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No conspiracy
THE National Security Committee — the country’s highest security forum —
has now unequivocally stated that it does not believe there was an
international conspiracy to dislodge Imran Khan from PM House. It has
subsequently become clear that the former prime minister made selfish
political use of a secret diplomatic communication to squeeze his way back
into the running for the next general elections.

To protect his political interests, Mr Khan also engineered a series of controversies to try
to discredit parliamentary processes, the judiciary as well as the security establishment
for making the ‘mistake’ of not protecting his government from being ousted with a vote of
no-confidence. He simultaneously cast aspersions on the loyalties of his political rivals
while rebranding the PTI as the only party fighting to keep Pakistan’s foreign policy
independent from interference.

Rather than take stock of his party’s less-than-stellar performance in its three-odd years
in power, the PTI chief distracted both supporters and critics by stoking moral panic over
a shadowy transnational plot to take down the Pakistani government. One need only
question why the PTI is frequently switching its narrative between ‘conspiracy’,
‘interference’ and ‘establishment’s mistake’ to understand that it is a smokescreen. Its real
purpose is to make sure there is an early election.

In all this, the efforts of Pakistan’s erstwhile ambassador to the US stand vindicated. Two
NSC meetings have confirmed that whatever he reported about his interaction with the
senior US official did indeed provide cause for alarm. It is commendable that the
ambassador immediately alerted the Foreign Office of the unnatural and undiplomatic
language used by the US official during their interaction.

He also reportedly recommended that foreign ministry officials immediately take the
matter up with both the US ambassador in Pakistan and the authorities in Washington to
determine if what was discussed was indeed the official US position. The matter was

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serious enough that it has again been confirmed as ‘blatant interference’ in Pakistan’s
affairs by the NSC. The question then arises: what prevented then foreign minister Shah
Mahmood Qureshi from acting immediately on the ambassador’s advice? Why did he take
weeks to bring the matter to the NSC?

It is true that the US does indeed have a history of meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs
both overtly and covertly. However, an act of interference is quite different from an act of
conspiracy, and the NSC seems quite clear on this particular matter. As Pakistan’s highest
security forum, its assessment has weight and cannot be contested without counter-
evidence.

It is unfortunate, however, that whatever it says is unlikely to have much of an impact on

the PTI and its supporters. PTI’s politics now seems to have moved to the ‘post-truth’
phase where inconvenient facts are not entertained and leaders take collective oaths of
obedience from their emotionally charged followers.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Punjab uncertainty
POLITICAL uncertainty in Punjab deepened further on Saturday after a
tweet by President Arif Alvi quashed reports that he was sending Senate
chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to Lahore for swearing in Hamza Shehbaz as new
chief minister a week after his election in a chaotic assembly session. The
tweet says a summary received by him from the Prime Minister’s Office
regarding a court order asking him to nominate a representative to
administer the oath to the chief minister-elect, was under his consideration
“as per the Constitution”. This suggests that he is in no mood to break the
deadlock caused by the new Punjab governor’s refusal to accept the ‘legality’
of Hamza Shehbaz’s election to the top office. Governor Omer Sarfraz
Cheema, who conveniently checked himself into a hospital earlier in the day,
is delaying the oath-taking of the PML-N leader on one pretext or the other,
despite an earlier Lahore High Court ruling that he was not “fulfilling his
constitutional duty” because a “governor cannot refuse to administer oath”.
Consequently, Pakistan’s most populous province has remained without a
chief executive for over three weeks, and crucial decisions are being delayed
at the expense of its 110m citizens because the people holding constitutional
offices in Islamabad and Lahore have chosen to pursue party instructions,
instead of following the law of the land.

Apparently, the president and governor are trying to buy some time for their party, which
is waiting for the ECP to decide a reference seeking the disqualification of 26 PTI
lawmakers who had voted for Hamza Shehbaz against their party nominee Parvez Elahi
for the post. But sooner or later, they will have to follow the Constitution — willingly or
unwillingly. Their deliberate disregard for the Constitution will, however, go down in the
annals of Pakistan’s chequered political history as a black spot. The political crisis spawned
by one illegal action after the other by the PTI and its ally PML-Q, in their bid to cling to
power by hook or by crook in Punjab, is unprecedented. The way the two parties had tried
to initially delay the election of the chief minister, and later the violence they inflicted on
the deputy speaker and their opponents on the day of the election, was enough to expose
their disrespect towards democracy. And now the tactics they are using to delay the oath-
taking is further damaging whatever democratic credentials they are left with. But they
don’t seem to care.

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Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Politicians’ misogyny
IN the patriarchal and often perverse view of many Pakistani politicians,
women are mere puppets whose use lies primarily in inflating their own egos
and political point-scoring. The recent sexist remarks by former federal
ministers Fawad Chaudhry and Moonis Elahi are proof of this tendency to
objectify women in the pursuit of political interests. Former PTI minister
Fawad Chaudhry recently described the new Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar as a “low-IQ woman” and as someone whose
claim to fame lay in her personal accessories, including her handbag and
sunglasses. Fortunately, Mr Chaudhry, was immediately called out for this
truly appalling statement by social media users, including his own party’s
supporters, who condemned his misogynistic behaviour and demanded that
the former minister apologise. Indeed, using such offensive language for
Pakistan’s first woman foreign minister — and one whose performance in
office has been lauded — belittles his own standing as a senior member of the
former government and his party.

Meanwhile, PML-Q’s Mr Elahi asked women MPAs to present his political opponent
Punjab chief minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz with a vanity kit — associated with cosmetics.
Such behaviour is uncouth and unbecoming of political leaders who are supposed to lead
by example. It is troubling that over the years, this tendency has become even more
entrenched in Pakistan’s national discourse, dragging the political conversation to a new
low. From the character assassination of Benazir Bhutto by her political rivals, to Gen
Pervez Musharraf’s insulting statements regarding rape survivors, to PML-N leader
Nawaz Sharif’s remarks running down PTI’s women supporters, all political entities, it
seems, have been guilty of denigrating the status of women in politics and society.
Patriarchy and chauvinism run deep in Pakistani society. And when those who promise to
rescue the country from its socioeconomic mess themselves possess regressive mindsets
that are all too often reflected in crude language, we can only take their views on ‘progress’
with a pinch of salt. They should learn some manners.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Climate-proofing the treaty

CLIMATIC change has created many new issues for India-Pakistan water
relations, and they go beyond the scope of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).
These issues reflect an epochal shift in the economic, social and ecological
health of the Indus basin.

Since Pakistan gets almost all of its surface water from its neighbours, it is important to
explore policy options and determine implementation mechanisms for the future water
security of the federation and all federating units to ensure that the shared water
resources are climate-proofed to serve as a source of cooperation.

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The IWT is now exposed to several climate change-induced stresses. It poses a wide range
of threats to freshwater resources — the county’s lifeline — by threatening water quantity,
quality and system operations as well as creating new governance complications. The
challenge is how to integrate information on future hydro-climatological conditions into the
politically complex system of a transboundary water agreement. The treaty presently
lacks important tools for dealing with the changing social, economic and climate conditions,
but, mercifully, Article 7 of the treaty has provisions to deal with the issues that have
emerged in recent years.

India and Pakistan are not the only states to share transboundary water resources with
their neighbours. Nearly half the global population is believed to rely on transboundary
waters. Political borders and boundaries are rarely defined by water bodies; innumerable
rivers, lakes and groundwater aquifers are shared by two or more nations.

A UN assessment mapped 214 such shared basins. A registry, prepared by Prof Aaron
Wolf in 2003, identified over 260 major transboundary river basins shared by not less
than 145 countries. In this otherwise conflict-ridden world, well-managed water
agreements are the anchors of stability — an estimated 300 agreements govern multi-
state transboundary water rights. Some riparian countries have begun to revisit their
accords in order to find mutually beneficial responses to climate-induced challenges. Are
there any lessons for the IWT signatories?

The Indus Waters Treaty between

Pakistan and India is exposed to many
climate-induced stresses.

Globally, most water agreements and treaties are extremely diverse in their approaches
and solutions. Unlike IWT that has divided rivers between India and Pakistan, almost all
water agreements share waters based on fixed or flexible volumetric allocations.

Some accords have also covered groundwater or aquatic resources while others, like the
IWT, have not. Many transboundary agreements have provisions for floods, some for
droughts, and fewer for both. The Ganges Water Treaty between Bangladesh and India,
for example, has provisions to share water during drought periods. The Joint Water

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Commission supports their bilateral treaty with studies and reports on sharing of waters,
irrigation and flood and cyclone control. Likewise, the Permanent Joint Technical
Commission on the Nile basin can make recommendations for new water allocations in
response to drought. In other words, the need is to gear up for managing the anticipated
scarcity rather than just dividing water that is presently available.

Extreme weather events (EWEs) have become increasingly frequent and fierce, overly
exposing countries like Pakistan to high risks and damage. Instead of signing new
agreements, the experts have favoured building upon the existing instruments to respond
to EWEs, hoping that this would, over time, improve the scope of existing water
agreements and make them climate-smart. At the heart of such endeavours is the desire
to cope with changing climatic conditions by crafting flexible water-management
strategies.

For India and Pakistan, climate-induced hydrological and hydro-climatological

variabilities are upsetting historical trends. As climate change alters the monsoon system,
past climate conditions are a less reliable predictor of the future. But the IWT is based on
the assumption that future water supply and quality will not change. Adapting to climate
change will require changes in the institutions and policies that have been put in place
since the signing of the treaty. It has become a matter of common knowledge that where
change exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb it, the situation is rife for conflict.

Experts recommend many mechanisms that can be incorporated into existing systems to
allow for flexibility in the face of climatic changes. Four main global trends merit a closer
review: i) devising response strategies for EWEs — floods, drought, tropical storms or
cloudbursts, ii) reviewing water-quality standards to arrest water degradation that has
become particularly detrimental for the existing and future infrastructure, iii) exploring
changes in monitoring and review procedures to jointly deliberate over shared climate
concerns to enhance the effectiveness of the IWT, and iv) strengthening joint
management institutions, particularly the India-Pakistan Permanent Indus Commission.
The commission barely meets twice a year, and then primarily to exchange Pakistani
objections and Indian rebuttals on the proposed infrastructural projects. This zero-sum
approach cannot keep the treaty alive.

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It is important for both India and Pakistan to view the IWT in its historical context and
take a leap forward towards the contemporary context. This was a post-partition gift and
an opportunity to make the new country a viable entity for an agrarian economy. There
was no time, scientific knowledge or expertise available to discuss the importance of e-
flows for sustainable ecosystems, watershed protection, or groundwater and aquifer
management. We know now that cheaper solar and wind energy has diminished the need
for India to construct a chain of dams to allow the free flow of the Indus. In fact, if the two
countries cooperate, the existing upstream reservoirs in India can serve as water banks
for drought periods in Pakistan.

Policymakers in Pakistan are generally apprehensive and dismiss climate change as a

dangerous distraction rather than see it as an opportunity that can add to the life and
vitality of the IWT. It is in our interest to ensure that the Permanent Indus Commission
meets more frequently than the minimum required in the treaty; it should constitute ad
hoc expert groups and sub-committees to table climate-smart options. An otherwise
robust water treaty should not become hostage to weak institutions and an unimaginative
treaty implementation strategy by either side. Both countries need to consider a
ministerial-level commission to revitalise the IWT by formulating a refreshed bilateral
water agenda. The present period of poor relations is probably the best time for such an
initiative.

The writer is an expert on climate change and development.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Battle with ‘alternative facts’

ECONOMIC stabilisation through tough, unpopular measures such as

withdrawal of the fuel subsidy or a cut in development expenditure, against
the backdrop of public mobilisation by the Imran Khan-led PTI, seems a
daunting challenge for a new coalition government with a wafer-thin
majority.

The latest fuel subsidy was given early last month in a desperate gamble to remain in the
saddle by a government facing a united opposition, desertion of allies and dissension in the
ranks of its own parliamentarians as a no-confidence motion was around the corner.

Although when it announced the subsidy, instead of a regulator-recommended increase,

the government said it would manage the cost of the nearly Rs400 billion subsidy till the
summer from higher than expected revenues and savings in other areas.

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But the widening deficit in less than two months since the subsidy was awarded is
sounding alarm bells in the corridors of power as it is abundantly clear the gamble was
meant to thwart a likely no-confidence move at the time, and would have been withdrawn
as soon as the danger was averted.

Two things have happened since. One, the vote was successfully carried and the prime
minister, despite trying every trick in the bag, including some constitutionally
questionable ones, could not stay in office, and one of his arch rivals was elected and
sworn into office.

Miftah Ismail’s credentials are not in

doubt; how much elbow room he has is.

Second, the former prime minister has not taken kindly to his constitutional ouster from
office and has embarked on an aggressive mass mobilisation campaign, relying on
incendiary, populist slogans and is threatening to take to the streets to force an immediate
election.

This week, the government categorically said that parliament would complete its term
and elections would only be held next year, but Imran Khan’s aggressive campaign,
seemingly backed by some renegade elements in a key institution, continues to cast
doubts about the incumbents’ longevity.

And this element makes any possible attempt to balance the books fraught with danger.
The withdrawal of the fuel subsidy will further spur the back-breaking inflation,
particularly for the poor and middle classes, and the voting public will likely punish those
it sees as responsible.

When your life is a relentless struggle to put food on the table, it is not surprising that the
short-term, rather than the long-term memory, informs your reactions. Who will

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remember the PTI’s mismanagement and decisions that brought the economy to this
pass?

The most likely target for the people’s wrath would be the hand that signed the
withdrawal notification. That is why Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shot down the first
summary for a fuel price rise. But this can’t be sustained for too long, as the widening
deficit and Islamabad’s commitment to the IMF dictate a changed course.

Perhaps mindful of the consequences of raising this poisoned chalice to its lips the
government may consider other options as well to reduce the deficit. And these include a
cut in development expenditure.

The proponents of this course argue that roads and bridges and other infrastructure can
wait and all the savings from these areas be used to provide targeted relief to the most
needy. However, this path isn’t easy either.

Even if parliament is able to complete its term, it has some 16 months to go. Can the
governing coalition afford to stay development expenditure in the country, including in
swing constituencies, where such projects will likely deliver a political dividend and may be
a determinant of who forms the next government?

Some independent economists have high hopes of Finance Minister Miftah Ismail. Even
then, given the very few options at his disposal, one wonders if he can pull a rabbit out of
his hat. His credentials are not in doubt; how much elbow room he has is.

If meeting these challenges was not enough, the government may have to address another
issue that may be equally, or even more, important. Let me explain what I mean. In the
Jan 31, 2021, issue of the Dawn’s magazine ‘Eos’ centre spread Carmen Gonzalez, my
partner who has been a BBC and Instagram editor, and I covered the topic of ‘fake news’.
Here are a few paras from that piece:

“In January 2017, the 45th president of the United States of America was being
inaugurated in front of a crowd that — let’s say — wasn’t as large as expected. The live TV
images spoke for themselves. The new president’s press secretary swiftly declared this
was the ‘largest audience to ever witness an inauguration (…) on the globe’. Challenged
about her blatant lie, her response was truly Orwellian. She said her views were
‘alternative facts’.

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“Entering truly dystopian territory, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani told an astonished
Chuck Todd of NBC, ‘Truth isn’t truth!’ And to complete the Orwe­l­lian scenario, Trump
gave a speech in July 2018, where he said: ‘What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is
not what’s happening’. Like Orwell warns in 1984, once you are told ‘to reject the evidence
of your eyes and ears’, you can expect total alienation.

“The ‘alienated’ assaulted the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, provoked by Trump’s

‘alternative facts’ in a reminder of our very own 2014 ‘D’ Chowk dharna. Trump claimed
to have won the November 2020 presidential election. Official data shows Joe Biden got
seven million votes more than Trump, giving him 51 per cent of the vote, and 306 seats of
the US Electoral College.

“But these ‘alternative facts’ resulted in five dead, dozens arrested; lawmakers’ and their
aides’ children terrorised in the crèche inside the Capitol and the US legislature besieged
by an inflamed mob. A recent Reuter/Ipsos poll showed 68 per cent of Republican voters
still believe the election was rigged, which means a whopping 50 million Ameri­cans have
no faith in their democracy anymore.”

Need I say more about what we need to tackle head-on?

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Shadow docket

EVEN if not the worst of times, it certainly was not the best of times, as
Pakistan suffered another series of tumultuous events, dilating a history
that has probably been more eventful than is healthy for a nation. The cast of
characters is familiar by now: the people’s conniving representatives, the
strong-arm servicemen, and, for our purposes, the zealous adjudicators not
to be outshone in any political drama.

Too much stood exposed, or re-exposed. As the former premier engaged in political
gymnastics to thwart, not once but twice, the vote of no-confidence, we learned in the
process about the constitutional courts’ shadow dockets. The courts sprung into action
with the clock ticking its way to midnight on Saturday, April 9, and as it became
increasingly apparent that the premier was continuing to dabble in bait-and-switch tactics.

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And this could not be allowed. The Supreme Court has since informed the public that it
works 24/7, always vigilant, like a hawk, weeding out patent violations of the Constitution.
The Islamabad High Court similarly revealed that a petition regarding an extremely
urgent matter can be presented at any time. The opening of the courts close to midnight
on a Saturday was not really an anomaly, or was an anomaly only in that it happens every
time there is an extreme urgency. Or so the courts retorted.

In other words, there is a regular docket of the courts, maintained through filings in
accordance with regular rules, for regular litigants and lawyers. And then there is a
shadow docket, through which petitions can be entertained whenever the relevant chief
justice deems there to be an ‘extreme urgency’. The Supreme Court separately wields its
suo motu powers.

Our courts need to devise a mechanism

to provide more information.

Not surprisingly, with broad swathes of discretionary powers even otherwise parked with
the chief justices of the courts, the shadow docket and its opaque functioning — after the
usual working hours and behind closed doors — is said to happen under the watchful eyes
of only the chief justice.

The problem with discretionary powers is that they get to be exercised not only by the
chief justices one likes, but also by chief justices one may have misgivings about. That one
chief justice does not abuse his or her discretionary powers, is not an argument for vesting
expansive chunks of unchecked power in that office. Borrowing from another context, the
rules of the game have to withstand a Trump, even when they are drafted with a George
Washington in mind.

Not so long ago, a well-known constitutional lawyer, Mr Hamid Khan, with an established
record of advocating for lawyers’ interests, referred to something he christened the
‘Gulzar doctrine’. Justice Gulzar was then the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and in
the words of Mr Khan, certain cases were listed before the Supreme Court, and others
were not, depending solely on whose interests would be adversely affected. Put
differently, the institution of the case, and fixing it before a bench, according to Mr Khan,

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were contingent on whether the resolution of the case in one way or the other may
jeopardise powerful interests.

The workings of the shadow docket and fixing of cases before benches are matters that go
to the very heart of our conception of justice. A lot turns on who is allowed immediate
access to the courts, and who is denied all access.

There is a way to deal with these allegations: it is through data. Our courts need to devise
a mechanism to provide more information to the public. In the context of the shadow
docket, for instance, the courts may divulge information as to how many cases are being
instituted in a year after the regular timings of the courts, the causes of action invoked, the
litigants and lawyers involved, and the outcomes in those cases. Revelation of data can
adequately absolve or, alternatively, inculpate the courts.

Similarly, for fixing cases before a bench, the courts may provide a record, on a regular
basis — quarterly, biannually or annually — of how many cases are being instituted, by
whom, and through which counsels, the nature of those cases, the number of
adjournments and hearings, and the relief sought and given. Patterns only emerge when
there is information. Without information, there are only speculations, doubts and
rumours, which, even if they cannot be proven, cannot be disproven either. As a non-
elected, non-representative branch of the government, it is only through its credibility,
moral high ground and neutrality, that the judiciary can exercise the powers that it does.
Perception plays a huge role.

Depending on who one asks, the courts’ swinging into action on April 9 was a lesser evil, or
maybe something called for. But a fair assessment is only possible, if the courts implement
procedures through already laid-out rules and disclose information about its functioning
regularly to the public.

The writer is a litigator based in Islamabad.

awahid@umich.edu

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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Plastic plague

OUR planet is drowning in plastic. The convenient, cheap and durable

nature of plastic has led to its massive production and consumption over the
last 70 years. With 9.2 billion tons of plastic having been produced in that
period, plastic pollution is harming environmental and human health at
each stage of its life cycle.

Excessive use of plastic impacts economies as well. This is evident in the agricultural
sector where plastic is reducing soil fertility and crop production, leading to food
insecurity. A recent report, released in March 2022 by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation, found that agricultural land is contaminated with large quantities of plastic
pollution, with 12.5 million tons of plastic products used in agriculture value chains each
year, mainly in the crop production and livestock sectors.

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Another 37.7m tons is used in food packaging. The report notes that Asia is the largest
user of plastics in agricultural production, accounting for almost half the global usage, and
warns that “in the absence of viable alternatives, demand for plastic in agriculture is only
set to increase”. Proper and timely waste management is, therefore, an obvious
requirement for such large production and use of plastic products while environmentally
friendly solutions are being found.

In 2018, an estimated 291m tons of waste was generated, but only a small portion —
about 20 per cent — was properly disposed of or recycled. Most plastic waste ends up in
landfills or, in poor countries, in open-air dumps, causing large-scale pollution both on land
and in the oceans, risking human health and choking wildlife.

Trade in plastic waste has serious

implications for poor nations.

Single-use plastic products, including water bottles, shopping bags and packaging material
are most hazardous for the environment as these can take up to 400 years to decompose.
Pakistan, like several other countries, has banned plastic shopping bags, but the ban will
have to be enforced strictly to be meaningful. Other equally harmful single-use plastic
products continue to be used in abundance. The Covid-19 pandemic increased demand for
single-use plastic globally through personal protection equipment for healthcare workers
and other medical accessories, thus, exacerbating pollution.

National and local actions are proving insufficient and less effective due to the scale and
transboundary nature of plastic pollution, which has become a global environmental
concern.

The UN Environment Programme estimates that around 19-23m tons of plastic leaks into
rivers, lakes and oceans annually, and that by 2040, “there will be more plastic in the
oceans than fish” if the trend continues. Ominously, once the discarded plastic decomposes
into microplastic, it further contaminates marine life and enters the food chain.

International trade in plastic waste is another dimension of the problem with serious
implications for poor nations. Huge quantities of plastic waste generated in developed
countries end up in developing countries where capacities for waste management are

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limited. Pakistan also imports plastic waste for use in industry and recycling. It spent $11
million on importing plastic waste in 2018. While the bulk of the discarded plastic is traded
legally, a hefty chunk is smuggled into South Asia and Africa illustrating the scale of plastic
waste.

Strengthening international cooperation will help curb illegal trade in plastic waste and
prevent further environmental damage. The UN backs such efforts by supporting policies
and regulatory measures, awareness campaigns and partnerships for nudging a shift to
circularity at large.

While the world still does not have a comprehensive plastic managem­ent mechanism nee­-
ded to tackle this issue, the UN aims to develop an international, legally binding agreement
on plastic pollution by 2024 to address the full life cycle of plastic, including its production,
design and disposal.

This could be a mechanism to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change,
biodiversity loss and pollution and waste. However, a lot of spadework is needed.
Countries will have to prepare enabling conditions through policy alignments, promoting
research for environmentally friendly alternatives of plastic, and mobilising private finance
for investment in a circular economy.

During the preparatory process of the treaty in the next two years, it will be crucial for
governments, industry, businesses and other stakeholders to rise to the challenge, look
past plastic’s short-term convenience and focus more on the objective of a balanced and
healthy ecosystem. For the sake of present and future generations, this is not a big ask.
Environmental multilateralism has its task cut out for it.

The writer is director of intergovernmental affairs, United Nations Environment

Programme.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2022

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