BY: Y.Bala Murali krishna
Panaji,Nov 13(2k6): Judges, lawyers and journalists continue to be in he forefront the movement for restoration of democracy in Pakistan where economy is in shambles under the current political dispensation with no constitutional validity,says a strategic affairs expert from the neighbouring country.
“The media at the micro level is stronger in voicing dissent but not the bog media, particilarly the print media with a couple of publications as the owners are pro-government,” avers Dr.Farooq Hassan, a senior advocate of the supreme court and advisor to four former prime ministers of Pakistan.
Interacting with South-Asia affairs scholars and general public on “Domestic,political and economic developments in Pakistan” here this evening under the aegis of the International Centre,Goa and the Goa University’s political science department, Dr.Hassan said the big media did not publish views against the General Musharaff’s regime
for obvious reasons.
With 83 per cent of the budget going for armament industry and defence spending, the economy was in shambles even as Pakistan started importing essential commodities like atah,sugar and dal from India, he said.
Though agriculture continues to be the mainstay in Pakistan, no public investment in the sector has been made nor it adopted the public-private-partnership approach for development of agriculture in a big way like in the West.
“Pakistan has not done well in the economic front at all and the
situation worsened after the devaluation of its currency after the 9/11 episode. Industry, like its neighbour Bangladesh, has also not done well,thus depending on imports from India on which it accorded the most favoured nation status,” Dr.Hassan remarked.
On the otherhand, he regretted,Pakistan ranked the second worst in terms of corruption on par with Bangladesh occupying 162th rank as against 278 rank by India.
Stating that domestic markets were devolved out of corruption and no monetary and 5-year policies evolved involving the banking,stock markets and other sectors that matter, the economy was in shambles in Pakistan,Dr.Hassan said.
At the sametime, he said, Pakistan had been torn with several
internal crises like the separatist movement in Baluchistan on the lines of pre-Bangladesh assassination of Mujibur Rahman even as it was plagued with the developments in Afgfhanistan,Talibans and al- quida.
Interestingly, majority of the Pakistan’s military force was from three of its provinces and the country’s stability depended much more on the strength and cohesion of its federal structure even as the country had no “constitution” of its own under the military regime.
Taking exception to equating “Islamic fundamentalism” with extremism by the USA and other developed nations, the visiting Harvard University professor on international affairs Dr.Hassan said “Islamic resurgence” in Pakistan had now been on rise with islamic parties representing about 51 constituencies as against hardly two in the past.
This showed the engagement of the fundamentalist parties in
electoral process with elements of democracy.Even most of the military people had the islamic background.
“The problem is not with the fundamentalism but extremism,” he said.The concept of Islamic state became questionable and suspect after the 9/11 episode. Most of the generals were products of islamic resurgence,” he said.
In this connection, Dr.Hassan, who represented Pakistan in the UN General Assenbly since 1997 as a delegate to the UN Geneva Human Rights Commission and as a leader of the delegation at the UN preparing the statute of International Criminal Court during 1997-99,observed that India and Malaysis were the only countries which had not yet witnessed military coup so far.
Referring to Pakistan emerging as a democratic country, Dr.Hassan said,” the possibility is very very suspect as long as general Musharaff is the President even as military rule has to end on November 2007 unless he does not manipulate.”
The President has to be elected by the Assembly but “I am ashamed to say that there is no constitution in Pakistan despite being a nuclear power and having the fifth largest army in the world. If civil government comes, what would happen is a question mark,” he said.
Referring to the Indian “peace lobby” in Pakistan, Dr.Hassan
favoured widening representatives to include the crickteeers,
jornalists, cinema personalities and cultural troups as against
people with the communist and socialist idealogy which had not been accepted by Pakistanis,Dr.Hasan added.
In this connection, he appreciated the gesture of India in liberally granting VISAS to journalists and others visiting Pakistan and vice-versa for forging better relations. //eom//
