THE question as to where our brains are kept presumes that we collectively do have brains.

Having said this, on to a bit of good news on the nuclear warfare issue on which there is a meeting of minds. Our army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, on the last day of last year while addressing a gathering of military officers, told them: "In my meetings with various world leaders, I conveyed my personal message to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that the moment Indian forces cross the Line of Control [in Kashmir] and the international border, then they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan."

A riposte to this came from the new Indian army chief, General Nirmal Chander Vij, whilst speaking to reporters on New Year's Day after officially taking charge: "No responsible army chief could make such a statement."

On January 3 our army chief issued a clarification: "No one in his right state of mind can talk of a nuclear war."

Now we go back in time, to the early days of Pakistan and on to quite a different subject. President General Ayub Khan, when appointing his cabinet after his victorious 1964 elections and doling out portfolios realized at the end of the day that one portfolio, that of 'education' had not been allocated. Someone, anyone, had to be found to complete the cabinet. He sent a man round to the hostel where the members of his party were housed and instructed him to find a man willing to accept the last portfolio. One was found, he was roped in, and the cabinet was complete.

On January 3, thirty-nine years later, a news item in a Karachi evening paper on the subject of the cabinet to be formed in Sindh by the newly elected chief minister reports: "The SDA leadership is interested in having the education department while the PML(Q) has reportedly succeeded in getting the portfolio for its only lady member in the cabinet, Dr Saeeda Malik, on the intervention of a powerful person . . . . . sources said that the big budget and heavy funding by the donor agencies for education sector are the two main causes for which there is in-fighting between the coalition partners."

A Dawn news item on January 4 informs us that: "The education portfolio which was initially promised to Imtiaz Ahmad Shaikh stands withheld for the time being as he is contesting by-election from the constituency PS-118 vacated by Sardar Salim Jan Mazari." Education, as we all know, regardless of where our brains are kept, is the one vital factor needed if this country is to do something about its horrific population explosion. Bangladesh is a prime example. Since its birth it has concentrated on education and more education, particularly the education of its women and not only has its literacy rate shot up but consequently its birth rate has been dramatically reduced to under two per cent per annum.

In Pakistan, it is quite the opposite. The literacy rate, particularly that of women, has dropped and the birth rate has shot up to an almost unmanageable figure of close to three per cent (the official figure is of course fudged as are all our statistics). Unless some effort is made on the education front, the birth rate will become totally unmanageable and we all know what effect that will have upon the country's economy, its poverty control programme and all other policies and practices related to progress and the well-being of the nation.

What is appalling is that in this newly elected government no minister has yet been appointed to the population welfare ministry (as that department which should deal with population control is euphemistically known).

The president general, during his three-year tenure, was also neglectful of the population control factor, an omission he readily admits and, hopefully, regrets. We have an education minister and it is hoped she will concentrate not only on a mass literacy campaign but put special emphasis on the neglected women of this country, the child-bearers and rearers. And may we hope that the prime minister, in between his busy travel schedule, will find some competent person amongst his shaky coalition and immediately appoint a man or woman to take on the population explosion problem. As there are plentiful funds flowing in from donor agencies to be utilized for population planning, this should not be too difficult a task.

We are now growing at the rate of ten births per minute, 600 per hour, 14,400 per day, which levels out to some 5.3 million per year. If the election commission figures are to be believed, in 1998 the population of this country was 140 million. If that be so, it now stands at 160 million. It is not only bodies but ignorance also that is being bred at an alarming rate - there are just not enough schools to even make literate 30 per cent of this burgeoning population. And, to add to our woes - with bigotry at the moment flourishing - ignorance is the greatest promoter of bigotry and intolerance.

Returning to that province which is the most tricky to deal with - Sindh - what is immediately brought to mind by mention of the party to which our newly appointed governor belongs: murder, gunfights, torture cells, knee-drillings, bags of body parts, extortion. A letter was published in this newspaper on Friday emanating from a Mr M. A. Jalil, presumably the husband of high-flying MQM inner-sanctum member Nasreen Jalil, whose subconscious seems to have been at work. He categorically states that in my column last week I referred to the new governor, Dr Ishratul Ibad, as being "a proclaimed offender." I said nothing of the sort. My words were "a proclaimed absconder."

Before Mr Jalil again goes off at a tangent I suggest he consult a legal dictionary. He will find that to abscond is: "To go in a clandestine manner out of the jurisdiction of the courts, or to lie concealed, in order to avoid their process." Whereas, an offender is "Commonly used in statutes to indicate a person implicated in the commission of a crime and includes a person guilty of a misdemeanour . . . .".

The re-entry of the MQM into power caused panic in the market, and a mass apprehension that large scale extortion would again start. So, our young governor, to make amends and try to show us that his MQM is a different MQM, as one of his first acts in office promulgated an ordinance, excerpts from which read: "To provide for the eradication and curbing the menace of involuntary donations or forced 'chanda' in the province of Sindh . . . . . circumstances exist which render it necessary to take immediate action . . . . Collection of funds by any person at the doorstep of a donor is prohibited . . ."

The 'definition' of "doorstep" as given in the ordinance: "includes a residential or commercial premises, business office, factory, shop including market premises and vendors push carts." So, if extortion takes place at any other location, it is not covered by the ordinance.

The governor must remember that donations are gifts, voluntary gifts. They can never be involuntary. Extortion is extortion, and is always involuntary.

Nothing will change in this country unless we follow that first dictum of the great man who founded this country, Mohammad Ali Jinnah: "The first duty of a government is to maintain law and order so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the state." (August 11 1947, in the Constituent Assembly at Karachi). We have yet to find a government which can do this.
 

Ardeshir Cowasjee is Karachi based political analyst and writer of global repute. His e-mail address is [email protected]