Of Rites and Rights: An Interview with Asma Jahangir

kashmir should be united like baluchistan, like pakthoonistan and like sindh after throwing out illegally settled retired punjabi military officers from their place.
gwadar should be given to marri or a mengal. is it okay for all punjabi mundas!? pakistan has made fun of us, saying we mishandled kashmir, what about the mohajirs, sindhis, baluchis and pashtun`s, do they not have greviances against the federation? apart from,some political sympathies we never tried to make an issue of allof it.today at a time when pakistan grieves, we keep quiet, bb`s speeches, aggravating kashmiri secession, is not forgotten by us, but we knew she was helpless. we gave autonomy tokashmir, tillthis day no indian can buy land in kashmir,this despite the fact that 350,000 pundits were thrown out of the valley, can the same be said of your side of kashmir? the ethnicity of pakistani kashmir has been altered in the past 50 yrs by massive migration from punjabi plains. in short all ihave to say is people who live in glass houses cannot throw stones at each other.

Thanks for the post. We are all concerned about the Khurafaat of the madarsa jihadis and the ISI who are the real parasites of the Pakistani society and have to be contained by the moderates in PAkistan before they start assasinating the moderates openly.

#162 by mumbaikar on October 1, 2003 12:36pm PT
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript236_full.html

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...will pakis ever stop crying over kashmir and wake up to reality?...

plats8

...no need to apologise...have a feeling here on I/P interacts the readers would like to know who is lobbing the grenades...one of us or one of them;)...zakhmi tO hona hay, laikin kis ki gooli say!...

...t

Required: Balance in the reaction of Pakistanis towards India...

Either the Pakistanis hate India to the extent that they want to nuke it or they are ready to lick the feet of the Indians...

Maybe this is disappointing for the toe-lickers but Asma Jehangir doesn`t fit into either category... that is why her credibility remains higher than pseudo-self styled variety of liberals.

Stuka #148,

Well, the Pakistani restaurant at College Park was a favourite haunt of mine -
good, cheap food served quickly. The clientele tends to cut across nationalities.
I don`t remember the introspection comment - if I did, would like to apologise.
However, I am from India.

India`s endgame in Kashmir is that it will continue to keep the army in Kashmir as long as it takes the Pakistani army to take pity on Kashmiris or on their own population. Indians are not looking forward to the next 20 years or 30 years but to the next 50 or 100 years.

Independence of Kashmir has no support either in India or in Pakistan. Pakistanis are committed to grabbing Kashmir. And Indians have seen what has happened to `azad` Kashmir. The idea of Kashmiri independence is dying within Kashmir as well, with the active help of a certain unnamed country.

But it is refreshing to see Romair extend his time frame to the next 20 years. I could find his earlier posts a few years ago when he excitedly awaited Kashmir`s separation from India over the next 3 to 5 years.

:)

stuka #148 agreed that insurgents cannot be expected to fight like gentlemen. but the ones tossing bombs in kashmir dont fight like an average man either - how low does a man have to be before he will strike a woman, for example? and these individuals not just attack women, they attack them with weapons and bombs and acid. and i realize they claim to be on ``our`` (pakistani) side, but they are no more on ``my`` side than a common killer.

in any case, the time for wars in south asia - by gentlemen or by lowlife - ended in south asia the day the first nuclear bomb was tested. insurgencies dont change national boundries, they just kill people. and nuclear weapons have checkmated (lets hope) the chance of a full scale war. time to look at more interesting stuff offered by the future than land disputes.

Pak population will swell to 349m by 2050

By Syed Asif Ali
and Muddassir Rizvi

KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s population will swell to 349 million by year 2050, making it the fourth most populated country in the world, cautions a Washington-based population monitoring group.

According to the latest report of the Population Reference Bureau, which has been providing timely and objective information on the US and international population trends and their implications for the last 70 years to policymakers globally, Pakistan and ``much of the world is challenged by skewed population growth rates``.

The Bureau projects India will become the world’s most populated country with 1,628 million people by 2050, tailed closely by China with 1,394 million. The US will increase its population from the existing 292 million to 422 in the next 43 years, while Indonesia, with the current population of 220 million, will grow by 94 million during the same period.

The Bureau’s 2003 world population data sheet puts Pakistan’s existing population at 149 million, the sixth largest in the world. According to the Pakistani government, the country was seventh population-wise globally in 2001 with 142.5 million people.

``The pace of population growth inexorably affects markets, capital accumulation, labour availability, job creation, immigration, migration, healthcare, retirement benefits, education and a host of other national considerations,`` the Bureau says.

However, officials in the Pakistani government disagree with the Bureau’s projection, saying it is rather on the higher side and does not take into account the expected slowdown in the population growth rate in the coming years. One of the official surveys last year said that if the same pace of the population continued, it would double during the next 33 years.

However, the government officials agree that increasing population at the rate of 2.06 per cent every year is indeed an issue that merits political commitment and matching actions. ``The government has been running a population planning programme for the last 40 years, but the current population growth rate still stands at around 2.1 per cent, which is quite high,`` commented Mahbubul Sultan, officiating Director of the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS).

The NIPS director minced no words in declaring that the ongoing efforts to curtail the rising population are inadequate. ``But this has more to do with issues of implementation, institutional weakness and lack of commitment in the field staff in the absence of rewards and promotions,`` said Sultan, without censuring the approach of the government’s intervention.

However, he suggested that the horizontal and vertical linkages of the population-planning programme with other public sector service delivery systems, particularly health care, would give it the required boost and increase its coverage. ``Essentially, population planning is a multi-sectoral programme, but unfortunately in Pakistan its implementation is limited to provincial population welfare departments. Only a holistic approach towards the programme and its implementation would yield the required results,`` he said.

According to official estimates, the existing 1,600 family welfare centres provide coverage to a bit over 50 per cent of the country. Although 97 per cent of the people know family planning, only 33 per cent of the women in childbearing age (15-49 years) are using some form of contraceptives.

According to one of the NIPS surveys, 33 per cent women between the ages of 15 and 49 years do not want a child, but are not using any contraceptives. The major factor of high growth rate, according to population experts, is the high fertility rate. Currently, over 40 per cent population is below 15 years of age and about 22 per cent are females in the reproductive age, a figure that is likely to increase. ``Such age structure has a built-in momentum for future population growth,`` observed the Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CRPRID), an autonomous body set up in January 2002 and housed in the Planning Commission, in one of its reports earlier this year.

The centre said that the prevalence of modern contraception was still very low and both actual and desired fertility levels were very high. ``Exceptionally, Pakistan has a large magnitude of unmet needs. In this situation, the implications are obvious for the country; by meeting the unmet needs, on one hand, it can accelerate the decline in fertility, and on the other hand, face grim consequences by ignoring the seriousness of the problem,`` the centre observed.

An exceptionally high population growth already has its impacts on the country in the form of rampant poverty in the absence of adequate policy responses to improve the situation. The population growth has caused an eight-time increase in the unemployment ratio during the last 30 years.

With almost one third of the population living in abject poverty, 54 million people do not have access to safe drinking water; 55 million people are living in one-room houses; 17 million are the residents of Katchi Abadis in urban areas; 74 million are living without sanitation facilities; and 53.5 million are illiterates. The population explosion has led to the shortage of educational facilities, health services, housing units, food, living space, arable land and clean water.

The government now hopes to bring down the population growth rate to 1.8 per cent per annum by the year 2004 as part of the objectives set by its Population Policy and Interim Population Sector Perspective Plan 2012.

While the policy sets a broad framework and provides futuristic vision to achieve the ultimate aim of reducing poverty and raising the quality of life of the common man, and the plan 2012 addresses various dimensions of population issues in an informed, voluntary and coordinated manner by government, NGOs, private sector and civil society.

The plan 2012 has five time-bound objectives: decrease the population growth rate to 1.82 per cent in 2004 and 1.6 per cent by 2012; achieve a replacement level of fertility (2.1) by the year 2020; increase contraceptive prevalence rate to 43 per cent in 2004 and to 57 per cent in 2012; increase population planning programme coverage to 76 per cent in 2004 and 100 per cent by the 2010; sustain increase in ``age at marriage`` of girls and ensure a reduction in population momentum through delay in marriage, and fertility decline and changes in birth spacing patterns, which should reduce proportion of under 15 population from 40 per cent to 30 per cent.

However, government officials say little is being done to rope in, for example, the health delivery system in expanding the coverage of the population planning programmes. Similarly, the Ministry of Population Welfare’s initiative to engage district Nazmeen and other local level leaders to boost the effort at the grassroots level did not yield much.

Against this backdrop, the population continues to rise, and so do issues arising out of the population-resources gap. ``Have and have-not nations live in totally different worlds...but they are all shaped by their rate of growth. What constitutes balanced population growth remains for each nation to decide and is a question of endless debate,`` says the Washington-based Bureau.

An astounding 99 per cent of all population growth takes place in developing countries. ``Developed countries, which held roughly one-third population in 1950, now represent less than one-fifth of the total - and the percentage will fall annually,`` the Bureau said.

With six babies adding to the population every minute, the looming socio-economic nightmare becomes all the more frightful for the debt-ridden Pakistani nation. Experts too paint a dreadful picture.

``The continuity of the trend means shortage of educational facilities, health services, food, clean water, living space, housing units, arable land, depletion of natural resources, as well as increase in poverty, unemployment, crime, unrest, environmental problems, congestion in households, land fragmentation, etc,`` said Dr Rehana Ahmed, Chief Executive, Greenstar Social Marketing, one of the most active NGOs in the field, while talking to The News in Karachi.

The government does appear alive to the gravity of the situation and is making efforts for taming the population monster, which is devastating the whole socio-economic structure of the country, sharing 2.36 per cent of the world population.

``If not controlled timely, the population bomb will explode any time. We are well aware of it and have been taking practical steps for tackling the situation,`` said Imtiaz Shaikh, Sindh Minister for Population Welfare.

``On the directives of President Musharraf, the central and provincial governments have laid special emphasis on measures for containing the population boom and raising the awareness level. And the result is that we have overreached the target of 2.1 per cent growth rate for the current year and will, God willing, achieve the 1.9 per cent national target, set for the year 2004,`` he claimed.

In her comments on the issue, Dr Rehana said: ``I believe awareness is there, but it is superficial. People do have information about family planning, but they don’t know who are the concerned persons, how to reach them, how much is the cost, etc. They are also not properly aware of the benefits involved.``

Describing the government as both ``practical`` and ``supportive`` in its approach towards family planning, she said the government did reduce the growth rate target to 2.06 in 2003 from 3.66 per cent in 1961-72, but ``it should do more of what is being done currently.``

She said that Pakistan’s resource generation was not at par with the population growth, ``which is undermining our growth in every sector.``

``This high population growth rate has almost neutralised all efforts aimed at socio-economic progress in the country and jeopardised development planning, and more so implementation. As a result the nation is deprived of even the basic civic facilities like education, health, housing, etc,`` she said.

According to Dr Rehana, about 30 per cent of the Pakistanis live below the poverty line; country’s population per doctor is 1,466, per nurse 3,347 and per hospital bed 1,517; there are only 170,000 primary schools in the country.

She believed that the situation had particularly affected the youth. ``This is evident from the eight times increase in the unemployment rate — from 0.4 per cent in 1970-71 to 3.3 currently,`` she added.

``The government has limited resources, limited budget; it can’t undertake the task alone. Partners like NGOs, social marketing organisations, private practitioners will have to collaborate,`` said Dr Rehana. The population minister too believes that ``the government efforts for taming the population monster need the support of private partners.``

Romair:

``Where does it see Kashmir twenty years from now? Is it planning on keeping hundreds of thousands of troops there for the next few decades? ``

Good question. And the answer is yes.

re: Field Marshal`s ramblings
Hey, Field Marshal Romair.
Take a break, will you. Go and smoke some cocaine or marijuana or whatever it is you used to smoke. You were more logical when you smoked.
Sridhar

Ref Field Marshal Hotair #150

[The other strange part is the lack of Indias` endgame in Kashmir. Where does it see Kashmir twenty years from now? Is it planning on keeping hundreds of thousands of troops there for the next few decades?]

Actually, that`s what the Kashmiris would very much like. The money that the Indian soldiers spend in the Valley and the money spent on visiting politicians and military bigwigs have hooked the local businessmen to such an extent that they are all enjoying the current situation. So what if a couple of shoppers get killed daily in the vegetable market in Srinagar when the guys running the nice hotels stand to make so much money?

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hamidm2 #144: ``............ i never said kashmir should be united with pakistan .......... i said kashmir should be reunited like korea and germany and taiwan .......... there is a big difference .......... .......i just can`t wait to read another long post from romair .......... don`t you think this stuff is getting rather stale?``

:-) Actually, I agree with everything you have stated. I have been saying the same thing for a long time. I don`t think Kashmir should be reunited with Pakistan either, since India would never agree to that, thus making the solution impractical. I am even willing to accept a Kashmir united with India, provided the Kashmiris vote that way. That would make me an Indian, since on Indian maps, Pakistan Kashmir belongs to India.

I also don`t think there is a military solution for Kashmir, from the Indian or Pakistani side. Hence it is useless to fight it out in places like Kargil and Siachen. And even more useless to fight it out in places like Wagah and Kutch.

There were a couple of solutions for the Kashmir problem on BBC site, as well as on the Kashmir study group site. I think the best one, that would be acceptable to everyone, would be: Pakistan keeps Azad Kashmir, India keeps Jammu and Ladakh (or close to all of it), and the Valley becomes independent, with open borders to India and Pakistan, with internationally enforced treaties on issues like water, rivers etc. This would result in a tiny area of a few thousand sq. miles becoming an indepdent country. Interestingly, this is inline with the voting patterns of those areas.

One would be barely able to spot the independent Kashmir, on the map. No one in the world would blink an eylid. Just like no one blinked when East Timor became independent. It would result in no change in lifestyles for arjun_m, Jay, dost-mittar, shankar, stuka etc. If anything, they would be much more welcomed there, than they are now.

I have never been able to figure out, why Indians do not agree to that. I think they just hate Pakistan too much, to agree. Indians could continue to hate Pakistan, and still agree to the above solution. After all, Pakistanis can continue to hate India, yet still are willing to agree to the above (or to some version of the above).

The total number of Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir now must be in the thousands. One American soldier gets killed in Iraq, and Bush`s rating goes down another point or two. So many more Indian soldiers are getting killed unnecessarily in Kashmir, and it does not affect anyone in India.

As long as the situation on Kashmir does not approve, the more extremist groups on both sides will be able to control the politics. If the military govt. (and Maulana Fazl, as head of MMA) have agreed to the above solution, then why doesn`t India agree?

The other strange part is the lack of Indias` endgame in Kashmir. Where does it see Kashmir twenty years from now? Is it planning on keeping hundreds of thousands of troops there for the next few decades?

TAhmed:

``But that was another kind of a war where the Pakistan army fought like men. Not like a bunch of cowardly killers of innocent hindu and sick villagers, as the terrorists have been doing. ``

You are talking about a war fought like gentlemen, without bitterness and hatred. Insurgency is another kind of war, much dirtier and leaves no room for nobility.

Back in 1965, a captured PAF officer would be taken to the mess for a drink before taking him to camp. Ofcourse, in those days Ii think Pakistanis were more open about drinking as well.