The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Deadly seas
Another fishing boat faces bullets

The killing of an Indian fisherman in firing by a US Navy ship off the coast of Dubai has understandably caused tension, even as the governments in both nations react cautiously to the incident.

The moot point here is whether enough warning was given by the US naval refuelling ship USNS Rappahanno to the fishing boat that went near it before the US sailors fired on the boat, killing the fisherman and wounding three other Indian sailors on board. The sailors have maintained that the US ship did not issue any warning. A recent statement attributed to Dubai’s police chief also says that the boat was on its right course and did not pose any danger to the US ship.

The latest incident has to be seen in the background of the attack on another Indian fishing boat by marines aboard an Italian ship. In that incident, which occurred off the Indian coast, the two marines were arrested in Kerala and are presently in custody. One of the issues that both the attacks raise is the nature of warnings given by the ships to ward off what they perceive as threatening boats approaching them. It has often been pointed out by experts that there is no standard operating procedure for issuing non-lethal warnings to craft that seem to be threatening, and this can result in confusion at a critical time.

The Ministry of External Affairs is right in not jumping the gun. However, it cannot afford to wait for too long. An Indian citizen has lost his life and three Indians have been injured by bullets fired from an American naval ship. While giving all support to the injured, and providing relief to the family of the fisherman who lost his life, the government must also protest against this attack strongly and take active measures to ensure the safety of Indian fishermen, no matter which part of the world they are sailing in.

It’s IPL ‘sportainment’
Partying and boozing go with it

Rahul Sharma, the Punjab and India cricketer, has been found to have consumed drugs at a rave party busted by Mumbai Police on May 20. Another cricketer who tested positive of consuming recreational drugs at the party is Wayne Parnell, the promising young South African pace bowler.

It’s essentially a matter of law-enforcement, but it would be useful to examine the context in which this transgression occurred. It happened during the last stage of the IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament, in which both Sharma and Parnell play for Pune Warriors. Now, it’s an open secret that the IPL is the ‘happy hours’ of the yearly cricketing calendar – lots of money, booze and partying for all concerned. Cricketers, who are both the product on sale and makers of millions from two months of non-traditional cricket, are at the top of the pecking order. They are both cricketer-celebrities and marketing horses, to be flogged until they are useless. Partying is central to the idea of a good IPL match.

When Lalit Modi was still around, there were official match parties after the games, beginning at the absurd hour of 1 or 2 am. Cricketers were required to be present at the parties, despite a full schedule of travelling, practising, endorsing, playing. Drinks flowed like water, drugs were known to be consumed, and young women seemed to be available to the players, many of whom didn’t resist the temptation. This isn’t “normal” sport – in normal, serious sport, coaches often enforce a nightly curfew on the players, tucking them in by 10 in the evening. There are many anecdotes of cricketers going out and smashing centuries despite a hangover, but they concern geniuses like G Viswanath or Garry Sobers, and the fact remains that partying, boozing and sports don’t make a great blend.

The IPL is different – it’s ‘sportainment’. Partying and drinking is continuing – the team owners are billionaires who own the megastars and want to party with them. What it does to a young cricketer – whose life is thrown into a thrilling turmoil – isn’t something that bothers them. Sharma and Parnell are adults and are subject to the law’s ways. But also, the sportainment that’s eroding the virtue of discipline, supposedly central to the sporting life, must be reassessed.

Thought for the Day

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. — Rabindranath Tagore

ARTICLE

Pak defence budget too big
It is rarely debated in Parliament
by Air Marshal R.S.Bedi (retd)

Unlike India, Pakistan announces its federal budget on the first day of the month of June every year. Surprisingly, this year it did not receive much notice in India despite some of its glaring features having security implications for India. Pakistan has allocated a lion’s share of Rs 545.3 billion or one sixth of its federal budget of Rs 2.96 trillion for defence for the fiscal 2013.

In reality, this amount would be much more. Pakistan, like China, is known to hide its defence spending by devious means. For example, the overt budget does not include the pensions of the retired defence personnel which amount to Rs 98 billion. The budget also does not reflect the financial assistance received from outside sources. It’s been reported by ‘The Express Tribune’ of Washington that Pakistan may actually be spending around Rs 913 billion or 31 percent of Rs 2.96 trillion of the national budget. This is almost double the amount of budget officially declared.

Over and above the declared amount, the military appropriates to itself 60 per cent of the Coalition Support Fund received from the US every year. Of the Rs 150 billion under this head, Rs 90 billion goes to the armed forces this year. This fund was established in 2001 to compensate Pakistan in fighting terrorism in support of the Americans. The armed forces also extract their pound of flesh from the service fees given by the UN on account of military personnel involved in peace-keeping missions around the world. This works out to another Rs 30 billion approximately. It is interesting to note that these allocations, when combined with the country’s interest payments, amount to Rs 1.1 trillion or 35 per cent of the total budget. Not even one-third of the total federal budget is left for national development and running the government.

Interestingly, the budget allotted to the armed forces in Pakistan is rarely debated in Parliament. It is exclusively controlled by the armed forces and is not even allowed to be audited. The nation has no idea as to where and how the money is spent by the forces in Pakistan. In total contrast, the defence budget in India is not only debated and passed in Parliament but is also thoroughly audited at the end of the year. The budget, though allotted to the armed forces, remains under the tight control of the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence.

It’s amazing how Pakistan can afford to spend so heavily on defence when the country’s economy is in doldrums and its internal security scenario anything but normal. Its internal debt is fast reaching 65 per cent of its GDP. The external debt has already exceeded $60 billion. Pakistan has recently defaulted on payments to foreign power producers. Under the circumstances, Pakistan’s grandiose plans of military modernisation and nuclear build-up to match India seem rather illogical. But as long as the military controls the national purse and continues to get assistance from outside, it is likely to maintain the offensive posture.

Pakistan has been over-spending on defence all these years in trying to match with India, not realising that India has to additionally counter to China’s rapid military build-up. India thus has to deal with two nuclear armed adversaries at the same time. The way Pakistan has test-fired a wide array of missiles only indicates the feverish pace of its nuclear build-up. The first launch of Hatf-IV with a range of 1,000 km came on April 25; just six days after India tested its 5,000-km range Agni-V. On June 5 Pakistan test-fired the Hatf-VII cruise missile. This was the fifth missile test by Pakistan in little over a month.

Pakistan has thus shown that it is ever ready to strike as deep inside India as it desires. In this tit-for-tat approach Pakistan has also highlighted its tactical as well as strategic deterrence capabilities. It may be mentioned here that in keeping with its ‘first-use’ option, Pakistan has lately developed tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use against India’s overwhelming conventional forces. This in fact was the NATO strategy to overcome overwhelming Warsaw Pact conventional forces during the cold war era.

However, it is to be seen how Pakistan stays on such a course of incessant military build-up once the US Congress tightens the control over assistance to it, as it seems very likely now. China is not likely to fill the gap as far as the financial assistance is concerned. However, material help as is suspected even in the current series of quick response to India’s Agni-V cannot be perhaps ruled out.

All these years, Pakistan has remained reticent about what the Americans do there as long as they pay for it, periodic statements for public consumption against the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty notwithstanding. However, one incident in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a NATO air strike led to the face-off between the two. During the subsequent negotiations for reopening the supply routes for foreign troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan insisted on an apology from the Americans and demanded $2,000 for every NATO truck passing through against $200 earlier. In fact, Pakistan initially bargained for $5,000 per vehicle which the US promptly turned down. Pakistan has little or no hesitation in demanding money for everything, for that is what it needs urgently in pursuance of its long-term objectives.

. India cannot afford to lower its guard against Pakistan, overtures from the Pakistan Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, notwithstanding. The trust deficit is inhibiting, to say the least. Also, the continued collusion with China against India casts doubts on Pakistan’s sincerity. With China flexing its muscles in and around India’s neighbourhood, time has now come for India to reassess its strategic options with the US and deepen defence cooperation sooner than later.

The writer is a former Director General, Defence Planning Staff.

MIDDLE

Dealing with doctors
by Chetana Vaishnavi

When I was in the fifth standard, I participated in the then popular drama (“I swallowed a peanut just now”) where the patient swallows a peanut and gets a severe abdomen pain. The doctor is called and he performs an operation for the removal of the peanut for which the patient profusely thanks him. It was a sing-song play which many of my contemporaries might remember.

However, even in those days I wondered why the doctor had to operate the patient for swallowing a peanut, till I came across the following description. Doctors are people who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure disease of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing. The goal of a doctor should not be to pretend the disease would go away, but to live well in the face of the disease. It has been oft said that God cures the patient and the doctor gets the fee.

Mark Twain during his times advised people how to keep away from doctors. He said, “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like and do what you rather not!” There is a Latin proverb, “The doctor is to be feared more than the disease itself.” Some people believe that doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too!

Though the doctor has a serious role to play in alleviating sufferings of society, there are many jokes circulating in the medical world, which I am sure both the doctors themselves and the public too would find them quite hilarious. Let me share some of them.

Shortly after the 911 emergency number became available, an elderly and quite ill lady appeared in a hospital emergency room, having driven herself to the hospital and barely managing to stagger in the parking lot. The horrified nurse said, “Why didn’t you call the 911 number and get an ambulance? The lady responded breathlessly, “My phone doesn’t have an eleven!’

And then there was the doctor who promised that the patient would be on his feet in two weeks’ time. How true was his promise, because the latter had to sell his car to pay the doctor’s bill! In another amusing tale a patient asked the doctor, “Will I be able to read after I wear glasses?” “And why not?” asked the doctor who was taken aback at the audacity of the patient. “Because, I am illiterate!” said the doubtful patient. Then you must have heard of the doctor who gave the patient six months to live, but when he could not pay the bill he gave him six months more!

During a two-week follow-up appointment, a patient was advised to put a new patch every six hours. Soon no place was left on his body! Then there was the patient who dreaded the taste of Kentucky jelly for breakfast. Upon checking the product a foil packet labeled “KY jelly” was found on him! In yet another medical tale, a doctor places a stethoscope on the chest of an elderly and slightly deaf female patient and instructs, “Big breaths.” Sighing coldly, she answers, “Yes, they used to be!”

Here is another amusing tale doing the rounds these days. An elderly woman went into the doctor’s office. When the doctor asked why she was there, she replied, “I’d like to have some birth control pills.” Shocked, the doctor thought for a minute and then said, “Excuse me, Mrs Smith, but you’re 75 years old. What possible use could you have for birth control pills? The woman responded, “They help me sleep better when I put them in my granddaughter’s orange juice!”

In spite of all the amusement one derives from these medical tales, one must not forget what Voltaire said, “Men (and of course women as well!) who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.” So let us all salute their skill!n

OPED women

Reconstructing faces & lives
Acid attack is a peculiar South Asian phenomenon. The severity of its devastating impact leaves its victims, often women, with life-long scars on body and mind. Social ostracism of these victims results in their financial hardships
Sharmeen Obaid Chenoy

Dr Mohammad Jawad reconstructs Zakia’s face in ‘Saving Face’

Acid violence, the act of hurling acid onto a person with the intent of harming them, is an all-encompassing form of abuse. Not only does it cause permanent physical disfigurement, but its emotional scars can also be life long if left unaddressed. A vast number of such attacks occur in areas that are characterised by weak law enforcement, thus resulting in a lack of repercussions for the perpetrators of such forms of violence. About 150 acid attacks occur in Pakistan every year.

On the ground, concerned individuals and dedicated organisations have been quietly aiding acid violence survivors. One such individual, Dr. Mohammad Jawad had been travelling form the UK to Pakistan for the past ten years for the sole purpose of conducting free surgeries for those who cannot afford healthcare. When Daniel Junge learnt about Dr. Jawad’s work with acid violence he felt compelled to document his story and share it with a larger audience. It was then that Daniel approached me to co-direct ‘Saving Face.’

While most Pakistanis are well aware of the occurrence of acid violence, it remains on the fringes of our national narrative. Media coverage, community awareness and campaigns about it are lacking on a national scale. As a filmmaker, I felt it was necessary for me to use the tools and skills available to me to do my part in shedding light on this issue in order to stimulate critical discourse and prompt social change. It was only when I began researching the issue and travelled to relevant areas that I began to get a grasp of the severity of acid violence and its devastating impact on those who suffer its consequences for the rest of their lives.

It is essential for a filmmaker to spend time with her subjects before production begins; a director must understand their subjects’ intentions, apprehensions and goals. Our team

had the privilege of being welcomed into the survivors’ lives as they struggled for justice and received medical treatment. I was struck by the sheer bravery and determination of these women as they faced unimaginable circumstances with astounding grace and poise. It was a privilege to have spent time with these women, their drive inspired me to pursue this cause with increased vigour.

Compounding factors

A majority of acid attacks occur in the Saraiki belt of Punjab, a rural agricultural region where literacy rates are shockingly low and unemployment levels are appallingly high. Cotton is a widely grown crop there, and acid is used as a raw material in the farming process. Due to these circumstances, the social fabric in this region is highly fragmented, and the culture there has grown to condone certain forms of violence against women.

This lethal concoction is stirred by the lack of free healthcare and corruption within the law enforcement agencies. During our time there, it became evident that acid violence was not just simply a barbaric crime committed by senseless criminals; it was a result of a severely broken and isolated society, the failure of the justice system and the maintenance of gender inequality.

Women constitute more than half the population of those who suffer from acid violence, but men, and more frequently children become collateral damage in such conflicts.

Reasons and patterns of attack vary between countries; in Pakistan the most common cause revolves around a woman being attacked by a spurned suitor or for being ‘put in her place’ for socially unacceptable behaviour. Zakia, one of the main subjects in ‘Saving Face,’ was attacked by her husband because she wanted to pursue a divorce. Rukhsana, on the other hand, was attacked out of pure aggression at the hands of her husband, mother- in-law and sister-in-law who were also complicit in her attack. The fact that women aid in the abuse of other women shows that the aggressor is the person who is in a position of power and the victim is almost always the person who is in a subordinate role. In traditional communities, such as the Saraiki belt, women are seen as a form of property, with their behaviour proving integral to maintenance of family honour. Once a woman is married into a family they make sure that she does not behave in a way that will risk bringing shame to the family's name.

Victims feel shamed

Shockingly, this ultimatum stands even if it is the very family that puts the woman in a position of shame. I encountered women who were locked away by their families after

they suffered an acid attack. The disfigurement caused by the acid is perceived as a mark of shame, and the family of the survivor will sooner ostracise her than have the world see this mark, even if they were the ones who inflicted it upon her. Rukhsana, who was attacked by her husband and in-laws, was locked in a room with no windows and was prohibited from seeing even her own daughter.

Going into the field, I became aware of the physical effects of an attack. Nitric or sulphuric acid melts the skin tissue exposing the bones below the flesh, often even dissolving the bone. In cases where the acid reaches the eye of the victim, it blinds them permanently. While Zakia lost the use of one of her eyes, many acid attack survivors lose the use of both eyes, and others lose the use of their hands. Other organs may also get corroded, and limbs may be lost. I was aware that these effects largely inhibit the victims' ability to work and even mothering the children.

Once in the field, I had the chance to meet many women who could not work and were consequently forced into financial dependence upon their families and the very husbands, who were often the perpetrators of violent attacks on them. I learnt that survivors who were unmarried were plagued with the constant fear of remaining unmarried due to their unsightly scars, not to mention the tremendous decline in self-esteem that comes with a distorted face.

Since women traditionally rely on their husbands for financial support in such societies, these survivors had to deal with the additional fear of unavoidable poverty. Given these circumstances, expensive reconstructive surgery is not an option for most survivors.

Scars on mind

Completely separate from the physical effects is the psychological trauma that haunts the survivors well after the attack. In a community that ignores the urgent need for physical treatment of the survivors, and where mental health is a completely misunderstood phenomenon, I found that survivors internalise trauma and merely add it to the list of things they must learn to live with.

Due to a mentality that prioritises a fear of shame, victims of domestic violence in the Saraiki belt do not often make it to the hospital right after an attack; they are instead shunned by their families. Even fewer victims make it to the police station to lodge a report. In this case it is not only a fear of judgment from the police, but a lack of faith in the judicial system. Since a woman is deprived of even basic human rights in patriarchal societies, the police fail to take her plight seriously. The woman will be seen as deserving of the attack, as they prescribe to the norms that she has been accused of transgressing.

In cases where women are attacked by their husbands or family members, the police feel it is not their place to step in and enforce punishment; rather it is a matter to be taken care of by the family.

Women of courage

Disfigured with violence: Zakia, a victim of acid violence before plastic surgery

Zakia is one courageous woman who decided to challenge the norms imposed upon her by society and fight for justice despite the attitude that the judicial system in Pakistan adopts. During the filming of ‘Saving Face,’ Pakistan witnessed the passing of a landmark bill known as The Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill. This bill was passed unanimously by the National Assembly of Pakistan on 12 December 2011, declaring that perpetrators of acid violence will now be punished with life imprisonment or at least fourteen years in prison. They will also be fined up to Rs. 1 million. Although not under this bill, Zakia fought to have her husband imprisoned and sought out to pursue a life with her children, financially and physically independent of her husband.

While Pakistan has accomplished this feat, one that many other countries where acid crimes occur have not, it has a long way to go before it can effectively tackle acid attacks. The government must ensure that the Acid Crime Prevention Bill is implemented; punishing perpetrators will deter future perpetrators and will become the most effective approach to curing the plague. Simultaneously, work must be done from the bottom up. Local communities must be educated about the impact of acid attacks and other forms of violence against women and children.

The reconstructed face and a new life

The Saving Face Outreach Team, partnered with Islamic Help( an NGO), and started an educational campaign that aims to pursue similar objectives. Their strategy involves airing public service messages on the television and radio and creating awareness about the bill that criminalises acid violence. They will also be distributing educational materials in the Saraiki belt, and Islamic Help will be starting programmes to tackle the patriarchal mindset there.

Combating acid violence cannot be achieved through one major feat; a change in the law or the presence of medical care cannot single handed rid Pakistan of this inhumane practice. It is imperative that Pakistanis, as a community rally around this cause and target it from all angles. Most importantly, we must target the root of the problem, and fight for gender parity and equal opportunities for women.

The writer is an Academy Award and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker of ‘Saving Face,’ ‘Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret’ and ‘Pakistan’s Taliban Generation.’ She is the first non-American to be awarded the Livingston Award for best international reporting.