O P I N I O N S

guest column
Comatose governance will not do
Nawaz Sharif’s reluctance to govern is not feigned. It is born of an insecurity which has taught him to mark first the exit door.
FS Aijazuddin
The difference between being elected and being re-elected is whether, if you are elected, you are prepared to clean up the mess left behind by your predecessor, or if re-elected, you intend to continue making a mess of governance yourself.

fifty fifty
Where are all the gallant men?
The focus should not be limited to the print media, and there has always been enough to make us wary about the way women are treated in some TV channels as well.
Kishwar Desai
Right at the beginning let me state that Tarun Tejpal has been a friend, and so what I am about to write does not mean that I am betraying a friendship. Rather it is being written out of deep sorrow. Basically because this is the time for all of us to introspect why men in positions of power in the media — despite the recent outrage over the sexual harassment of women — still think it is all right to molest those within easy reach.

ground zero
They don’t know what darkness is
It is society that continues to remain both blind and dark about the world of the visually impaired and their extraordinary capabilities.
Raj Chengappa
There are so many sordid happenings in the country these days that the little good that occurs is often buried in a welter of negative news. Among them was the President of India releasing a book titled “The Light Within”, a photo chronicle of the many visually impaired people in our country, which I had the pleasure of introducing. The pictures taken by Sipra Das, a journalist and former colleague, show a deep understanding of the lives of the people who cannot see and yet demonstrate an extraordinary ability to experience the fullness of life shorn of self-pity, diffidence or bitterness.

guest column
Comatose governance will not do
Nawaz Sharif’s reluctance to govern is not feigned. It is born of an insecurity which has taught him to mark first the exit door.
FS Aijazuddin

The difference between being elected and being re-elected is whether, if you are elected, you are prepared to clean up the mess left behind by your predecessor, or if re-elected, you intend to continue making a mess of governance yourself.

Unlike his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh, who was elected in 2004 and then re-elected in 2009, Nawaz Sharif has never enjoyed a consecutive term as Prime Minister. On each occasion — in 1990, 1997, and most recently in 2013 — he has had to clear someone else’s mess.

Sharif’s governance has the informality of a family business.

Such stop-start mandates would challenge any leader. Sharif cannot hope to be an exception. His reluctance to govern is not feigned. It is born of an insecurity which has taught him to mark first the exit door.

Fourteen lean years in exile separate July 1999 — the year he made a quick unscheduled dash to elicit the then US President Clinton’s support for a resolution of the Kargil crisis — and October 2013, when he spent an unhurried 90 minutes with US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. In 1999, Sharif feared a coup by General Musharraf; in October 2013, he went as the Truman confidently prepared to choose his own General Macarthur.

General Kayani, however, did not wait to be fired or booted upstairs. He announced on October 6 that he would retire as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) on November 29. Kayani had become COAS in 2007 after ‘persuading’ his boss Musharraf to leave. In 2010, he was given an extension of three years (with President Zardari’s consent) by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (PPP). He was not prepared to accept the crown a third time.

However altruistic Kayani’s motives may have been, Kayani’s announcement has sent a clear message to any would-be Bonapartes within the Pakistan army. “As I complete my tenure,” his requiem reads, “the will of the people has taken root and a constitutional order is in place. The armed forces of Pakistan fully support and want to strengthen this democratic order.” The last general who thought like that was an Indian — Gen Sam Manekshaw who as COAS reassured Mrs Indira Gandhi that he did not pose a threat to her prime ministership.

Whoever Sharif may be considering as Kayani’s replacement, should be prepared, like Prince Charles, for a long wait. Sharif has yet to decide which of his two advisers on foreign affairs — Sartaj Aziz or Tariq Fatemi — should be the ‘de jure’ Foreign Minister.

Sharif’s style of governance has a light touch to it. It has all the informality of a family business. He has delegated the erratic economy to Ishaq Dar (whose son Ali is married to Sharif’s daughter). He has left the volatile security situation to Nisar, a loyalist ‘sans pareil’; and has farmed out the Punjab to his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif.

There must be moments when Sharif must envy the comforts of the presidency to the hurly-burly of prime ministership. His detractors, of whom Imran Khan has become the most vocal, accuse him of seeking solace in foreign trips instead of tackling the real issues such as education, health, water, housing, population control, food security, internal security, and spilling over them all, provincial disharmony.

As much as Sharif would wish otherwise, his brother’s Punjab is not Pakistan. An MQM-PPP dominated Sindh is a headache; Balochistan is a tribal and troublesome expanse; and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa is the migraine that will get worse by 2014.

When Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf won the toss in the last general election, it had not anticipated to be called to bat so soon. Nor had it expected to field bullets and drones. Circumstance has made Imran Khan a born-again pragmatist. His call for negotiations with the Pakistan Taliban echoes Nelson Mandela’s sage observation: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.” The second part of Mandela’s advice — “then he becomes you partner” — may be more difficult for his coalition KPK government to swallow.

By the end of this year, there will be a new army chief and a new Supreme Court Chief Justice in place. It is unlikely that the new incumbents will want to continue with the trial of General Musharraf for treason. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold; it is unsafe when stale.

By this time next year, there will be a new Afghan leader elected in place of the papier-mâché president Karzai and in New Delhi, there is a real (and frightening) possibility that Narendra Modi may be India’s next Prime Minister. Modi wears half-sleeve shirts; Sharif should not be surprised when Modi keeps nothing up his sleeves.

Domestic imperatives apart, the challenge for Sharif in 2014 will be his ability to manage these important changes simultaneously on his eastern and western borders.

The writer is a Pakistan-based columnist

fifty fifty
Where are all the gallant men?
The focus should not be limited to the print media, and there has always been enough to make us wary about the way women are treated in some TV channels as well.
Kishwar Desai

Right at the beginning let me state that Tarun Tejpal has been a friend, and so what I am about to write does not mean that I am betraying a friendship. Rather it is being written out of deep sorrow. Basically because this is the time for all of us to introspect why men in positions of power in the media — despite the recent outrage over the sexual harassment of women — still think it is all right to molest those within easy reach. And how very ironical — when the alleged aggressor comes from within the same media that encourages hoisting apt punishment upon similar sexual offenders.

Women’s security is a matter of concern.

Obviously the reason lies not just within the single case of Tejpal, but is symptomatic of a much wider malaise.

I, too, have been a journalist, and I remember that when I joined a daily newspaper in Chandigarh, in the late 70s, women were barely present in the work force. This week I am in the same city for a literature festival organised by the Chandigarh Literature Society, and so those memories are rushing back — but strangely, those early days seem to have been better, even though women were an oddity. I still remember how there would be an audible hush in the Press Club, largely emanating from our startled male colleagues, as other female journalists and I walked into the room. Our male colleagues, at the time, were mostly old fashioned and ‘chivalrous’ enough to mind their colourful language when we were around (not realising that our knowledge of abusive words was probably more extensive than theirs!). On the whole, the men in the office were courteous and helpful — even to the extent of dropping us home when we were out reporting or working late at the edit desk. But I do not remember a single incident where they misunderstood our presence, or our friendliness. Not one of them ever stepped out of line.

But it is obvious that things have been changing over the years. Perhaps as the editors and journalists — usually male — have become increasingly powerful, their accountability has been reduced. By putting them on a pedestal, their arrogance has been unleashed. And so Tejpal continues to have protective followers who have tried to give the incident a political hue and have attempted to push the discussion back towards the ills of the opposing parties. But right now, we must not permit a muddying of the waters as the issue is not political at all. Instead, it deeply concerns the security of women in the work place.

Yet, the larger question remains whether we should be surprised that this incident has happened, because over the years, we have all heard stories and rumours from colleagues about other exploitative editors in different organisations. Very rarely, there has been a trickle of information about female journalists leaving or being transferred just because they were upset. The gossip has never been about how editors have been ticked off or even reprimanded. In which case, it is obvious that, even the media management has been complicit in this exploitation.

Of course, the focus should not be limited to the print media, and there has always been enough to make us wary about the way women are treated in some TV channels as well.

Again, in the past, having spent over two decades in television, I was fortunate that I did not have to tolerate an uncomfortable environment where women did not feel secure. But there were times when the situation became untenable as happened when I worked very briefly on a TV show sponsored by a big business house, I quit from it suspecting that a pall of sleaze hung over the organisation. Once or twice I did stumble upon rather suspicious activity in the darkened editing suites, and till today I am not certain whether these were relationships between two consenting adults or whether there was a boss who had simply told a young woman that it was the ‘easiest’ way to keep her job. (As in the Tehelka case).

There is no doubt that in the Tejpal case this young woman has been very brave by speaking out. The fact that even a progressive organisation was not immune is symptomatic of how little regard is placed on matters of gender.

The other sad part is that both the victim and the accused apparently belong to the media. The victim is, thus, almost like our own child — and unless we ensure that she receives justice there is very little hope that other similarly traumatised women will ever speak out. Even though this is a very dangerous thing to say (because Tehelka has many powerful friends in high places) one does hope that the whole truth behind this entire scandal will now be told.