Pakistanis Continue to Deny Existence of Child Sexual Abuse

Coming clean about child sexual abuse – or not

Sidra Bibi*(*not her real name) was a young girl living with her parents and siblings in Lahore when she suffered sexual abuse, and the trauma has lived with her over the years. “My mother, my father, my aunts and my uncles all connived to protect my paternal grandfather, who was abusing me, my sister and our female cousins since we were six or seven years old,” Sidra, now 30 and married, said. The grandfather, she added, asked the girls to masturbate him, then committed anal penetration on Sidra and her cousin.

“We were asked to keep quiet as the truth would destroy the family,” said Sidra, who is certain the matter was discussed among the adults in the family, but no action taken as “my grandfather was a respected elder”. Sidra has also never told her husband what she experienced, but says she is “very protective” of her own small daughter.

Sidra is just one victim. According to media reports, sexual abuse is not uncommon in Pakistan and ranges from harassment to incest.

Some traditional leaders, however, deny that sexual abuse happens. “Look, these things don’t happen here. It is all Western propaganda. Muslim women here are safe at home, and I always advise people to ensure their daughters, wives and sisters stay home – except for school, or maybe to visit a close relative. They are unsafe beyond their homes,” said Maulvi Abdul Haq, a prayer leader at a local mosque.

2,303 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in the national press in 2011, including 56 cases of incest.

Cover-ups

Even now, this is an issue people cover up because of the social stigma and pressures involved. Many more cases occur than are reported, sometimes because they occur in remote areas where the media cannot reach, and in other cases because people prefer not to speak out.

Aliya Abbas, a head teacher at a private school in Lahore, recalled a seven-year-old pupil who complained about sexual abuse inflicted by her older brother. “Her mother insisted the child was lying, and when I told her there were signs of abuse in terms of her behaviour, she removed her from my school. I often wonder how that child has fared and if she ever spoke of her experience again,” he said.

Experts say the effect of this forced silence can be traumatic. Sexual abuse, especially incest, can leave very deep scars – even though these may on the surface be invisible. “I have treated traumatized adult women, who are unable to articulate what happened to them even 20-30 years after the incest they suffered. This bottling up of a deeply emotional event just makes matters worse,” one psychiatrist said.

“I have never spoken to anyone about what happened. Even my mother never mentions it. The events were too shameful,” said Sidra.

Obstacles to justice

In 2011, a study [ http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/Struggle%20for%20Justice_Incest%20Victims%20in%20Pakistan.pdf ] by the international human rights monitoring NGO Equality Now!, found that victims of sexual violence faced “numerous obstacles in their pursuit of justice”.

The study said the police, medical examiners and others were reluctant to believe stories about incest, which means even those who report cases struggle to obtain support. “Societal stigma presents obstacles at the family and community level as well as the justice system,” the study noted.

“To be associated with such a crime is considered a source of shame, and families cover up the incident to protect themselves. Upon trying to seek justice rape victims are often treated in a dismissive manner, accused of lying or having somehow brought the crime upon themselves.”

Pakistan, according to UNICEF, [ http://www.unicef.org/pakistan/media_7553.htm ] has the second largest number of out-of-school children in any country – nearly 25 million. Of these, seven million are of primary school-age and 60 percent are girls.

A Troubled Silence

Recently, in the United States, revelation of widespread child abuse at the elite Horace Mann School in New York City, most of it occurring during the 1970s and ’80s, is only the most recent instance of men coming forward, many years after the fact, with horrific stories of sexual molesting from their childhood.

Most of those accused of the abuse in the Horace Mann case are dead, but under New York State law, if alive they would most likely be safe from justice. The state’s statute of limitations on child abuse is five years from the victim’s 18th birthday. After age 23, the victim has no recourse.

Yet young adults, particularly men, who suffer the aftereffects of abuse are rarely in an emotional state to bring charges. Given what we now know about why it takes victims so long to come forward, the law needs to be changed.

Many people cast a skeptical eye on those who wait so long to reveal instances of child abuse, particularly when it happened to them as teenagers. They assume that accusers are making it up, blaming what were at most minor incidents for their troubles.

Psychiatrists say that the victims spend years putting their emotions in a deep freeze or masking post-traumatic reactions with self-defeating behaviors like compulsive gambling and substance abuse. Eventually, they are forced by internal or external events to find treatment.

The men abuse victims suffer even more. Even in 2012, we are socialized to think that “real men” should be resilient, and certainly not victims. For a man to acknowledge sexual victimhood, even to himself, is to say he is not really male.

What’s more, conventional wisdom says abuse turns a boy gay, despite strong evidence to the contrary. Straight boys wonder why they were chosen for sexual victimization, afraid they might be gay. Gay boys may feel rushed into defining themselves as gay or decide that abuse caused their orientation, complicating their ability to develop positive identities as gay men.

Even worse, perhaps, and again without evidence, common folklore tells us that sexually abused boys almost inevitably grow up to be sexually abusing men. This terrifies a male victim, even if he has no thought of becoming a sexual predator. He worries he may become predatory without volition or warning, or that others will assume he is an abuser if they know his history.

Finally, since boyhood abuse was not part of the public conversation until recently, many boys and men assumed their experiences were repulsive and aberrant. And a man who has not talked about it might feel it would be humiliating to first disclose it in middle age or later.

Needless to say, the decades spent trying to bury the memories rarely work. Men who are sexually abused and who remain mute become isolated, frightened of emotions and hypervigilant.

Things may be changing, thanks, in part, to the recent spate of abuse revelations. Many older victims have gained the courage to come forward. But more needs to be done. Every year since 2005, Margaret M. Markey, a New York State assemblywoman, has introduced a bill to extend the statute of limitations for five more years, a modest increase; it would also create a one-year window for adults up to age 53 to bring charges against alleged abusers. The bill has passed the Assembly four times but has consistently been blocked from coming to the floor of the Senate, largely thanks to fierce lobbying by the Roman Catholic Church. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has yet to take a position on the bill.

The stories of abuse at Horace Mann and elsewhere are truly horrifying. But the victims will have done a great service if their actions persuade others to come forward — and the State Legislature to, at long last, set a realistic statute of limitations for going after their abusers.

Richard B. Gartner is a psychologist and psychoanalyst and the author of “Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse.”

Independence of Judiciary Should Be Reinforced as Part of Democratic Transition

One will be naïve to think that Bahria Town’s tycoon Malik Riaz was acting on his own while bribing Supreme Court Chief Justice’s son Arsalan who could not resist the good things in life, including a trip to Monte Carlo and sojourns in expensive London apartments.

The scandal nodoubt is a serious challenge regarding the independence of the judicial system.

Pakistan has been undergoing a so-called democratic transition since its inception but the democratic rulers always fail to realize that the independence of the judicial system in Pakistan should be reinforced as a matter of priority so as not to lose the gains from the democratic transition.

Apart from this attack to trap the CJ, the number and nature of reported cases of serious threats and attacks on judges is increasing in this period of `democratic transition’. Physical security is an essential condition for all actors in the judicial system to be able to carry out their duties without hindrance or interferences.

The judiciary must be properly equipped and resourced in order to be effective; however, our judges, prosecutors and lawyers lack adequate facilities, such as electricity, water and sanitation, offices, waiting rooms, libraries, and support staff, especially at the level of lower courts.

There are few female judges in the whole justice system. Many stages of the justice system, starting with filing a case with the police, to accessing lawyers, and appearing and testifying before courts, are gender-biased, and therefore impedes the full functioning of justice for women.

There is thus a need to encourage further strengthening of special trainings on human rights law, including training on gender equality and women’s rights.

Instead of commending the Supreme Court for using its inherent powers to address cases of serious human rights violations, thus upholding human rights law and contributing to combating impunity, the executive branch is constantly flouting the superior court rulings and at times ridiculing them.

At the same time, it may be mentioned that the excessive use of the suo moto procedure (acting on its own cognizance) may undermine its own nature.

18-Year Old Lal Bibi Raped in Afghanistan by the Police

Lal Bibi is an 18-year-old rape victim who has taken a step rarely seen in Afghanistan: she has spoken out publicly against her tormentors, local militiamen, including several who have been identified as members of the American-trained Afghan Local Police.

She says she was raped because her cousin offended a family linked to a local militia commander, who then had his men abduct her around May 17. She was chained to a wall, sexually assaulted and beaten for five days.

A number of Afghan women who are victimized like Lal Bibi are later killed by their relatives because they believe the women have brought dishonor to the family. Extraordinarily, in this case, Lal Bibi’s relatives brought the battered girl to Kunduz Hospital, near their home in northern Afghanistan, and filed a complaint with the governor. They hoped for official justice even while holding out the possibility that her death might be the only way to restore the family’s honor.

“I am already a dead person,” she said in an interview, her voice breaking. “If the people in government fail to bring these people to justice I am going to burn myself,” she said. “I don’t want to live with this stigma on my forehead. People will mock me if these men go unpunished, so I want every single one of them to be punished.”

In addition to stretching the bounds of conservative Afghan tradition, her plight is a test of the government’s willingness to challenge the impunity of the many armed groups operating in the country, in particular the Afghan Local Police, which provides security in Afghanistan’s rural expanses. These lightly trained and American-backed security forces are considered by the United States military to be one of the best hopes of improving stability in remote areas, even as human rights groups and residents have linked some to abuses, especially in northern Afghanistan.

“She is very brave that she came out and talked to the media,” said the head of the Afghan government’s women’s affairs department in Kunduz. “She has set an example for the rest of the rape victims.”

Like a number of areas in the north, Kunduz Province has become a patchwork of armed militias with overlapping territories. In addition to the Afghan Local Police, who are attached to the government through the Interior Ministry, there are many freelance groups, as well as others financed by international forces to guard otherwise unsecured areas. In the past year, both official and unofficial armed groups in Kunduz Province have been involved in abuses.

American military officials said that as far as they could determine, members of the Afghan Local Police were not involved in abusing Lal Bibi, saying they hoped that justice would be done in any case. However, a number of the local authorities, including the governor, the military prosecutor for Kunduz, as well as the Afghan Local Police director for the province, said the men who had abducted her and beat her were A.L.P. members.

Because of that government connection, the provincial military prosecutor has decided to take up her case. There were differing accounts of whether the man accused of raping her was a member of the A.L.P., but all agreed that his brother was a local commander in the force.

“All of the men are part of the first 300 A.L.P. who were trained by the American Special Forces,” said the prosecutor, Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi. “It is not the first time that they have committed such a horrible crime. All of them are a bunch of illiterate and uneducated bandits and thugs who go around harassing people.”

So far, two people have been arrested in the case, including Khudai Dad, who is accused of raping Lal Bibi, and his brother, Sakhi Dad, who is an Afghan Local Police member, according to the Kunduz governor’s office and the police officer in charge of the province’s A.L.P. force, Col. Mohammed Shokur.

Not yet detained, however, is the chief suspect in Lal Bibi’s abduction, Cmdr. Muhammad Ishaq Nezaami, who disappeared shortly after she was grabbed.

He has a troubled past. He was arrested six months ago on charges of attempted rape in a different case but was cleared, General Safi said, adding that he believed that powerful people intervened on Commander Nezaami’s behalf. However, Colonel Shokur, the police official, said the charges were dropped in that case because of lack of evidence.

Lal Bibi is the youngest daughter in a Kuchi family, ethnic Pashtuns who are seminomadic herders. She and her family live in a tent in the scrub land outside the city of Kunduz and raise sheep for their livelihood.

Her nightmare began when a distant male cousin, Mohammed Issa, an Afghan Local Police member, started a relationship with a local girl. In one account, he tried unsuccessfully to elope with her. In another version, he contracted to marry her and then could not pay the bride price and fled. In either case, he was thought to have dishonored the father, who was furious and sought compensation.

Although Lal Bibi was only a cousin of the offender and in no way connected to the episode, in tribal justice one possible settlement would have been for her family to give Lal Bibi to the wronged girl’s family as payment, a practice known as baadal. But no tribal settlement was reached. Instead, Commander Nezaami, the local A.L.P. leader, came with armed men to her home and grabbed her, according to her and her family’s accounts.

“I was busy milking the sheep with my mother, and suddenly a car pulled up close to our tent,” Lal Bibi said. “They first grabbed my father and tied his hands, and then the armed men grabbed me and my mother from behind, and I didn’t know what happened and why they were there.”

She said that Commander Nezaami’s men threw her into a truck and took her to the home of one of his subcommanders, Sakhi Dad, whose brother was the father of the girl whose honor was seen as compromised by Lal Bibi’s distant cousin.

She told the rest of the story in rushed gasps: She was chained to a wall, she said, and Khudai Dad raped her repeatedly. Other men came in and beat her.

“I would begin to scream every time one of them came into the room, because I knew they were going to beat me or rape me again,” she said.

The experience is written on her body, according to a report by the regional Kunduz Hospital. “The doctors found signs that she was beaten and tortured,” said the head of the hospital. And, there was physical evidence consistent with her account of being chained.

An examination also confirmed that her hymen had been broken. That can be tantamount to a death sentence in Afghanistan, where women are considered fit to marry only if they are proved to be virgins on their wedding night. Some who fail that test are killed by relatives to restore the family’s honor.

In interviews, both Lal Bibi’s mother and grandfather said they were thinking of killing her unless justice was done, although the fact that they had come forward suggested that they were hoping that the government will prosecute the men and redress the wrongs done to her and her family through the legal system.

“If nobody wants to solve our problem, then they should behead her; we don’t want her,” her mother said.

The girl’s grandfather, Hajji Rustam, who lives with the family, seemed torn between tribal traditions that require that a tarnished girl be killed and deep feeling for his granddaughter’s distress.

He said: “Put yourself in our shoes: What if somebody raped your daughter? I am sure when you see that no one is helping you to bring the culprits to justice, you will be ready to kill yourself, kill your daughter.”

Then, he looked over at his granddaughter, whom he has been staying with since the rape: “During the day, she sits and doesn’t talk and is silent for hours and suddenly she screams. Her soul has been broken, and she is a very sad person.”

Misuse of Muslim Females’ Pictures

Lots of times, female pictures are misused when those female don’t even know about it.

Sisters in Islam are showing their pictures in profiles to everyone. This really hurts me,

No organization or person is caring about this issue.

When in Nov 2008, in Delhi, photographs of a girl were misused I decided to inform females about this threat with the hope that at least Muslim females will understand.

The father of a South Delhi schoolgirl suffered from the fake profile of his daughter posted on Orkut that not only described the teenager as a ’sex teacher’, but also contained obscene photographs and her contact details.

The teenager’s family had received the first call where the caller wanted to speak to the girl. Similar calls poured in later, the police said, adding all the callers referred to Orkut.

Father of the girl lodged a complaint with the Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences after his family started receiving calls following the appearance of the fake profile.

An air-hostess had moved a court stating that someone had opened an account in her name on Orkut wherein she is being described as a “sex struck woman”.

The family had a harrowing time when two strangers knocked at their door a fortnight ago and told them the girl had invited them for sex.

The airhostess claims that the act has lowered her reputation in the eyes of her family members and neighbors.

It was one of those normal evenings when Parmeet Kaur (name changed), a software engineer in Chennai, logged on to Orkut to unwind from work and catch up with friends. But one and a half minutes later, the evening turned shocking and miserable for her.

What she saw was a cheeky scrap and forward to a profile that had her semi-nude photo in another girl’s profile, tagged as her sister who flagged joint hints of intimate advances and indecent invites. Parmeet’s photo had been brazenly and easily tampered with.

After many weeks of tension and repeated requests to Orkut, the ID was removed. She vowed never to be vulnerable again.

Victims like Parmeet, are not one-off. They belong to the new breed of cautious Orkuters, Facebook users who either have said goodbye to networking or have become careful with their communities and photographs.

A group of boys who posed as a 15-year-old girl for an Internet prank ended up police arrest a 48-year-old man who tried to meet the fictitious teenager for sex, authorities said in California. It was created as a fake profile of a girl on MySpace.com to cheer up a friend who had recently broken up with his girlfriend.

A bachelor student was arrested for creating a classmate’s profile and messages on an Online Community Called ORKUT.

When Sushma Sharma logged on Orkut, she received a scrap (Orkut comment) saying Hi from the profile that seemed to be her own. This made her wonder since she never wrote it in her own scrapbook. Out of curiosity she clicked on the profile, and to her utter dismay she was flooded with vulgar comments and cheap descriptions about her.

The profile also had her photograph and cell number. After this she started getting vulgar phone calls. She then complained to cyber cell.

Abshishek,19 a BMS Student, first denied committing such crime but soon accepted it and was booked under IPC 469 publishing offensive messages and under 67 of IT Act 2000. He can be punished with imprisonment upto 5 years.

In Bangalore, there have been eight to ten Orkut, Facebook, My Space related complaints concerning pictures of young girls that have been posted on communities and groups with lewd allusions and a listing of the victims’ mobile numbers and email ids.

The phenomenon is not restricted to any geographical regions; it is all over the country.

Muslim Females should STOP uploading PICTURES online!

This is not in Islam that females cannot upload thei photographs online. Indeed, Islam forbids taking pictures but in today’s world, we can’t fully stay away from this. We need photographs for lots of official needs. After knowing and watching many things on internet, I think females should avoid uploading pictures online.

Allah said in Quran:

O prophet! Tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient that they should be known (as such) and not molested: and Allah is oft-forgiving most merciful.

Does Allah says that you just hide yourself physically but display your beauty through pictures…by sharing pictures physically or via internet?

My dear sisters. You say you love Allah but when it comes to beauty or looks then you are asking Qs. and finding where it is written to stop showing on internet or asking why similar restriction has not been placed for males.

I’m requesting you to remove your pictures because

Its Allah’s order to hide your beauty.

The use of your pictures is very bad.

Pakistan is Controlled and Ruled by the Elites

by Dr Ikramul Haq

Pakistan is controlled and ruled by ashrafiya (elites)—comprising indomitable military complex, civil bureaucracy, higher judiciary, landed aristocracy and its cronies, industrialist-turned politicians, religious and spiritual leaders (sic), media tycoons and some of their powerful employees, and unscrupulous businessmen.

Flouting the rule of law with shameless impunity is the hallmark of present day’s Pakistani ashrafiya.

The spoiled brats of ashrafiya join different nefarious circles for all kinds of unlawful and undesirable activities—for them vulgar ostentation of money and power is essential to prove that they are closely associated with the most powerful of the State. In good old days, ashrafiya was respected as a class of nobles and highly revered. In post-colonial Pakistan, the term represents the money-power-hungry classes posing as if the country is their personal jagir (property) and all their acts are above law.

The economy of ashrafiya-controlled-Pakistan, thus, serves the interests of the privileged classes.

The ruling classes, representing only 2% of entire population, own 95% of national resources.

They exploit labour of landless tillers, poor urban workers and white-coloured to amass more and more wealth.

Additionally, they create artificial hike in prices of essential items to snatch back whatever little is earned or saved by 98% ordinary people.

The evolution of this kind of State (land of the Pure) is elaborated in detail by former Governor of State Bank, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, in his book Pakistan: Economy of an Elitist State.

In his book, Dr. Ishrat has observed that in sharp contrast to the East Asian model of ‘shared growth’, based on rapid economic development coupled with a rapid reduction in poverty and more equitable distribution of the benefits of development in Pakistan, the elitist model confers political and economic powers to a small coterie of elite (parasites). While commenting upon Dr. Ishrat’s work, Dr. Khalil Ahmad of Alternate Solutions Institute, in his recent book, Pakistan Main Riasti Ashrafiya ka Urooj (Rise of State Elitism in Pakistan), published in February 2012, has also concluded that Pakistan is presently owned and exploited by  ‘state elites’ whereas it should belong to all.

There are no two opinions that the ruling trio—mighty military complex and its civilian cronies, corrupt politicians and unscrupulous businessmen—imposes its will on members of parliament in all matters. The entire budget making process is an epitome of apathy of parliamentarians towards the masses of this country, who vote them into power with the hope that they would do something for their socio-economic uplifting or at least provide them basic essential services—housing, transport, education and health, to say the least.

Democracy is not electioneering per se. Establishment of a responsible government caring for the needs of its people is a prerequisite for true democratic dispensation which is only possible if the Parliament performs its Constitutional role, implements flawless process of accountability and ensures good governance. Theoretically, the Cabinet is answerable to the Parliament! But the stark reality is that MNAs merely run after ministers for personal favours and gains.

Reliance on indirect taxes that constitute 75% of total collection proves beyond any doubt that the tax system is emphatically contributing to rising poverty as people who earn enormous income and possess immense wealth are not being subjected to income taxation in Pakistan. Thus the very purpose of redistribution of wealth as the main object of taxation is being defeated and nullified. Not only that Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, the burden of taxes is overwhelming borne by the poor rather than by the rich. Income inequalities are one of the worst aspect of the entire problem. In South Asia, except Afghanistan, all other countries have better tax-to-GDP ratio than Pakistan: India 17%, Sri Lanka 16%, and Nepal 11%.  It is pertinent to mention that in 2011, the government of Sweden collected taxes at 53% of GDP, almost twice as high as the total tax revenue of America and Japan, with both collecting around 25% of GDP. In the Euro area, tax revenue, on average, reaches 40% of GDP.

The present tax policies of the government are detrimental for economy, social justice, business and industry. Those who possess more economic power (income and wealth) should contribute more to the public exchequer and vice versa. The ability-to-pay principle is regarded as the most equitable and just method of taxation and emphasized upon primarily for its redistributive role. In Pakistan, our rulers have completely deviated from this principle, which is in fact, a constitutional obligation of the government. The existing tax system protects the establishment and exploitative elements that have complete monopoly over economic resources. There is no political will to tax the privileged classes.  Pakistan has been facing a variety of crises specifically in areas of: resources for its developmental policies, meeting trade deficits, fiscal deficits and balance of payments, in addition to numerous others. One of the factors responsible for the present situation is the accelerating speed with which black money is being generated.

FBR is directly responsible for this phenomenon as its mafia-like operations has helped the people to avoid tax on incomes by paying it “due share”. Through the infamous system of SROs [Statutory Regulator Orders], FBR’s top officials provide “legal” ways and means to mighty sections of the society (ashrafiya) to amass huge wealth that is now threatening the State’s very survival.  It is worth mentioning that even before presenting the Finance Bill, 2012, FBR issued notification 569(I)/2012 on  26 May 2012 saying that government officials in Grade 20-22 will pay just 5% tax on monetized transport allowance. This benefit of reduced rate taxation, blatantly bypassing the Parliament, portrays how bureaucrats hoodwink the nation and cause exchequer loss of revenue through SROs. Needless to say it is discriminatory and violative of Article 25 of the Constitution as private sectors employees for the same allowance are subjected to normal rate of taxation.

Reduction of duties for cartels possessing enormous money has been extended by using executive authority in the form of SROs. Pakistan is a unique country where the executive authority can conveniently undo laws made by the Parliament under so-called delegated powers which gross violation of Article 162 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which reads as under:

“162.   Prior sanction of President required to Bills affecting taxation in which Provinces are interested: – No Bill or amendment which imposes or varies a tax or duty the whole or part of the net proceeds whereof is assigned to any Province, or which varies the meaning of the expression “agricultural income” as defined for the purposes of the enactments relating to income-tax, or which affects the principles on which under any of the foregoing provisions of this Chapter, moneys are or may be distributable to Provinces, shall be introduced or moved in the National Assembly except with the previous sanction of the President.”

Article 162 debars even the National Assembly to grant exemptions without the prior approval of the President but interestingly, this power has been delegated unconstitutionally to an executive authority by the Parliament. How can Parliament delegate a power which it cannot exercise itself without the prior sanction of the President?

By delegating powers under tax codes, the Legislature has violated Article 162 of the Constitution.

The common man is subjected to exorbitant sales tax and federal excise duty of 16% (tax incidence is 35% on finished imported goods after applicable customs duty, sales tax, federal excise, mandatory value addition and income tax) on essential commodities [even salt sold under brand names is subjected to 16% sales tax] but the mighty sections of society such as generals, high-raking bureaucrats, judges getting plots from the State are  not paying any wealth tax/income tax on their colossal assets/incomes. The same is the case with big industrialists and landed classes that get concessions and exemption through SROs.

It is tragic that in a country where billions of rupees are being made in speculative transactions at stock exchanges and in the real estate sector, tax-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world [consistently below 10% for the last 10 years] and the government is least bothered to tax undocumented economy and benami (name-lender) transactions rather, generously give amnesties to tax evaders and looters of national wealth. The mighty sections of society are widely engaged in these transactions while rulers of the day, getting due share from them, are not at all inclined to tax them. The present tax policies of government are violative of Constitutional provisions that require the State to provide social justice to all.

The existing tax system protects the ashrafiya and exploitative elements that have monopoly over economic resources—those who own 95% of national resources are paying less than 2% of overall tax collection. This shows why there is no political will to tax the privileged classes.  Unfair taxation and inequitable distribution of resources is the root cause of our multiple socio-economic ills. State policies induce massive tax evasion (section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 is a permanent tool for whitening of untaxed money).

Determination of a tax base capable of measuring an individual’s ability-to-pay is a major problem of our tax system.  This rule is incorporated in the form of progressive rate schedule for personal income tax, estate duty, and property tax worldwide. In Pakistan we have moved from this positive policy to unequal sacrificial rule where the mighty civil and military bureaucrats (now an integral part of our landed aristocracy by earning State lands as meritorious awards and rewards), rich industrialists and greedy businessmen are paying meagre personal taxes whereas the poor people are compelled to pay sales tax and federal excise duty of 16%. The incidence of regressive taxes on the poor is making their lives a misery beyond imagination.

Pakistan has about 118.5 million mobile users who pay both income tax and sales tax but even then only 1.3 million taxpayers file income tax returns—if statements filed for presumptive taxes are excluded, the actual number is below 750,000. Majority of mobile users may not have taxable income (Rs 350,000, raised to 400,000 from tax year 2013) yet they are burdened with undue liability. On the contrary, many rich people just pay a fraction of income tax (withheld at source) on their actual taxable incomes without bothering to file their income tax returns—in Pakistan less than 250,000 non-salaried return filers admitted that their annual income was more than Rs. one million!

If out of total population of 180 million, we have 10 million individuals having taxable income of Rs 1.5 million (a very conservative estimate), total income tax collection from them at the current rate for tax year 2012 should have been Rs 3750 billion. If we add income tax collected from corporate bodies, other non-individual taxpayers and individuals having income between Rs 400,000 to Rs 100,000, the gross figure would be nearly Rs 5000 billion. FBR collected only Rs 560 billion as income tax plus Rs. 20 billion as other direct taxes during fiscal year 2010-11 and figure for this year would be around Rs 665 billion. This shows a whopping tax gap of over 600 percent. Similarly, in sales tax, federal excise and custom duties, due to rampant corruption, the total collection is only 20% of actual potential. In fiscal year 2010-11, FBR collected Rs 633.4 billion under the head sales tax, Rs 137.4 billion under federal excise duty and Rs. 180.8 billion under custom duties. Total indirect collection of Rs 951.6 billion was pathetically low. It should have been at least Rs 3500 billion.

If tax gap is bridged, the total revenue collection of Pakistan would be Rs 8500 billion (Rs 5000 billion direct taxes and Rs 3500 billion indirect taxes) which would change the entire fiscal scene.

We would have enough money for current expenditure, development and public welfare outlays— government would retire debts in just a few years and we can easily become a self-reliant nation free from political subjugation.

However, this dream for Pakistan can never be realized unless the mighty sections of society (ashrafiya) are taxed according to their ability to pay.

Tax policy must be used as tool for rapid industrialization and creation of job opportunities.

It is imperative to tax the unproductive sectors to divert money to productive sectors and ensure redistributive charter of tax system—taxing the rich for the benefit of the poor.

At present, we are taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich. This trend must be reversed before it is too late.

The Government is not leaving any opportunity to screw the masses. Bizarrely, while the price of crude oil is falling in the international market, petroleum prices are on a constant rigmarole in Pakistan which is leaving the common man stripped of his earnings, increasing inflation to a non-receding position, and rendering the lives of the poor vulnerable. It goes without saying that this whole exercise is bringing in huge profits to the petroleum companies and revenues in trillions for the government (per Rana Bhagwandas Commission Report on Petroleum Prices dated July 9, 2009 submitted to Supreme Court of Pakistan).

It is incontrovertible fact that the main beneficiaries of price rises are a few oil companies and the FBR which in its latest report, has admitted that “the petroleum is the leading contributor of sales tax domestic collection. The overall collection of sales tax domestic depends on the collection of petroleum products as it contributes around 43pc of the sales tax domestic. The growth is mainly attributable to increased taxable sales of petroleum products by 37.6pc”.

This is the story of “exceptional growth” in revenue collection of FBR, about which Premier Gilani and his American national economic adviser Abdul Hafeez Shaikh are proud of. They seem to be least concerned if this move pushes millions of Pakistanis below the poverty line, destroys the economy and creates unrest in the society. The share of government taxes and levies in petroleum prices is more than 50pc from the stage of importation to final ex-refinery supply point.

Taxes constitute a major part of the price of every petroleum product — consumed by the public for personal and business purposes.

During the fiscal year 2010-2011, FBR collected total sales tax of Rs633 billion out of which share of POL products alone was Rs263.821 billion (on import Rs110.54 billion and on domestic supply Rs153.28 billion). The figure for July 2011 to December 2011 of the current fiscal year is Rs148.9 billion.

In the report submitted to Supreme Court by Rana Bhagwandas Commission dated July 10, 2009, it was revealed that from 2002 to 2009, the government made Rs10.23 trillion in taxes on petroleum products.

It is regrettable that we have failed to provide mass transit facility for at least 2 large cities — Karachi and Lahore — and bus service for every city and town despite burdening citizens with all kinds of taxes. On the contrary, consumer loans were vastly disbursed under Musharraf-Shaukat era, inducing purchase of vehicles resulting in enormous profits both for the petroleum companies and car manufacturers.

The real sufferer is the common man who cannot afford personal transport. More and more cars on the roads cause pollution, traffic mayhem and are the main source of increase in our oil import bill.

From July 2011 to February 2012, our crude oil imports surged to US$ 3.85 billion, compared with US$ 2.49 billion in the corresponding period of the preceding year.

In order to cut the import bill, we need improve public transport system that can solve all the prevalent problems. The challenge before us is to build good public transport system and a clean energy economy.

Today, we export billions of dollars each year to import the energy we need to power our country with. Our dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security, our environment and our economy. We must make investments in clean energy sources that will create millions of new jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic security.

Our rulers follow United States in most of the matters, where their personal interests are involved, but not in areas where public welfare can be achieved. In recent months, the US made great strides toward changing energy future. The US Recovery Act constituted an unprecedented and historic investment in the clean energy economy. Our government must realise that investments in the development of renewable energy and clean technologies can lead to energy sources of the future.

We have destroyed our rail system — depriving the poor and business houses of cheap and efficient transportation mode — while other countries are making huge investments in high speed rail and advanced car batteries, considered as transportation systems of the future.

It is sad that the government is using higher taxes on petroleum products as means to reduce its fiscal deficit, without realising that price hikes in these items affect economy as a whole, retard growth in all sectors besides accelerating inflation.

Our tax system benefits the wealthy at the expense of the overwhelming majority of poor Pakistanis. The government, instead of restoring equity in the tax system — reducing corporate tax rates and increase taxes on the rich — is using price-hike in petroleum products as a means to collect more taxes, thus extending extraordinary benefits to a few powerful oil companies and making life of 95 percent of the people miserable. By plugging loopholes that prevent wealthy companies and individuals from paying a fair share of taxes, the government can generate enough revenues through levy of excess profit tax to build public transport system that would save billions that we mercilessly spend on import of crude oil.

South Asian Tea Tastes Like Liquid Halwa

Manmohan Singh had his arteries bypassed recently, a procedure that increasing numbers of Indians are having. Last year, medical journal Lancet reported a study of 20,000 Indian patients and found that 60 per cent of the world’s heart disease patients are in India , which has 15 per cent of the world’s population.

This number is surprising because reports of obesity and heart disease focus on fat Americans and their food. What could account for Indians being so susceptible — more even than burger-and-fries eating Americans?

Four things:

Diet,  Culture,  Stress  and  Lack of Fitness.

There is no doctrinal prescription for vegetarianism in Hindu diet, and some texts explicitly sanction the eating of meat. But vegetarianism has become dogma.

Indian food is assumed to be strongly vegetarian, but it is actually lacking in vegetables. Our diet is centred around wheat, in the north, and rice, in the south.

The second most important element is daal in its various forms. By weight, vegetables are not consumed much. You could have an entire South Indian vegetarian meal without encountering a vegetable. The most important vegetable is the starchy aloo.

Greens are not cooked flash-fried in the healthy manner of the Chinese, but boiled or fried till much of the nutrient value is killed.

Gujaratis and Punjabis are the two Indian communities most susceptible to heart disease. Their vulnerability is recent. Both have a large peasant population — Patels and Jats — who in the last few decades have moved from an agrarian life to an urban one. They have retained their diet and if anything made it richer, but their bodies do not work as much. This transition from a physical life to a sedentary one has made them vulnerable.

Gujaratis lead the toll for diabetes as well, and the dietary aspect of this is really the fallout of the state’s economic success. Unlike most Indian states, Gujarat has a rich and developed urban culture because of the mercantile nature of its society. Gujaratis have been living in cities for centuries.

His prosperity has given the Gujarati surplus money and, importantly, surplus time. These in turn have led to snacky foods, some deep fried, some steamed and some, uniquely in India , baked with yeast. Most Indians are familiar with the Gujarati family on holiday, pulling out vast quantities of snacks the moment the train pushes off.

Gujarati peasant food — bajra (millet) roti, a lightly cooked green, garlic and red chilli chutney, and buttermilk — is actually supremely healthy. But the peasant Patel has succumbed to the food of the ‘higher’ trader and now prefers the oily and the sweet.

Marathi peasant food is similar, but not as wholesome with a thick and pasty porridge called zunka replacing the green.

Bombay’s junk food was invented in the 19th century to service Gujarati traders leaving Fort’s business district late in the evening after a long day. Pao bhaji, mashed leftover vegetables in a tomato gravy served with shallow-fried buns of bread, was one such invention.

The most popular snack in Bombay is vada pao, which has a batter-fried potato ball stuck in a bun. The bun — yeast bread — is not native to India and gets its name pao from the Portuguese who brought it in the 16th century. Bal Thackeray encouraged Bombay ‘s unemployed Marathi boys to set up vada pao stalls in the 60s, which they did and still do.

The travelling chef and TV star Anthony Bourdain called vada pao the best Indian thing he had ever eaten, but it is heart attack food.

Though Jains are a small part (one per cent or thereabouts) of the Gujarati population, such is their cultural dominance through trade that many South Bombay restaurants have a ‘Jain’ option on the menu. This is food without garlic and ginger. Since they are both tubers (as also are potatoes), Jains do not eat them, because in uprooting them from the soil, living organisms may be killed (no religious restriction on butter and cheese, however!).  Even in Bombay , this intolerance prevails. Domino’s, the famous pizza chain, has a vegetarian-only pizza outlet on Malabar Hill (Jinnah’s neighbourhood).

Foreigners like Indian food, and it is popular in England , but they find our sweets too sweet. This taste for excess sugar extends also to beverage: Maulana Azad called Indian tea ‘liquid halwa’. Only in the last decade have cafes begun offering sugar on the side, as diabetes has spread.

India’s culture encourages swift consumption. There is no conversation at meal-time, as there is in Europe. Because there are no courses, the eating is relentless. You can be seated, served and be finished eating at a Gujarati or Marathi or South Indian thali restaurant in 15 minutes. It is eating in the manner of animals: for pure nourishment.

We eat with fingers, as opposed to knives and forks, or chopsticks, resulting in the scooping up of bigger mouthfuls. Because the nature of the food does not allow for leisurely eating, Indians do not have a drink with their meals. We drink before and then stagger to the table.

As is the case in societies of scarcity, rich food is considered good — and ghee is a sacred word in all Indian languages. There is no escape from fat. In India , advertising for healthy eating also shows food deep fried, but in lower-cholesterol oil.

The insistence by family – ‘thoda aur le lo’ — at the table is part of our culture of hospitality, as is the offering of tea and perhaps also a snack to visiting guests and strangers. Middle class Indians, even families that earn Rs10,000 a month, will have servants. Work that the European and American does, the Indian does not want to do: cooking, cleaning, washing up.

Painting the house, changing tyres, tinkering in the garage, moving things around, getting a cup of tea at the office, these are things the Indian gets someone else to do for him.. There is no sense of private space and the constant presence of the servant is accepted.

Gandhi’s value to India was not on his political side, but through his religious and cultural reforms. What Gandhi attempted to drill into Indians through living a life of action was a change in our culture of lethargy and dependence. Gandhi stressed physical self-sufficiency, and even cleaned his toilet out himself.

But he wasn’t successful in making us change, and most Indians will not associate Gandhi with physical self-sufficiency though that was his principal message. Indian men do no work around the house. Middle class women do little, especially after childbirth. Many cook, but the cutting and cleaning is done by the servant. Slim in their teens, they turn thick-waisted in their 20s, within a few years of marriage.

Since we are dependent on other people, we have less control over events. The Indian is under stress and is anxious. This is bad for his health. He must be on constant guard against the world, which takes advantage of him: the servant’s perfidy, encroachment by his neighbours, cars cutting in front of him in traffic, the vendor’s rate that must be haggled down. Almost nothing is orderly and everything must be worried about.

In the Indian office, the payroll is a secret, and nobody is told what the other makes. Knowledge causes great stress, though the lack of information is also stressful, leading to spy games and office gossip.

Because there is no individualism in India , merit comes from seniority and the talented but young executive is stressed by the knowledge that he’s not holding the position he deserves.

Indians are peerless detectors of social standing and the vertical hierarchy of the Indian office is sacrosanct.

Dennis Kux pointed out that Indian diplomats do not engage officially with an American of lower rank, even if the American was authorised to decide the matter. In the last decade, when Indians began owning companies abroad, the Wall Street Journal reported on cultural problems that arose. Their foreign employees learnt quickly that saying ‘no’ would cause their Indian bosses great offence, so they learnt to communicate with them as with children.

Indians shine in the west where their culture doesn’t hold them back. In India honour is high and the individual is alert to slights from those below him, which discomfort him greatly.

There is no culture of physical fitness, and because of this Indians don’t have an active old age.

Past 60, they crumble. Within society they must step back and play their scripted role. Widows at that age, even younger, have no hope of remarriage because sacrifice is expected of them.

Widowers at 60 must also reconcile to singlehood, and the family would be aghast if they showed interest in the opposite sex at that age, even though this would be normal in another culture.

Elders are cared for within the family, but are defanged when they pass on their wealth to their son in the joint family. They lose their self-esteem as they understand their irrelevance, and wither.

Where Will Water Come From in Pakistan a Few Years From Now?

By Jayita Mukhopadhyay
Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.
     ~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi  

World Water Day is celebrated on 22 March every year at the behest of the United Nations to sensitise everyone inhabiting this planet about the profound importance of conserving water.

Since time immemorial, availability of water has shaped the establishment and growth of human civilization.

The blue gold is fast surpassing oil as the world’s scarcest critical resource and the World Bank has already prophesied that the 21st century will be an era of war over water.

Modern agriculture, industrialisation, urbanization and the spiralling population growth have all contributed to an exponential rise in the demand for water. And, as of now, water has no substitute.

Experts have sounded an alarm that within the next 25 years, half of the world’s population could face problems in finding enough fresh water for drinking and irrigation.

According to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, the access to water is inadequate for an estimated 1.1 billion people in developing countries. The per capita consumption of water is directly proportionate to the economic strength of a country and the standard of living of its people. The average per capita (per person/per day) use of water in Africa is 47 litres/person/day whereas in the USA, it is 578 litres/person/day. Millions of women and young girls are forced to spend hours collecting and carrying water, restricting their opportunities, their choices and even foregoing education.

Beyond the household, the competition for water as a productive resource is intensifying.

Symptoms of that competition include the collapse of water-based ecological systems, declining river flows and large-scale groundwater depletion. Conflicts over water, particularly the issue of control over fresh water sources, are intensifying within countries ~ posing a serious threat to world peace. The Middle East and North Africa are contending with water conflicts. In the Jordan river basin, there is intense competition among Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank for control over the available water resource. Israel uses the largest volume of water available in the basin, and next in line is Jordan. The Israeli-occupied West Bank uses the minimum amount ~ a true reflection of the power equation in the Middle East.

The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of International Rivers, adopted by the International Law Association in 1966 and similar other customary international laws have tried to provide the necessary legal framework for solving the water-sharing disputes concerning trans-boundary rivers. But most of these conflicts seem intractable.

Even if one accepts the claim made by the USA and its allies that the 2011 ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Libya was driven by the altruistic zeal of these self-styled protectors of human rights to deliver the people of Libya from the oppressive yoke of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, there is no gainsaying that the regime change has, conveniently, given them a scope to control not only Libya’s rich reserve of oil but also, more interestingly, its huge reserve of underground water.

In 1953, the search for oil led to the discovery of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS), the world’s largest known fossil water aquifer system. It is located underground in the eastern end of the Sahara desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-east Africa-Sudan, Chad, Libya and Egypt. Experts suggest that if used in a controlled manner, it can be a source of water for Africa for the next 1000  years. In 1983, Gaddafi started the Great Manmade River Project, as part of which, water extracted from the aquifer, through a network of pipelines, was diverted to faraway places to give a boost to agriculture. The consequent prosperity made Gaddafi more arrogant or construed differently, more oblivious to the dictates of the West. This perhaps served as a powerful motivation for the West to come down heavily on Libya. Critics have drawn uncharitable conclusions from the fact that during the 2011 war, one of the plants manufacturing pipes for the project was destroyed by a NATO air strike.

In South Asia as well, water is a contentious issue in inter-state relations. For India, the sharing of trans-border rivers is a point of discord between Pakistan, China and Bangladesh. India, with 16 per cent of the world’s population, has only 4 per cent of the world’s fresh water resources.

In India, the per capita availability of fresh water has dropped from 5,177 cubic meters in 1951 to 1,820 cubic meters in 2001. Spatial and temporal variability in the availability of rain water, the main source of river waters, is a serious challenge. The monsoon rain is available for three months; there is an acute water shortage during the arid months in large parts of the country. In the past, the Cauvery river water dispute and the imbroglio over sharing the Krishna water have not only soured inter-state relations, but have also fuelled parochial sentiment, even riots and arson.

The policy of constructing large dams has been opposed because of the huge damage in terms of ecology and human life. The proposed interlinking of rivers has run into rough weather for similar reasons. Such alternatives as rain water harvesting call for extensive community-based projects. The cost factor can also be prohibitive.

Water, essential for human existence, cannot be treated as a commodity accessible to only those who can pay for it. It is a basic right. Hence, while supporting the cause of collecting taxes from those who can afford to pay the cess, the government must fulfil this basic requirement of the underprivileged by setting up public funded facilities. The needs of the common people and the developmental needs of society should be delicately balanced. The human race must be saved from a possible apocalypse through judicious use and conservation of life’s essential.

The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Women’s Christian College, Kolkata