The obstacle in social mobility in Pakistan

As for Javed Hashmi... ok but what about Liaqat Baloch the well known murderer and now a stalwart of the MMA? ... what about the terrorism of the jamiat? MSF is a dwarf compared to your MMA ... why not arrest those people?

Making excuses for the Military regime eh? They arrested a leader of a true national party... who hadn`t in any way or form broken the law... this happened during the time that NA was in session... What amazing democracy... and what supporters of the Army`s actions...

zakkk,

Please do check your figures... 1 million votes for 68 seats (National assembly) doesn`t make sense. Polling the highest number of votes when a substantial number boycotted the polls doesn`t make sense... and what to say of those half million Afghan refugees who were given ID Cards and votes before the election?

I can`t believe how many of your expats want us to end up a theocratic talibanized state. I suppose there is no end to your selfishness... on the one hand you guys support the Mullahs and on the other hand you sing the praises of the Army.


-YLH

Wasn`t Javed Hashmi responsible for the firing the first AK 47 in a Pakistani University?

The MMA did poll the highest number of votes in two of the 4 Provinces. One of the reasons why the MMA hasn`t jumped ship and joined the government is that it`s leaders are staying anti establishment in the hope they can duplicate their success in Punjab.

Omair: your list of Gohar Ayubs relatives was quite comprehensive..I think you missed out Gohar Ayub`s, wife she was elected as an MNA this time around as well. But, to assume the family is one homogenus entity is a bit of jump! Also yes they are related through marraige to the Bilours as well to several generals.

The term Feudal does not neccessarily mean Land Lords, we do have Industrial feudals nowadays, the Sharifs and Chaudhrys of Gujarat could be seen as an example of that, Feudalism in the old sense exists in a relatively smaller area now, Southern Punjab, parts of Baluchistan and interior Sindh...

Stuka:
We use the term the same way here: ex NCO/OR, now commissioned. I didn`t think you had that many, certainly not in the senior ranks, as you yourself indicated. I think the Pakistan Army probably has more lenient age relaxation than does the Indian one. We get a lot of our officers from the enlisted ranks of the PAF, which has a much higher technical competence requirement than does the Army.

RationalFaith:
Agreed about the Army`s need for internal coherence but disagree with your implication that the Army `buys` it. We were not discussing the Army`s overall role in the country`s history (quite negative) but just whether or not the Army was relatively egalitarian/meritocratic. As compared to most other Pakistani institutions, it is. The Army is certainly resource-rich (not as rich as the PAF or the PN) compared to, say, the Education Dept. but what does this have to do with the fact that people who wouldn`t be able to get into the front door at ICI Pakistan or Pakistan Tobacco can get a real chance?

Getting your first star is mildly political in the Pakistan Army but really depends upon whether or not you`ve done the Staff College, what appointments you`ve held, how good your ACR`s are and (above all) whether or not you`ve had any major screw-ups in your career. There are very few really good officers who don`t make it that far. It helps greatly if your ex-CO is now a Corp Commander or GOC but this doesn`t keep good people down, just helps mediocrities. Now, you can argue that you won`t get posted as BM out of Staff College if you don`t know the right people or you won`t be sent on the `right` EREs, that I would disagree with to a great extent but favoritism is certainly a factor. However, a lot of it is along the lines of the PukhPukh Net or Janjua Net or other Biradari Net or ``Infantarians`` or ``Baluchis`` etc helping out a fellow member, not so much in keeping others down.

Sac:
Tikka was generally considered to be professionally quite competent if rather inflexible and unimaginative. Do you have evidence to the contrary? Musa was considered to be a loyal, if exceedingly dull, Yes-Man for Ayub (who was supposed to have been quite bad professionally--he became CinC by accident). My point wasn`t that they got their job because they were the best man for the job but that they succeeded in spite of their socio-economic origins. If the Army wasn`t relatively egalitarian, they would have quietly retired as a major somewhere, doing the quartermasters job.

You say:
``You may call it egalitarianism, I call it mediocrity. If a mere Major or Colonel can get enough moolah to jump a few social classes his NCO dad could only dream of, I am not sure what lesson to draw?``

Ummmm, the lesson I draw is that the son of a Havildar is not condemned to be a Havildar but that if he has a certain amount of drive, initiative and competence, he can do better than his father. Or does the son of the WAPDA office peon have better career prospects.

I am further amazed that you think the ability to pass promotion exams and make it to major are ipso facto evidence of mediocrity. If you argue that the promotion exams are so ridiculously easy that a West Point plebe could pass the Pakistani Army`s Captain-Major promotion exam, I would probably concede your point on mediocrity. I`ve seen the exams and helped friends study for them and they are certainly not difficult stuff to pass. Lots of less than exciting stuff on how to site machine guns or how much atta etc is used by a platoon or what did old Khalid bin Walid do at the battle of Yarmuk or Rommel at El Alamein but you`ve clearly missed the point of the whole exam. It is to gauge minimum levels of competence, not to see who is the ``best.``

To Be Continued

Hamidm,

Javed Hashmi`s arrest represents the true freedom and democracy ushered by Musharraf and celebrated by the great political, business, and literary mind ... aka Field Marshal Air Chief Marshal, 4 star general, the Bill Gates of Pakistan... the one and only Umair Raja.

The conditions of men and women under the MMA government in NWFP are appalling... soon Peshawar will look like Kandahar of Mullah Omar`s time... and some a-holes sitting in their cosy houses in the freedom of Canada are actually celebrating the Military backed rigged triumph of the MMA as a great achievement for Pakistan.

After reading the comments of Hamidm, sac and others have just catalyzed something which I already was in the process of doing... joining the Pakistan Peoples` Party...

I am surprised at the figures that Romair is trying to pass off so innocently. If anything the `United PML` is exactly that band of feudals that he claims to be so opposed to. It is not on any manifesto or ideology ... these are the remnants of those `Unionists` who had before partition opposed the League and the Congress and then in the end had jumped on the bandwagon of the League when Pakistan was around the corner. PPP is ideologically the successor of the leftist liberal element of the pre-Partition League and the Pakistan Movement which was epitomized by great men like Mian Iftikharuddin, Meraj Khalid, Rao Rasheed and J A Rahim.

PM

I am not sure what you mean when you say that my support for the PPP is purely pragmatic... it is ideological. I support the PPP because to me it represents the progressive forward bloc of the real Muslim League and the Pakistan Movement... that Mian Iftikharuddin represented at one point. While I am not a fan of state control of resources, I am ideologically allied with the left.

I am not associating the Honor killing culture with the MMA... read what I wrote once more instead of defending the air marshal without real reasons. The Honor killing is after all a tribal issue or in other cases a feudal one... What has this `MMA` done to stop it? FOR GOD`S SAKE THEY ARE IN THE ABSOLUTE MAJORITY IN NWFP... couldn`t they have a put an end to it... So much for the Counterfeit coin`s suggestion that MMA is a solution to the feudal problem....

Mullah dethroned the conventional politicians of NWFP on 1) Anti-Americanism 2) Foreign Pushtoon vote... even then they managed a paltry 1 million or so votes... Your claim that the loser Romair`s figures are right shows that you too have a purdah in front of your eyes.. while he is right that the MMA won 11% of the votes, were the mainstream parties allowed to mobilize their workers? No... and even then PPP won 3 times as many votes.


You know you are wrong in supporting this militaristic monster... but you will go on supporting him, because you are you... and I won`t fault you for that... and yes you are still welcome to the beach luxury attempt... despite your temporary madness.

-YLH

tahmed,

......... as usual i was stretching a bit to make a point ............. there are many fine men in the aec ....... my favourite cousin left lawrence college and joined aec to teach the idiots at kakul............

.............since i grew up on groceries from the csd, my beef is not with individuals in the army, what bugs me is what the army has done to all other institutions while claiming to be holier than the pope ............they are not ........... it is sort of petty to point out the petty larceny that goes on among the uniformed and the uninformed but, as my little one would say, ``they started it!``

............ i don`t think if my father ever mentioned wavell`s son but according to him wavell walked on water and auchinleck was an idiot .......... i don`t even know or care who auchinleck was ......... as for dinner with the queen, he was part of the contingent that went to pay homage to malika sahiba on her coronation and made fools of themselves by marching in turbans through trafalgar square and scaring off the pigeons!

Romair #48 gets the sitara-i-juraat for his vast knowledge for his vast knowledge of the family tree of the frontier military...you missed a few families, but never mind.

Hamidm #127 gets the sword of honor because your dad met the Queen. Way to go, hamidm.

more seriously to hamidm: Incidentally, did your dad ever mention wavell`s son - he was quite a character i understand, having lost both hands and still able to take good care of himself as an army officer (my dad went on a course in the early 1950`s to england where he met him). He was later killed by the mau-mau in Kenya.

And now, hamidm, it is my duty to defend the honor of the (drum roll) AEC. the Army Education Corps. I have known too many fine, honorable AND talented men from this corps to let you cast aspersions on them. Examples:

a. There was this NCO in AEC. imprisoned by brits at kala pani or someplace because he was such a bloody revolutionary in his younger days. man of many talents. great photographer. impressed me the most the day he beat the stuffing out of the pakistan national youth ping pong champion (who was visiting us in upper topa where this man was still working as a civilian employee after retirement - the AEC was his family since he never married or had any relations we knew of) - even though this man was in his 70`s and the ping pong champion was a big mouth teenager who had just returned from a tournament in china. He had the champion running all over the room trying to catch his masterful spins and dazzling shots. Yeah!!

b. Then there was this chappie retired as brigadier who used to work at the same military school as my father. great sense of humor. voluntarily put his own career on the line to stand by my father during a rough patch my dad went through since he knew my dad was right. after retirement, he started a school that has done very well.

c. This gentleman who was principal of cadet college chittagong. Still remembered by his students in Bangladesh (even though he was west pakistani himself). Was the first pakistani principal of cadet college hasanabdal (the previous principals had all been brits, and very fine people too). Lived up to expectations and maintained and improved upon the high class all-round education standards set by the previous principals. Later went on to become principal of aitchison college. A great gentleman, great sense of humor, and a life-long family friend.

d. This other gentleman, who as also principal cadet college chittagong. Risked his life to stay with his college during the turmoil of 1971. Paid with his life for his concern for his (bengali) students when the mukti bahini came to his home and killed him as a soft target.

The list goes on. But just take it easy when you feel the urge to knock the Army Education Corps. OK, dokay?

..... what is all this about?............ have the blasphemy laws been extended to cover the coas(?) in addition to allah(swt) and his prophet(pbuh)?

``a senior Pakistani opposition leader, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, is under arrest accused of defaming the army. ``... bbc

Fuzair: Actually we have a lot of ranker officers. I think we define ``ranker`` differently though. In India, a ``ranker`` is a person who enlists in the ranks and then becomes an officer. There are loads of those but they rarely go above major or Lt Colonel and age is a big issue there. They become commissioned say in their late 20S OR EARLY 30s and then reach retirement age around Major rank.

I think u are referring to ``rankers`` as sons of those whose father was a ranker. If that is a case, I would say that in absolute terms, a disproportionatley large number of officers are sons of JCOs and SNCOs.

Fuzair #129

Armies, in general, tend to be more egalitarian. Militaries need internal cohesion far more than do other institutions.

In Pakistan`s case this cohesion becomes easier in the army than elsewhere because the miltiary is the only resource-rich institution in the country. This affords the military certain social luxuries that may not be available elsewhere, except in the private corporate sector.

So IMO claims of egalitarianism are more a red herring than anything else, as far the military`s overall role in the nation is concerned.

re stuka;

Yes.

re fuzair and hamidm;

hamidm has this habit of stealing my thunder but I don`t mind :)

If Musa or Tikka khan were success stories in the army, were they there because of their professional excellence, military egalitarianism or some other factor(s)? Now please don`t tell me that Zia was a sword winner or Ayub could lead his platoon blindfolded through the jungle. Army progression through to Major rank is pretty much automatic if you pass the requisite courses and not mess with the Colonel`s daughter. You may call it egalitarianism, I call it mediocrity. If a mere Major or Colonel can get enough moolah to jump a few social classes his NCO dad could only dream of, I am not sure what lesson to draw?

After the Lt Col. level there are so many other factors besides professionalism that to argue a meritocracy would be missing the obvious. These days it wouldn`t hurt to be a mohajir or having a penchant for whisky. Egalitarian my ass!!

As for Phds identified by the Field Marshal, the guys were sent in the late 80s to 2nd tier Universities in droves because the US aid spigots were open. Most of them spent years failing their Masters requirements. Drove taxi cabs in the meantime and after 5-6 years went back to Muzzafargarh. The rest had to transfer to third rate places like Michigan St. and kiss a lot of Chapta ass in ``challenging`` departments like Civil and Mechanical Engg. for upwards of ten years in some cases to get their Phds. Obviously the glorious republic of Pakistan paid for their sojourn in the land of the plenty. They have gone back but may I ask has anyoen of them even published on research paper in any journal of repute?

later
-sac

Hamidm,

I still stand by what I said about the Army`s egalitarianism. Do you really think that the WAPDA SDO is ever likely to become Chairman WAPDA (if the Army was to give it up) the same way that Musa or Tikka Khan became Army Chiefs? Or that the SDO is possibily going to become the WAPDA equivalent of a Lt. Gen or even a Maj. Gen? (BTW, what is the WAPDA equivalent of this?) What about Sui Gas or any other govt owned enterprise? And how about the Civil Service? Sure, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Secretary General in Chief, or some such ridiculous title, came up through the Provincial Civil Service but was he a peon? Or did he start as a Grade 16 equivalent?

And just because the lower ranks of WAPDA (or anything else) are staffed by people from the lower rungs of the socio-economic scale doesn`t make the institution egalitarian or meritocratic. It simply means that its lower ranks come from the lower end of the socio-economic scale.

So, for better or worse, the Army is pretty much it in Pakistan.

As far as the petty theft you mention, yes it is certainly true. Many officers do this and the Services are particularly bad and if one is lucky enough to do LP, then one makes even more money but most of it is still pretty much petty theft. Sad but true but a good CO puts an end to most of it. Unfortunately, its getting harder to come by good COs these days. There was one Commandant of the PBG who was taking most of his horses` chara and carting it off to feed his mujjes. Consequently, the horses were in bad shape and the Commandant of the Pindi MVH had to put the PBG on an adverse report and stop their polo! The Commandant was replaced. So, yes, these sort of things do happen, much more so now then 20-30 years ago. But, is it as commonplace as it is in the rest of the country? Now, thats not saying much but every now and then the Army does do some internal housecleaning! Not as much as it should but some.

THE NEXUS

---

Following is the family tree of Gohar Ayub. He is the son of Gen Ayub, and a regular minister from PML. His family runs through all the areas of power in NWFP/Pakistan:

Gohar Ayub (regular MNA from PML)

- Son of: Gen Ayub (President of Pakistan)
- Son-in-law of: Gen Habibullah Khattak (appointment Chairman National Industrial Commission by Gen Ayub. He is a big industrialist)
- Brother of: Akhtar Ayub (member of West Pakistan Assembly)
- Brother of: Shaukut Ayub (industrialist)
- Brother of: Nasim Ayub (married to Miangul Aurangzed - Wali of Swat, Governor of NWFP and governor of Baluchistan in 1997-1999)
- Father of: Omar Ayub (current PML(Q) MNA)
- Father of: can`t remember her name (wife of Iqbal Saifullah of Saifullah family)
- Uncle of: can`t remember her name (married into Khakwani family of Multan)
- Grand Uncle of: don`t have her name: (married to Chaudhry Wajahat - younger brother of Chaudhry Shujaat, who is the head of PML(Q), and most powerful politician of Pakistan

The fun doesn`t stop here:

The Saifullah and Khattak families, i.e. Ayub`s inlaws are dynasties of their own:

- Gohar Ayub`s son-in-law`s (Iqbal Saifullah`s) brother, Humayun Saifullah was an MNA from PPP
- His other brother, Salim Saifullah is the head of PML(Q) in NWFP
- A third brother, Anwar Saifullah was a minister of Natural resources in the PPP govt. of Benazir. He was recently held by NAB
- Anwar Saifullah is the son-in-law of ex President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. This would make Ghulam Ishaq Khan the father in law of one brother (Anwar) and Gohar Ayub the father in law of the other brother (Iqbal Saifullah)
- President Ghulam Ishaq Khan`s other son-in-law, Irfanullah Marwat, was the Education Minister of Sindh

Now to the Khattaks:

- Gen Habibullah (father in law of Gohar) is the step brother of Aslam Khattak, and the real maternal Uncle of the Saifullah brothers.
- Aslam Khattak was the governor of NWFP under Bhutto`s govt. He was an assembly member of various occassions under Bhutto and Zia
- Aslam Khattak`s step brother, Yosuf Khattak, was a General Secretary of PML, after independence
- Aslam Khattak`s son-in-law is Nawabzada Mohsin Ali Khan. He was a minister in the provincial assembly of NWFP. He then got elected as an independent. And is now with Imran Khan`s Tehrik-i-Insaaf, as a member of NWFP assembly.
- Khattak`s son Lt. Gen. Ali Quli Khan Khattak was supposed to be the next COAS, until Nawaz Sharif appointed Musharraf over him

I hope everyone gets the idea. The list goes on and on. They are all related. These are only the relations I know of. If you dig furthur, they will be related to others also. I believe they are related to the Bilour political family of ANP, also (not sure though).

Even if every one of these guys in honest, and running NWFP honestly, it still is strange that all the talent of NWFP is concentrated in these three or four families. Is everyone else in NWFP completely useless? And if they are so good, then why is NWFP so backwards?

And most of all, all these guys are spread out through all the parties, PPP, PML, ANP, Beurecracy (GI Khan), Army (not any more, though) and business. And, they switch parties, back and forth. Thus, it doesn`t matter who or which party, is running the country, it is all within the family.

And what chance in hell does anyone have of defeating them? I am really surprised the mullahs were able to kick some of them out.

#123 by romair is typical of the kind of crap that he doles out which is supposedly based on the the cirle of ten uniformed clowns that he knows ``personally`` ..............well if we are going to drop names, then my old man was on wavell`s staff, had his picture taken with auchinleck, had dinner with the queen in buckingham palace, and i was running up and down the hills of kakul while he was still peeing in his pants!......... so there!

.......... all these lame stories about Ph.d`s in service are totally out of context .........signals, eme and engineers are not representative of the army which is full of fools with B.Sc. (two year) degrees fromn the university of peshawar ............ i sat through some of those classes taught by hapless majors from the aec - guys who could not get jobs as lecturers at the local college and instead learned to put on a uniform and salute in ten weeks at abbotabad (sorry, tahmed)..................and these dang Ph.D`s (from michigan state and georgia tech) were also earned at the poor pakistani tax payer`s expense .......... and lest you start feeling sorry for these brilliant lt. col`s at NUST, don`t forget that they also have lucrative technolgy ventures on the side (anyone heard of enabling technologies!).......... so all this is hogwash.......... most of us, including me, went to grad school on full assistantships and not on handouts from the pakistan army................ so this is all hogwash - lufangebazi, as ahmedmadani would say ............

.......... where was i?.............. oh, let`s talk about the selfless army surgeons..........anyone heard of heart`s international on the mall in pindi which does just as many open heart surgeries as the army institute of cardiology down the street?........ guess who owns it - general zulfiqar and his uniformed cronies who are minting millions even as they serve the nation............ hop on down to shifa international and check out some of the specialists o their staff ..........want to talk about what goes on at pof in wah?

.......... of course there are many decent and honorable junior officers who are willing to lay down their life for their country - but that`s what they are paid to do and we should all be thankful............ but the army, as an institution is as corrupt as it can be .......... it is as bad as wapda and the railways, but unlike them it puts on this air of piety that is sickening !