per cent.

He shared that through AI, they looked into the matter of fake passports and detected anomalies in the system of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) where people with fake passports were entered in random family trees to have a record.

Rahim Ali, chief technology officer of an international business outsourcing firm, said that Pakistan was not ready for cyber warfare, but it did not have an option to be not ready for it.

Explaining the complexity of the cybersecurity and its combination with the AI, he said that cybersecurity was not only for computers.

“Let me paint a picture of a cyber attack. First, your networks are compromised and you lose connection with everyone. Then the electronic media is stopped so you can’t see what’s happening on the ground. Utilities and public infrastructure are destroyed. The idea is to either steal, sabotage or compromise,” he explained.

“It is called ‘fire sale’ in cybersecurity. In this, a country’s infrastructure is systematically disengaged,” he said.

He gave another example of how there was a plan to assassinate the head of a country without sending an assassin to kill him.

“The plan was to hack the pacemaker, installed in the heart of that country’s head, and increase its current which could alter the heartbeat and kill him,” he added.

Maliha Masood, another IT professional and expert in risk management, information security management, internal audit and software quality assurance, shared that like all the other fields, the cyberspace also had good and bad actors. She said:

The problem with good actors is that they need to abide by many rules and standards. Whereas, the bad actors are free to do whatever they can. So, they limit many procedures for cybersecurity experts.

She said that the people who were in the cyberspace in any capacity and thought that their privacy remained intact, they were living in an imaginary world.

The experts also discussed how modern weapons could be altered and manipulated through AI, which was why it was important to have indigenous weaponry so the risks of manipulations could be minimised.

PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan thanked the panellists in her closing remarks.

Dr Muazzam A. Khan Khattak of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Dr Waqas Haider Khan Bangyal of Kohsar University’s Department of Computer Science, Dr Nudrat Nida of National University of Sciences and Technology delivered speeches at the inaugural session of the day-long conference.

Published in Dawn, 12 November 2023

US ‘double standards’ seen as major factor behind Israeli brutalities

The Western mind has never forgotten the Crusades, Ambassador Ghori

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) recently organised a seminar where former ambassadors and academics delved into the subject of ‘Israeli Aggression in Gaza and Peace in the Middle East’.

They spoke about the double standards of the United States and observed that it was the major issue that harmed the peace in the volatile region.

PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan spoke about the present crisis in Gaza after Hamas fired 5,000 rockets at Israel on Oct 7. “Israel was bound to retaliate and has since let loose the worst kind of terror on the poor Palestinians of the narrow Gaza Strip,” she said while also pointing out that even though the West calls Hamas a terrorist organisation, it really stands for an Islamic resistance movement. 

While pointing an accusing finger at the United States, former ambassador and Pakistan’s permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Mustafa Kamal Kazi said that in the case of Palestine there can be no greater hypocrisy and double standards.

“The United States of America even vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution which sought not a ceasefire but just humanitarian pauses in Israel’s bombing for medicine and other essential life supporting supplies to enter Gaza,” he said.

“In my view, Washington’s three decisions after the year 2000 which directly or indirectly harmed the prospects of peace in the region are the events after the 9/11 tragedy leading to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, President Trump’s abandonment of nuclear accord with Iran, making Iran free to raise uranium enrichment to a higher level. Therefore, raising the interest of other regional countries towards greater competitive interest in nuclear technology and the so-called Abraham Accords, which were the brainchild of amateur strategist Trump’s son-in-law, signed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. 

“But these countries were in no position to advance the cause of settlement of the Palestinian and Israeli issue. On the contrary these accords triggered Palestinian desperation that now even their Arab governments were abandoning them through American persuasion. This unity amongst the Arab countries is a factor, which dilutes their strategic and economic power potential,” he said. 

“The Arab League has 22 members out of which six — Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia — have been crippled by conflicts. Sudan was even dismembered and partitioned. The Arab League was founded within an objective to develop close relations amongst the member states. But this Accord speaks for itself. Very disturbing reports have emerged during the current crisis that some Arab countries spy on the poor Palestinians and report to Israeli intelligence. This needs some soul searching,” he added.

He also spoke about American-led invasions in at least seven Muslim countries during the past 23 years, which has claimed lives of more than a million and displacement to around 37m. “It’s a clear signal to the Muslim world where they are standing in a West-dominated world where Islamophobia continues to flourish,” he said. 

Joining online from Canada, Ambassador Karmatullah Ghori was of the view that the Western mind has never forgotten the lessons of the Crusades. He said:

When history repeats itself the first time, it is a tragedy. When history repeats itself a second time, it is a calamity

What is the aggression here? It is not even a war. It is a Palestinian struggle for all their fundamental rights as they have been living under Israeli oppression for the last 75 years

About America and Europe, he said that they wanted to create a Western colony in the heart of the Arab world, which they have quite successfully as the Arabs surrounding Israel have not been of much help. 

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Dr Talat Ayesha Wizarat, the former chairperson of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi and former head of the Center of Policy and Area Studies at the Institute of Business Management, said she feels depressed at the plight of the Palestinians. She said:

They are waiting for food, electricity and medical help. Israel has attacked hospitals and schools. Something has to be done very quickly

Everywhere the US is interested in a ceasefire but when it comes to Gaza, they are not interested in a ceasefire

As a solution, she said that perhaps all the 65 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should tell the US that if it does not change its attitude, they are all going to break diplomatic relations with it.

“Considering the present state of fear this seems like a dream. But threatening to do this would be effective I think. If all of the OIC members do it then it will present a different scenario. So I think the Muslim countries should do it for their own good, because if they think that only Gaza is going to suffer and that is going to be the end of the story, it is not going to end there. The US has already destroyed six or seven Muslim countries in a span of 23 years. They will not stop here,” she said.

Published in Dawn 22 October 2023

The finance minister’s only remaining function is to get more loans to repay past ones

“Any finance minister of Pakistan has only one very simple task of how to get more loans to repay past loans. That is the only function of the country’s economy left. There will, of course, be long statements about revenue generation, development, industrialisation, education, health, etc. But these are all fairy tales because there is no money for anything. And nothing will happen,” said eminent economist Dr Kaiser Bengali during our recent seminar.

Speaking at a seminar — The State of Pakistan’s Economy: What Next? — organised by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) here on Saturday, Dr Bengali said that the Pakistan he knew no longer exists. 

“The revenue your latest budget claims to collect will never be collected. And the items on which the expenditure has been allocated will never be spent because we don’t have the money,” he said. 

“The only thing that we need to do now in terms of managing the economy is how to get more loans to pay past loans. And since we will not get all loans to pay all our past loans, we will sell our assets. Everything is on sale here. We already have a banking sector that is 80 per cent foreign-owned, we have a telecom sector that is 100 per cent foreign-owned but more is to come.

Shabbar Zaidi calls for correcting NFC award, creation of new provinces, putting an end to smuggling from Iran, Afghanistan

“We have just announced the privatisation of a port terminal in Karachi, a Saudi team has visited all our airports and three major airports are about to be handed over to foreign interests. We use all kinds of terminologies to say we are not selling them we are just outsourcing them but basically it is handing over control of these assets. More and more will follow,” he pointed out. 

Dr Bengali said that two windows have closed here, perhaps permanently. “One is the economy window and the other is the security window,” he said. 

“Soon we will be employees of Chinese, Saudi, Emirati and other employers as Pakistan will be owned by them. We lost our economic sovereignty. It didn’t happen today. From 1993 onward for 16 years three State Bank governors came from outside Pakistan. They were employees of international organisations, they had not served in Pakistan for more than 10 years but now that we are burying our economic sovereignty in a more formal way, the economy window has closed. 

“The security window has also closed. The international geostrategic architecture has changed. For some 60 years of the last 75 years of Pakistan’s existence we cashed in on the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. Pakistan did all the dirty work for the Americans and got paid for it. But the United States does not need our services anymore. If the confrontation is with China, the Americans need Indian, not Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan is an irritant in the process,” he said, adding that the irritant has to be tamed and de-fanged. 

“And if we are defanged then of course there is no security role to play, no wars to fight. Then what will happen? The economic footprint of the military will increase. They are already into services and industry. That will increase. So we achieved independence from British colonialism and we are entering the phase of cantonment colonialism,” he concluded.

Adding to the economic gloom, former chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue Syed Shabbar Zaidi said that Pakistanis don’t even realise that they have ruined themselves. 

“We don’t even have the money for repayment of our foreign debts of US $130 billion as per schedule. Some 85 per cent of our bank’s debts are used by federal government loans, inflation is on the rise, there is subsidy on electricity of over Rs1,000 billion, the state’s own enterprise losses are over Rs1,000 billion, there are unfunded pensions to be paid, over 50 million children are not getting education and on top of all that we have the highest population growth in the world,” he reminded. 

His solutions to the economic problems included taking a strategic u-turn on the country’s location advantage and see China as our supplier and the USA as our buyer. 

He also asked for transparency on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an end to smuggling from Afghanistan and Iran, correcting the National Finance Commission Award, enforcing Article 140A of the Constitution by empowering local government, revival of the ‘Planning Commission’ with a non-political chairman and creation of new provinces, at least 10 instead of just four.

While sharing his opinions on the issue of the economy of Pakistan, Assistant Professor of Social Development and Policy at the Habib University, Dr Aqdas Afzal said that the country’s decline began when it opened free trade. 

“But can we even do the trade? Do we even make anything exclusive that the world would want to buy from us? No one here talks about investment in human capital. We don’t have a skilled workforce and we opened free trade,” he pointed out, adding that other countries are now into strategic trade and value added trade.

“The United States only aims to compete with China. It makes whatever China cannot make,” he said while providing an example of strategic trade. “We should also identify winners and pick them to compete with the rest of the world,” he said. 

PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan also spoke.

Published in Dawn, 16 July 2023

PIIA Seminar on Hybrid Warfare: New Threats and Complexities for Pakistan

Security experts and social scientists have agreed that the growing advancement of technology has changed the mediums of conventional threats and it’s time for the country to develop skills and manpower using the latest technologies and aligning itself with the latest trends to meet emerging challenges especially in the context of future hybrid wars.

They shared these views while speaking at a seminar on ‘Hybrid Warfare: New Threats and Complexities for Pakistan’ organised by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) in its library on Saturday.

“Terrorist attacks to subvert economic growth are on the cards of our enemies. Our armed forces and law enforcement agencies have bravely fought and are fighting against terrorism, but now we need to adjust our sails using the latest technologies and align ourselves with the latest trends,” said former additional director general of the Federal Investigation Agency and founder of Digital Pakistan Ammar Jaffri.

Speaking on the topic ‘Cyber security for the national security of Pakistan, he said: “Due to its geopolitical importance, Pakistan is subject to multiple grey zone threats. The enemy through constant propaganda campaigns is trying to portray Pakistan as a state which is responsible for sponsoring militancy and terrorism in the region. A discriminatory attitude was observed in the FATF where despite fulfilling most of the conditions, the country was still included in the grey list. After August 15, 2021, when the Taliban took control of Kabul, even the failure of Ashraf Ghani was being attributed to Pakistan. Despite acting as a facilitator of peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan is being doubted and projected in a bad light.”

“The new trends of fake/deep fake and disinformation/crimes on social media needs trained manpower in digital forensics. Future hybrid wars will be based on emerging technologies, which require trained manpower with demand-driven skills and first-hand knowledge of the latest trends of cyber warfare. Digital media is today more powerful than print and electronic media. Artificial intelligence has the power to make humans think what machines want them to understand,” he said.

Speaking about ‘Economic coercion as an instrument of hybrid war in the case of Pakistan’, the Principal of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at NUST, Islamabad, Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, who joined the moot online, also said that the concept of war has changed from conventional to non-conventional.

“Economy is now the new battlefield. The main objective of this strategy is to incapacitate the ability of the country to strengthen its national security through weakening of economy, institutions and governance capacity. In the non-kinetic domain, economic warfare forms an important component of hybrid war,” the noted economist said. He pointed out:

The erosion of economic strength of any country is perhaps the most important element and likely the hardest to reverse once it is accomplished

Pakistan has the distinction of being the only nuclear power, which has sought financial support from the International Monetary Fund with great regularity. Since its inception, Pakistan has gone to the IMF 22 times, but from 1988 it has gone there 18 times. Barring four years [2004-2008], Pakistan has been taking the same medicine from the same doctor for 33 years in a row and with each passing day, Pakistan’s economic health has continued to deteriorate

We must realise that economic warfare has been imposed on us. We are in a hybrid war. We must say no to the IMF programme. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a great potential to keep Pakistan away from the IMF programme.

Adviser at the Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research, Islamabad, retired Lt Gen Naeem Khalid Lodhi, was also present virtually and spoke about ‘How to fight back in the hybrid environment’. He said that it is better to first understand the nature and purpose of warfare. 

“The actual and primary target here are the decision-makers. The second target is the youth,” he said, adding that tools are important if you want to fight back. “Without the wherewithal you can’t fight back,” he said.

“To fight the intricate war with finesse, you need a special force. Right now all think tanks are saying that we are in a hybrid war, but no one there talks about how to fight the war. A reinforced national security advisory secretariat needs to be revived and be directly responsible for planning how to fight this peculiar nature of war. They must combine under one roof all the requisite expertise to report directly to the prime minister, and give him continuous feedback,” he said.

PIIA Chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan also spoke.

Published in Dawn, 27 February 2023

The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs

‘Seeking Global Peace’: Masterclass in Diplomacy by Mushahid Hussain Syed

Video Footage of our 75th Anniversary Conference: Pakistan and the Changing Global Order: Day One Sessions

PIIA Conference: Climate change can pose existential threat to Pakistan, CM

In our landmark 75th Anniversary Conference, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah explained that Pakistan is strategically situated on the map of the world on Pakistan and the Changing Global Order in the PC Hotel, so it has a significant role to play in international politics.

“With access to the Arabian Sea, its Gwadar Port is important to Pakistan due to its prime location. It’s also important to China, Pakistan’s all-weather friend that has made massive investments to provide world-class facilities of docking at the port, thereby increasing the existing economic and strategic interdependence between the two countries.”

The Sindh CM stated this on Wednesday while speaking our 75th Anniversary Conference on Pakistan and the Changing Global Order. The CM said that climate change could be an existential threat to countries like Pakistan. “Overflowing rivers, melting sea ice, food insecurities — all are threatening our future and creating new tensions among competing powers in the world,” he said, adding that experts were now studying the convergence of climate change and national security.

He said that in recent years they had seen the shift of geopolitical power from the West to the East, and had witnessed the rise of Asia, especially through ASEAN, a resilient Africa, and more importantly, China with its expanding outreach through its Belt and Road Initiative.

He said the PIIA through its conference had put on the table every issue of contemporary importance in the changing global order, as the moot would be addressed by a galaxy of scholars and diplomats from Pakistan and abroad.

He added that it was a good decision that the subject related to peace in the fluid global order would be issued at the end of the conference. “The changing world order will take time to find a new equilibrium,” he said.

The CM said that the world was mired in conflicts and divisions for reasons which were historical and geographical. “Hence, a concerted approach to all issues and challenges within and outside Pakistan is the need of the hour,” he suggested.

“We ourselves are beneficiaries of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor [CPEC], which will bring vast economic benefits to our country,” he said, adding that CPEC highlighted the significance of the development of the Gwadar Port for the economy of Pakistan.

The CM said that Pakistan’s own region was beset with unsettled issues. “The unresolved Kashmir issue and the unrelenting brutality of the Indian government against the Kashmiri people is a cause of universal concern,” he said, adding that their suffering continued unabated and so did their resolve to decide their own future.

Shah said that stability in Afghanistan was a challenge for all players in the region. “Pakistan faces its own challenges not only of border security but also of water and food security,” he said.

He told the audience that Pakistan was the fifth largest country in the world in terms of population, and had been an active and progressive power on the world stage. He said that in the changing global order, it was one of the nine declared nuclear powers. “It’s a responsible nuclear power that has always used nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” he added.

Even as a young nation, Pakistan stood by countries struggling against colonial rule and lobbied for their independence from their colonial masters, the CM said. He added that it is a member of many treaties dealing with support to developing and least developed countries and humanitarian laws. Pakistan is one of the foremost providers of peacekeepers to United Nations forces, he pointed out.

He also said that Pakistan was a member of intergovernmental organisations such as the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

The CM said that he was glad that the PIIA conference addressed the issue of climate change. “Many countries of the world, including Pakistan, which is not responsible for the emerging climate catastrophe, are afflicted with the effects of climate change,” he said, adding that experts were now studying the convergence of climate change and national security.

The CM said that climate change had ravaged the country during the recent massive flooding. “Bringing relief to people displaced by the floods and made homeless has been a major challenge for my government. But we have put our hearts and souls into the efforts to retrieve their homes and livelihoods and to rehabilitate them,” he added.

Shah said that his government had been a leading force in enacting progressive legislation in many spheres. “We have given legal protection to women, the minorities, the marginalised and children,” he said, adding that over the last few years the Sindh government had adopted many pro-women laws.

According to the CM, Sindh is the first province to enact a law against domestic violence, ‘The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act, 2013’, and the landmark ‘The Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act, 2013’. The provincial chief executive hoped that the recommendations of the conference would help in the formulating of policies which could help resolve the contemporary world problems.

‘Dissolving PA at whim’

Talking to media persons after attending the conference, Shah said the constitution does empower the chief executive of a province to dissolve the provincial assembly, but such a power can only be exercised in extreme conditions as described in the constitution.

The CM said the constitution did not grant unbridled powers to the chief executive of a province to dissolve the PA at his whim just for creating a political or constitutional crisis or void in the country.

“There’s definitely a provision in the constitution empowering a chief minister to dissolve the assembly, but it shouldn’t be the case that a CM one fine morning wakes up from sleep and all of a sudden makes up his mind to take such an action or else he decides to dissolve the assembly after being asked so by someone else for creating a political crisis in the country,” he said.

He told the media persons that the constitution did define the circumstances in which a CM could take the extreme action of dissolving the PA. These conditions are: either the CM thinks he is unable to govern in the province and run its affairs as per the constitution or he has lost the confidence of the majority of the members of the assembly.

He hoped that the CMs of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also very well knew that the assembly could only be dissolved in such circumstances. Shah, however, said that no constitutional crisis would be created in the country if the CM of a province decided to dissolve the PA.

The Sindh CM hoped that better sense would prevail and no CM would opt for the dissolving of his assembly before the completion of its tenure. “If in case an assembly is dissolved, there won’t be any issue for us because we’ll contest the elections,” he said.

Replying to a question, the CM maintained that the official plane of the Sindh government had not been used to bring the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s imprisoned Senator Azam Khan Swati to the province.

He said the concerned political stakeholders should sit together to find solutions to serious economic problems faced by the country due to a number of global factors.

Responding to another query, he agreed that the natural gas shortage faced by the industries of Karachi was a major issue, as it could lead to the closure of industrial units and increase joblessness in the province. The chief minister said that he was in touch with the relevant federal authorities to get the issue resolved at the earliest.

Pakistan in an Age of Turbulence

All parties look to establishment to gain power, says Rabbani

While mainstream political parties in the country claim to be true democratic forces and entities, former chairman of Senate and senior PPP leader Senator Raza Rabbani made a candid admission on Saturday that all key political stakeholders “look to the establishment even today” to gain power and allow the establishment to violate the Constitution for that objective. 

The strong remarks by the PPP stalwart came with the insistence that there was ‘no exception’ in this even including his own political party, and expressed the regret that the powerful establishment in Pakistan was now enjoying a “creeping dominance” everywhere. 

At the launch of a memoir titled Pakistan in an Age of Turbulence written by former ambassador Dr Masuma Hasan held at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Senator Rabbani candidly shared his experiences as a political worker, a parliamentarian and a concerned citizen who had witnessed the fast eroding space for the true democratic forces in the country. 

From the perspective of Dr Hasan’s book, he referred to the state suppression of those segments of society which could have built a ‘counter narrative’ and talked about fizzled out culture of tolerance.

“To achieve this target of suppression,” he said the establishment had made a very loud and clear plan decades ago which was still effective and providing the desired results. 

“After the fall of Ayub Khan, the establishment sat to rethink what were those factors which brought down the powerful government,” he said. 

“First it was the student unions which were seen as vanguard of democracy. So they decided to go after that and eventually banned the unions. Second thing they saw was building a counter narrative about the culture of coffee houses. So you saw how that cultural space [coffee houses] were targeted across Karachi and Lahore through a deliberate design and it all came to a stop. The third one was labour unions. The real platform of struggle and raising voice for rights of the suppressed came to naught.” 

Lauding the role of Dr Hasan as a mother, senior bureaucrat and rights activist, former president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association Shahab Sarki went back to his student life when he along with his father Nuruddin Sarki personally witnessed her struggle when Fatehyab Ali Khan, her husband, who was a lawyer, social and political activist and president of Mazdoor Kisan Party, was put behind bars by General Ziaul Haq. Shahab Sarki said:

The key differences in past and present is that, in the past our elders like Masuma Hasan and Fatehyab Ali Khan always challenged the status quo while these days we see activism as a way to pamper the status quo.

He said:

This book [memoir of Dr Hasan] as I conclude doesn’t only make you aware of the true history or political landscape, but it will also teach you experiences and give you inspiration to move forward.

Calling her mother Sughra Begum, “anchor of my life”, Dr Hasan paid her tribute for her contribution in her personal life and professional career. 

She also mentioned her father Sarwar Hasan and brother Arif Hasan, who’s a renowned city planner and architect, for their supportive role in her success on different fronts of life. 

She got quite emotional while mentioning a chapter in her book describing it as the “most painful and sad chapter” of the memoir. 

“‘Farewell to Panipat’ [her birthplace] is the most painful and sad chapter of my life and this book. It’s the place where our ancestors lived for seven centuries in the same neighbourhood,” she concluded. 

Senior journalist Zubeida Mustafa also spoke.