HPC Pakistan's cry for "water"<>The Water’s Edge (the Indus Waters); In Pakistan tribal belt, female reporters get a voice; True to Tradition

Shortages in Public Protection, Water and God Knows what else! Wednesday, 16 September 2009 These days we are so bombarded by the Media about the shortages that we are facing, that we can no more react appropriately! Therein lies the salvation of the Government, as long as the public are so dazed by all the chaos eminating from the shortage drama, we the people can t recover and react to bring down the government and throw out the useless people who have failed to give us the stability we so desperately need! The crimes against citizen's lives has shot up! never before have we read, heard, and learnt of people being murdered as we do now! In short the agency paid to protect the public has failed! Police is too occupied providing protection to public servants and politicians, they have less or no time for us, the people of pakistan who pay their wage bills, ie their fancy bungalows, their latest cars their allowances, cell phones, and heaven knows what other perks they sneak off with !!! The Sugar & Flour crisis has also been manipulated by the landed and industrial mafia who also sit in the halls of power, it is my submission, that all these so called shortages are attempts to buldoze their demands down the people and governments throat, where they already have support so the ones that end up getting hit the hardest are the lowest of the low who already barely survive! Manipulation is the name of the game! another one that raises its ugly head is the Petroleum Price! dont forget them! While on the subject of shortages, the other day the PM got the opportunity to drop a couple of clangors! in a very nonchalant manner in passing! Yes I have already shared my concerns with you on the gravest crisis yet to shake up our Motherland, WATER . I dont just mean drinking water, I mean waters of our rivers that have already begun to run dry and  villages are cropping up on the alluvial soil of their beds! For those of you who had yet to see the light of day back in 1962, the Indus Water basin Treaty will hold no significance except the comments that are made in passing; at the time, as public servant had the guts to question the then government about their plans to sign the treaty, he was subsequently threatened with his life, and told to stay silent, and to his dying day he spoke of the wrong that was perpetuated through its signing. He was none other than the renowned Masud Khaddarposh, the only public servant who spoke in the interest of the down-trodden and the harm to the Motherland, his notes of dissent on the Hari repost and the Indus water Treaty are on record for all to see. The proof of that specific meeting on the treay are the two photographs recording the presence of Field Marshal M Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Foreign Minister of Pakistan in a meeting with Key Establishment officials at the Civil Services Academy, in 1962. In one shot Mr. Masud is seen questioning the aspects of the treaty that concerned him most. Today we see and hear of the impending doom that is to hit this country, thanks to key people who were paid millions by the Indians to stop the Kalabagh dam from being built! Our salvation lies in that dam we must see the light! and we must build that dam!   The Water's Edge Posted by: Bill Wheeler , Ted McGrath on July 13, 2009 Through two wars and a half-century of suspicion and resentment, the Indus Waters Treaty has governed the sharing of a strategic river between the bitter nuclear rivals eager to control and to profit from it. But will India and Pakistan's treaty survive the emerging water crisis? Halfway between Islamabad and Peshawar, the Indus River dips beneath the smooth six-lane blacktop of Pakistan's National Highway. One day last month, I stood on the shoulder and watched the river ripple beneath the bridge. It was an olive ribbon half as wide as the riverbed, where standing puddles glinted in the afternoon sun. It looked like a creek. Or a dying river. The Indus—the name comes from the Sanskrit for "river"—is an ecological icon of the subcontinent that bears its name. Like all great rivers, it shaped the history of the ancient civilizations that appeared along its banks. Over the last century, it has grown an exoskeleton: a sprawling system of canals that has expanded into what is now the world's largest irrigation basin fed by a single river. It is a big job that's taken a heavy toll. Today, hundreds of miles downstream, the river, deprived of runoff from receding glaciers and choked by upstream diversions, no longer reaches the sea. And the sea has pushed back, intruding into the mainland, destroying millions of acres of crops and causing the evacuation of whole towns. It is a parable of human demand and its limitations. Inevitably, the consequences are political. The river's flow has always been a source of tension between India and Pakistan, both of whom rely on it to generate hydroelectric power and to irrigate their agricultural heartland, and it springs from the heart of their most bitter dispute. The headwaters of the Indus and its tributaries flow south and west from Himalayan Kashmir, watering the rich Punjabi farmland on either side of the border, and into Pakistan where they merge and continue together toward the Arabian Sea. On a map, the waters look like a forked bolt of lightning, or a claw that reaches across a volatile divide. In 1947, the partitioning of India and Pakistan divided the Indus basin, and the river became a potential source of conflict. In the six decades since, the river system has been a cauldron of tensions that have inevitably increased as the world became warmer and more populous. But for nearly as long, a unique accord, the Indus Waters Treaty, has, if not kept the peace, at least restrained the conflict. "The Indus treaty is one of the chapters that is taught in all universities when you talk about conflict and cooperation," says Kishor Uprety, a senior World Bank lawyer who has spent his career working on development and legal issues about rivers. It's a sign of the treaty's success, he argues, that India and Pakistan have only fought two wars since it was signed. "Without a treaty," he says, "there would have been five or six  wars between them." Today, both countries are plagued by water stress—strained by demand from booming populations and increased competition for the Indus's dwindling resources. Against the river's fickle currents, dams and large reservoirs offer a measure of control, allowing each country to produce desperately needed food and energy: The Indus's waters are a critical outlet in the quest for power to fuel India's 8-percent annual growth rate, and the water lifeline on which Pakistan's agriculture-based economy relies, even amid the turmoil of fighting that has displaced some 2 million people there in recent months. And while the seven major river basins in South Asia, which are home to a quarter of the world's population, are all vulnerable to the unpredictable effects of climate change, the Indus's flow is uniquely dependent—to a startlingly unclear extent—on the seasonal runoff from rapidly shrinking Himalayan glaciers. Taken together, the incalculable impact of these factors raises questions about the future of the Indus, and the stakes for the rivals building new dams to harness its power. "I believe it will come crashing into conflict sooner rather than later." —John Briscoe, former World Bank senior advisor "There is insufficient data to say what will happen to the Indus," says David Grey, the World Bank's senior water advisor in South Asia. "But we all have very nasty fears that the flows of the Indus could be severely, severely affected by glacier melt as a consequence of climate change," and reduced by perhaps as much as 50 percent. "Now what does that mean to a population that lives in a desert [where], without the river, there would be no life? I don't know the answer to that question," he says. "But we need to be concerned about that. Deeply, deeply concerned." Amid tensions over a spate of Indian dams being built upstream in Kashmir, and water crises destabilizing both countries from within, will the region's fragile politics survive the environmental crises? Facing $4.5 billion in annual losses from environmental disaster, Pakistan formed a task force on climate change last year to investigate global warming's potential impact on the nation. The task force, says one of its cochairmen, the 76-year-old Shamsul Mulk, is now "aiming at developing the capacity to at least be able to give some estimates" of the coming change in its water patterns. "We are not the culprits of climate change—you are the culprit," he tells me, meaning the western world, over a tea tray in an office parlor in a leafy residential neighborhood of Islamabad. "And you have done nothing about it." If Mulk is unnerved by the lack of data it is because he has spent his career tending to Pakistan's delicate hydrology, and he understands its narrow margins. His was a generation of engineers that brought a fledgling, arid nation through its environmentally challenged infancy. He also served as director at Mangla, one of the country's largest dams, which displaced more than 100,000 Kashmiri villagers when it was built under the terms of the Indus treaty. There is disagreement over the factors behind the Indus's decline—reduced glacial runoff, the heavy silt erosion typical of young mountains, and Pakistan's own upstream diversions. "It's very hard to prove any causation," says Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "but across many different sectors of Pakistani society there is a belief that India is responsible for water scarcity, including the fact the rivers are disappearing." When I ask Mulk why his country is so suspicious of its upstream neighbor, he tells me a story. In the months before partition, Pakistani officials had been worried that India might turn the tap on the British-built canals under its control. "Pakistan was misled by their apparently very sincere statements. 'How could a brother stop water to a brother?' These were their exact words," Mulk tells me. On April 1, 1948, India shut the canal gates and cut off water. About 1.7 million acres of productive land went out of cultivation, he goes on, and with it almost as many jobs. India denies it was a strategic calculation, but the incident is a constant reminder in Pakistan of its vulnerability should India decide to starve or flood it—either as an act of war, or an act of espionage, or even as reckless disregard to undermine its posture in diplomatic negotiations. Tensions were high at that time. The countries had already fought over the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir, stoking fears in diplomatic circles that a struggle for the Indus could provoke a series of intractable wars. An American named David Lilienthal traveled the region in 1951, on assignment for Collier's magazine, and soon took up a role negotiating the dispute. A former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Lilienthal envisioned a shared management of the river basin that would rely on cooperation between technocrats, which he hoped might transcend the political problems and possibly even lead to a Kashmir settlement. It was an engineer's solution, and was soon thwarted by politics. Only after nine frenzied years of debate, and under the firm hand of the World Bank, did a solution emerge: India would get control of the three tributaries that flow through Kashmir; Pakistan would get the Indus and the two western tributaries. There has been resentment in both countries ever since—Indians unhappy with Pakistan's 75-percent allocation of the waters and Pakistanis upset because 90 percent of the irrigated land was in India's territory. Now silt from the natural erosion of the Himalayas is clogging up Pakistan's canal system, which delivers water to other parts of the country, and there is a food shortage in many areas of Pakistan. As Mulk looks to worsening food and energy crises, he sees large dams as a necessary part of the solution. Which means the Indus. Which means that the treaty that safeguards Pakistan's interest must be honored, especially if the river falters as the planet warms. But that will mean a renewed commitment to the spirit of the treaty, and the sacrifice it requires. "Even between a husband and a wife, as long as there is a sustained mutuality of benefits that relationship will remain," Mulk says. "The moment it is not, then that relationship has a problem." "We have learned to share affluence. But sharing poverty is not so easy." Mulk believes the compact should be guarded jealously: It allows for Indian hydroelectric projects upstream on Pakistan's tributaries, he concedes, but those provisions "have to be interpreted" not to allow projects that store too much water, which could then be withheld during the lean winters or crucial agricultural phases. Some Indians consider Pakistan's myriad objections to be baseless saber-rattling. I start to ask Mulk if his fears were proportional to the threat. "I will just say," he cuts me off, his mood darkening, "Is it against the treaty? Because I don't want this treaty to be slowly and steadily eroded on the basis— well, it is a very minor thing, it is insignificant," he says. "It is essential that you stop the erosion on day one." In addition to being a nuclear power, Pakistan is also, a land divided by mountains and deserts, corruption and inequality, paranoia and conspiracy. It's a nation literally at war with itself, and trying to pull itself together. As such, it has a hand in its own problems. Just as the canal-replacement system (which Mulk worked on when he was 27) ranks as a great success, Mulk admits, the country's water management has its share of "tragic failures," namely the extreme inequities in distribution at the heart of its public-health crises: As many as a quarter of the country's illnesses come from a lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Islamabad's diversion of water to upstream communities with ties to the government are inflaming sectarian loyalties and stoking unrest in the lower downstream region of Sindh. And in the port city of Karachi, water theft—in which public water is stolen from the pipes and sold from thousands of tankers around the city, especially in slums—may be a $500-million industry, says Mustafa Talpur, a Pakistani water activist. The water theft is also a mark of the state's decreasing capacity to provide for its own in a city of 17 million people that is "an ethnic and sectarian tinderbox waiting to explode," as the political commentator Ahmed Rashid recently described it. "It's been going on for 20 years," Talpur says, "but it's getting worse because all our governance is getting worse in Pakistan. Everything is really messed up institutionally." The Indian perspective regarding water tensions is that Pakistan has made unreasonable objections to projects needed to sustain India's 8-percent annual growth rate and a population of more than a billion. Despite its status as an emerging economic giant, India is also a truly parched state in which millions of people face water and power shortages and where—as in Pakistan—politicians can win office on campaign promises to bring water to desperate communities. But to learn about why the country's hydro projects in Kashmir were so important, and whether Pakistan had reason to fear them, I spoke with Ashok Jaitly, former chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir (the Indian-administered area of Kashmir) who now works for the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi. He called Pakistani objections "a delaying tactic." "Every time we take up a project on any of the rivers," he says, "Pakistan objects. That's almost a given policy and we expect that." He says that India's dams upstream on Pakistan's rivers are all, in accordance with the treaty, "run of the river" dams, which use the flow of water to generate power, then release it again. "It's not reducing the flow of the water," he says. "But, yes, you do manage water for hydro-generation and therefore there is a change in the timing of the flow, which is—which should be—acceptable." He continues, "They are always free to look at the design and the structures and express their views on it. But at the end of the day, we also have a right to the water. We are not denying them their right." But Pakistan doesn't trust its agricultural lifeblood to Indian hands. For most of its existence, the treaty's arbitration clause remained untried; then Pakistan, concerned about the impact of an Indian dam called Baglihar, being built upstream, invoked the measure of last resort and a neutral expert was appointed to mediate in 2005. India kept building and, two years later, the arbitrator ruled that modifications should be made to accommodate both sides. The Baglihar episode proved, says the World Bank's David Grey, that "the treaty worked—both parties accepted the ruling, and then proceeded accordingly." "If somebody on [the Indian] side of the border turns off water and creates a scarcity, it would be so obvious. Nobody's going to be that idiotic, unless it's an act of war"—Ashok Jaitly, former chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir But the controversy didn't end there. When India filled the dam last October, Pakistan says its water share was halved, threatening hundreds of canals, and millions of acres of crops. The Pakistani press was alive with claims of "hydrological warfare" and predictions—as well as threats—of a water war going nuclear. For some Pakistanis, the episode confirmed India's designs "to deprive Pakistan of water and render it into a desert," as an op-ed in Pakistan's Nation newspaper recently articulated it. For others, it is a reminder of their downstream susceptibility to Indian negligence or malfeasance, even as new Indian dams are being built with greater potential to disrupt Pakistani crop cycles and hydropower generation downstream. Jaitly argues that Pakistan's objections came late in the game, and that India's project was allowed to go forward with some modifications. But John Briscoe, a former senior water advisor at the World Bank, says Indian authorities were "not fully forthcoming on either inspections or information." To him, the issues with the Baglihar dam established a worrisome precedent—to build first and inform later: that Indian authorities, in their quest to meet pressing needs, will continue to ride roughshod over Pakistani objections, provoking a dangerous feedback loop of intransigence on both sides. Until the Mumbai attacks overshadowed it last November, the dispute over planned dams with environmentally questionable impacts became the leading threat to improving relations between the countries. But the focus on big dams, says Jaitly, is part of a mentality that obscures the need to manage demand with conservation, water tariffs, and an end to destructive but politically popular practices in both countries. "In many cases we are not doing the right things," Jaitly says. "But their policies are as bad as ours. Maybe even worse." Pakistan is too dependent on an agriculture-based economy and is plagued by inefficiency and mismanagement, he says, pointing to major diversions of rivers within Pakistan that benefit the elite upstream land barons that have triggered unrest in the country's downstream provinces. "They still have a very feudal land structure, so their water management is that much more inefficient than ours," he says. He acknowledges that Pakistan faces the threat that Indian dams could be used to turn off the water—theoretically, at least. "If somebody on this side of the border turns off water and creates a scarcity or suddenly opens it and floods downstream, it would be so obvious," says Jaitly. "Nobody's going to be that idiotic, unless it's an act of war—which is of course a totally different ball game. But it hasn't been done so far. And hopefully it won't be done." And what about the canal dispute in 1948? Jaitly says it was a temporary reduction to clean the canals. "Nobody attached any great significance to it over here. They made a bit of a noise. But then, Pakistan always keeps making a bit of noise as far as we are concerned." But life downstream is less certain. Tariq Hassan, his Harvard Law diploma on the wall behind him in his office, can speak to the view that India flexed its might in treaty negotiations. Hassan was a senior lawyer at the World Bank and the chairman of Pakistan's Securities and Exchange Commission, and now heads his own law firm in Islamabad. He calls the water debate "one of the most strategic issues facing the subcontinent. If there is a war here in the future," he tells me, "it will be over water." Hassan came by his wariness naturally. His father, Sheikh Ahmad Hassan, a junior member of Pakistan's negotiating team during the debate that formed the Indus treaty, who would later became the country's secretary of irrigation and power. He was an outspoken critic of the treaty for what he saw as a surrender of the eastern tributaries. ("President Ayub Khan threatened him with treason if he didn't stop talking about it," Tariq says. "My brother swears he's seen the actual letter.") The salient lesson he learned from his father: No country gives away its water rights. The lesson came back to him during the Baglihar debate, in which Tariq Hassan played a role as an advisor to Pakistan's finance minister. Hassan says he argued that Pakistan should negotiate the dispute itself without invoking the arbitration clause, because, he figured, by the time the ruling was made, India would already have finished construction (which it did). Hassan feared that, no matter what the arbitrator believed was fair, he wouldn't rule that India should unbuild its dam. The problem, he says, is that, rather than distribute the scarcity between both parties—as would have happened in a joint-management system—the treaty made Pakistan dependent on Indian goodwill. "At the end of the day," he asks, leaning back in his armchair with a wry smile, "who's monitoring the tap? We've already lost three rivers, and it depends on how long they want to behave if we will lose the others. The treaty will hold until it becomes unbearable, and then there will be a water war. Of course," he adds, "the treaty will still be intact." "[Water is] one of the most strategic issues facing the subcontinent. If there is a war here in the future, it will be over water." —Tariq Hassan Kishor Uprety, the World Bank lawyer, says he is confident the treaty will survive. "History has told us that the Indus treaty was designed the right way. Pakistan has lost some but gained some. India has lost some and gained some. Both countries are winning," he says. It's a cautious enthusiasm shared by several of his colleagues at the World Bank, which is the treaty's guarantor and is still involved in the negotiations. But behind that optimism is the reality that "history" will be less applicable as the environment changes. And the World Bank no longer has the same influence it did when the nations were young and the politics less involved. More relevant than whether the treaty survives is whether each side feels it is winning more than it would lose. This is a delicate balancing act that depends as much on the spirit as the letter of the law. And it will face serious pressures from the combined effect of India's planned projects, according to John Briscoe. "In the case of Baglihar," he says, "had the decision gone against India, who had already basically built the dam, there would unquestionably have been calls to abrogate the treaty." He believes that both sides are dragging their feet, creating a conflict that jeopardizes the fragile peace the treaty sustains. "I believe it will come crashing into conflict sooner rather than later," he says. The treaty, like the river, connects both countries in a fragile political ecology. While it has not settled the Kashmir dispute, or prevented war, it represents the single thread between the countries that has never been cut, its commissioners meeting and paying their dues and preserving the singular line of communication between the nations that has remained open through wars and public calls to abrogate it. Negotiations over the water issues between the two countries, derailed by last November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, are taking up where they left off, with a Pakistani delegation heading to India as this piece goes to press. In a January article for The Washington Post, the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, made the link explicit: "The water crisis in Pakistan is directly linked to relations with India. Resolution could prevent an environmental catastrophe in South Asia, but failure to do so could fuel the fires of discontent that lead to extremism and terrorism." A serious challenge will be how each country manages its resources—within and across the boundaries, and considering the wounded history between them. As a lawyer, Kishor Uprety takes heart from the treaty's potential to resolve both countries' differences. "But one has to understand," he cautions, that a treaty is "first and foremost a political instrument, and politicians will ultimately be responsible for either respecting it or disrespecting it. The future is absolutely uncertain. "Even when you build a dam," he says, "it has an age. Even a dam breaks." LEARN MORE Hear David Grey, the World Bank Water Adviser, talk about the impact of climate change to South Asia. Hear B.G. Vergese, Indian author and critic, talk about Pakistani allegations against India's water policies. Hear Mustafa Talpur, a water activist in Islamabad, talk about Pakistani water policies. To learn more about William Wheeler and Anna-Katarina Gravgaard's water project, "South Asia's Troubled Waters," visit the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting website. Anna-Katarina Gravgaard contributed reporting from New Delhi. This story was funded in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. For more information about Wheeler and his Pulitzer Center project, click here. Illustrations by Ted McGrath. In Pakistan tribal belt, female reporters get a voice Radio Khyber's female journalists defy a Pashtun tenet barring women from being heard by strangers. Even so, the Taliban-wary trailblazers avoid issues such as women's rights and tribal politics. Asma Nawar edits a segment for Radio Khyber, which airs in northwestern Pakistan s tribal belt, an area partly controlled by the Taliban. The female reporters focus primarily on children, education and healthcare. (Alex Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times / August 17, 2009)

By Alex Rodriguez

August 18, 2009

Reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan - Radio Khyber airs in the heart of Pakistan's wild and volatile tribal areas, where women are bound by strict centuries-old codes of conduct handed down by generations of Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in northwestern Pakistan.

The code's tenets are oppressive and nonnegotiable. Women should confine themselves to their homes and the sole task of raising children. When they go to markets and other public places, a male relative should accompany them. And their voices should never be heard by strangers.

Asma Nawar, a 25-year-old Pashtun with wide brown eyes and a crisp, resonant voice, repeatedly breaks that last rule as a reporter for Radio Khyber.

"I feel good about that," she says, peering out from the maroon-and-yellow veil that covers the rest of her face. "I can't say that our cultural values are wrong, but I think women should come out and work, and get the jobs they want."

Nawar and two other women hired in the last year as reporters for the radio station see themselves as trailblazers in a part of Pakistan that mires its women in old world thinking.

The Taliban, which believes in keeping women away from college and work, still controls large swaths of Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border. In the poverty-ravaged Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the dismal 3% literacy rate for women is far lower than the already low overall rate of 17% for the region.

Additionally, the Taliban does not hesitate to demonstrate its views on education for women. This year, Taliban militants burned down scores of girls' schools throughout the Swat Valley.

Nawar narrows her gaze when the subject of the Taliban comes up.

"We know they are listening to us," she says in a studio at the University of Peshawar, where she and Radio Khyber's other two female journalists prepare and edit their radio pieces. "Am I worried? No, because I'm doing the right job."

Based in the village of Jamrud, 28 miles from the border with Afghanistan, Radio Khyber is able to employ women as journalists because its editors and producers know just how far to push the boundaries.

They minimize the risks for the women by barring them from doing stories in the tribal areas. And they have Nawar and her female colleagues focus primarily on children, education and healthcare, considered here as women's issues. Subjects such as tribal politics and regional military operations are off-limits. Their editors ask them to not conduct interviews in the homes of women, a practice that Pashtun society frowns on.

RadioKhyber director Taib Afridi also discourages his female journalists from delving into issues of women's rights. Stories interpreted by tribal elders as calls for women in the tribal areas to rise up could trigger a strong backlash against the station, Afridi says.

"The dilemma for women in [the tribal areas] is that they can go to the village water tank to get water, but to go to a hospital or a school, a wedding or a funeral, they need to be accompanied by a male," he says.

"These journalists must be very careful to not give advice that could be viewed as promoting women's rights or empowerment," he says. In the tribal areas, "if you give voice to the voiceless, this could be dangerous."

Pashtun women outside the tribal areas enjoy a bit more freedom. Nawar, who grew up in the town of Nowshera just outside Peshawar, took the job at the FM radio station eight months ago after graduating from the University of Peshawar with a journalism degree. Her parents supported the idea, though her younger sister, Sumaira, told Nawar that a recent spate of suicide bombings in Peshawar had made working in the city too dangerous.

"She said, 'One day there could be a bomb blast, and we'd be searching for you at the local hospital.' I told her, 'Everybody has to die.' "

Nawar says she sought out work at Radio Khyber because she thinks the constraints Pashtun society puts on women are outdated.

"It's wrong that Pashtun women are held back like this," she says, taking a break from editing a piece on children's healthcare. "It's unfair, and that's what inspired me to work here."

Her pieces have focused on a wide range of topics, from the availability of wheelchairs in the tribal areas to a segment about curfew restrictions placed on tribespeople fleeing violence in their area. Because it's too dangerous for her to report in the tribal areas, she interviews the region's residents in neighboring Peshawar and gets much of her information from Peshawar-based organizations that work in the tribal areas.

Much of the feedback on the segments produced by the women has been positive, Afridi says. No one from the tribal areas has called in to decry the sound of women's voices on the air, and so far the Taliban hasn't issued any threats.

"Even the militants have women in their families, and the problems of those women are being covered by our reporters," Afridi says. "So maybe the Taliban appreciates what we're doing."

alex.rodriguez@latimes.com

True to Tradition

By Tariq Rahman
5 July 2009

As someone who collects and studies inscriptions on Pakistani trucks, I decided to write about these inscriptions, not only to understand the world view of the drivers and painters who write them, but also explore whether they provide evidence that the common man has not succumbed to the militant version of Islam that deems such art outside the bounds of a moral society. Could these inscriptions on trucks give us a peep into our culture, on which we could hope to build a tolerant Pakistan when this terrible, nerve-wrecking war is over? There did not seem much promise in this line of inquiry, but the truck inscriptions proved so mesmerising that I could not but proceed with my research in Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad and Rahim Yar Khan.

The study of truck art is not a field that has gone completely unexplored. Professor Mark Kenoyer, a famous archaeologist who has been conducting field research in Pakistan for close to two decades, told me in  the autumn of 2008 how he had taken a decorated truck from Karachi to the United States.

"The funny thing is that it landed in LA and then we had to drive it across four time zones to DC for the 2002 Smithsonian Folk-life Festival."

[View with PicLens]

I was collecting inscriptions on Pakistani trucks at that time and I found that a number of people had collected truck art and even inscriptions. Jamal J. Elias, a Pakistani scholar now in an American university, is probably the foremost scholar in the field and he is writing a book on the subject. German scholars, too, had shown interest in the subject, and I saw a book by Anna Schmad in German called Die Fliegenden Pferde vom Indus (The Flying Horses of Indus) complete with pictures and details. Even Pakistanis, normally indifferent to the richness and diversity of their own country, have taken interest in these inscriptions. Sarmad Sehbai has made a film about the decorated trucks. More to the point for my work, there are two collections of truck inscriptions published by the Parco Pak-Arab Refinery, entitled Pappu Yar Tang na Kar (Do not bother me, friend Pappu) – a common humorous saying on many trucks. Part 1 consists of Urdu couplets, some with a risqué bent, along with aphorisms. Part 2 consists of the Urdu poet Ghalib's couplets on rickshaws, taxis and trucks.
For my own study, I chose around  627 trucks registered in the NWFP, the Punjab, Sindh and Gilgit/AJK, and the inscriptions on them were noted and photographed. The inscriptions were then divided into the following themes:
Advisory: Of an advisory nature and about life in general. For example, Phal mausam da gal vele di (The best fruit is that of the season and the best saying is that which is appropriate for the occasion).
Driver's life: Pertaining to the driver's life of perpetual travel, of not having a fixed home and of taking pride in his profession, for instance Driver ki zindagi maut ka khel hai/Bach gaya to central jail hai (The driver's life is a game of death/Even if he survives there is the central jail).
Fatalism: Pertaining to the idea of there being a fixed, unalterable destiny; predestination; qismat with all its variant forms, e.g. Nasib apna apna (To each his own destiny).
Goodness: General goodwill and good wishes for all, e.g. Khair ho aap ki (I wish you a blessed life).
Islam: Sayings from the Quran, references to Islamic mystics (Sufis), pictures of sacred places in Islamic culture and religious formulas e.g. Bismillah (In the name of Allah).
Islamic fundamentalism: A sub-theme of the above, these refer to tabligh (proselytising), the Taliban (Rashid, 2000) and exhortations to say one's prayers. These were uncommon some years back and, in view of the increasing militancy misusing the name of Islam in Pakistan, these inscriptions were tabulated separately e.g. Dawat-e-tabligh zindabad (Long live the invitation to proselytise).
Islamic mysticism: Also a sub-theme of the Islamic inscriptions. These refer to some reputed Sufi shrine or idea, e.g. Malangi sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar di (I am a female devotee of the generous Shahbaz Qalandar).
Devotion to Mothers: Pertaining to love and respect for one's mother, e.g. Man di dua jannat di hawa (A mother's blessings are like the breeze of paradise).
Nationalism: Pertaining to Pakistani nationalism, e.g. Pakistan zindabad (Long live Pakistan).
Patriotism: Pertaining to love for one's native area e.g. Khushab mera shaher hai (Khushab is my city).
Romance: Pertaining to romantic love, flirtation, desire, aesthetic appreciation of (almost always female) beauty and, sometimes, the mildly erotic, e.g. Rat bhar ma'shuq ko paehlu men bitha kar/Jo kuch nahin karte kamal karte haen (Those who spend the whole night with the beloved next to them/And still do nothing, verily perform a miracle!)
Trucks: Pertaining to the truck itself. The truck is often portrayed as being feminine. Trucks are given feminine names in other countries, including the US, but in Pakistan, Muslim female names are not used for trucks. Common titles such as princess (shahzadi) are used, e.g. Japan ki shahzadi [Urdu] (Japan's princess).

Explicitly religious symbols, images and inscriptions in Arabic are often found on the front and top of the truck. Sometimes, inscriptions also appear either on the bumper or on the engine itself. They also appear on the back and even on the sides.
However, it is on the front of the truck that the name of the sacred is found, Arabic being a sacred language for Muslims.
These inscriptions are, however, commonplace among Pakistani Muslims in daily life. They are considered auspicious and are spontaneous cultural habits. They do not indicate any special religious commitment, unlike the inscriptions gathered under the theme of 'Islamic fundamentalism.'
The 'fundamentalist' type of Islam denies intercession by saints and rejects mystic (Sufi) practices and folk Islam. It takes several forms such as Wahhabbism (or Ahl-i-Hadith in South Asia) and the Deobandi sub-sect, as well as the more fundamentalist and militant interpretations of the last few decades. Some trucks, for instance, carry exhortation to prayers: 'Namaz rah-e-nijat hai' (Prayer is the path to salvation). Jamal Elias says he noticed this development for the first time in 2003, after four years of fieldwork on Pakistani truck decoration. He goes on to link it to the inspiration of the Tableeghi Jama'at of Maulana Ilyas (1885-1944).
Such inscriptions, however, rarely appear on the top of trucks. In Pakistan, the Taliban are the most noted fundamentalists and, therefore, the inscriptions linked to fundamentalists are generally about the Taliban (Taliban zindabad or Long live the Taliban is one of the inscriptions on numerous trucks) or prayers, fasting and proselytising in order to establish the Shariah. These have appeared only in the last few years and are found more on the trucks of the NWFP than in other regions.
The mystical inscriptions are those which are specifically about Sufi saints or shrines. This sub-genre is part of the Pakistan zeitgeist. Popular poetry and songs are frowned upon by the fundamentalists, who regard it as a form of seeking intercession in wordly matters from someone other than God (shirk).
The back of the truck is for inscriptions which are meant to be read as the truck passes by other vehicles. Here one finds mostly romantic inscriptions.
Most inscriptions draw on the conventions of the ghazal, the themes of which are unrequited romantic love, appreciation of female beauty, the fickleness of life and fatalism. While there is much eroticism in the Lucknow school of poetry, it is the more idealised, ethereal and emotional style of the ghazal which prevails. While some of the couplets of the classical masters of the ghazal, such as Ghalib or Mir Taqi Mir are in circulation on trucks, most drivers choose verses from unknown poets or sometimes from modern, popular ones such as Ahmed Faraz.
The most frequently occurring inscriptions on romantic themes are as follows:
Ae sher parhne wale zara chehre se zulfen hata ke parhna/Gharib ne ro kar likha hai zara muskura ke parhna (O reader, read this couplet after removing the tresses of hair from your face/A poor man has written this, so please smile while reading it)
and: Anmol daam dunga ik bar muskura do
(I will give you incomputable wealth if only you smile but once).
Another one of the most ubiquitous ones is: Dekh magar piyar se (Look at me, but with love).
The examples given above are not drawn from Urdu's large body of amorous poetry, but have been written by unknown poets who do not appear to know the strict rules of versification in Urdu. However, the stance found in the ghazal – the poet supplicating to an indifferent and fickle beauty for favours – is omnipresent.
Fatalism is very much a part of Pakistani folk belief. In Islamic philosophy, it is called masala-e-jabr-o-qadr (loosely translated as predestination and free will) and, at least in its more extreme forms, completely denies free will. Among ordinary people, however, the denial of free will goes hand-in-hand with a pragmatic evaluation of the importance of common sense, self-interest and effort in life. Interviews with truck drivers also confirmed a popular belief in fatalism across the country.
Inscriptions about mothers are also rife. The drivers often quote a prophetic tradition: 'Paradise lies under the feet of the mother.' They claim amidst much reverence and visible emotion, that their mothers' prayers have made them successful. A typical comment, made by Gul Haseeb from Peshawar, is evidence of this mindset:
'Sahib, if it were not for my mother's prayers, I would be in jail. Our profession is very tough and it can send a poor driver to the graveyard or the jail while his hair is still black.'
Yet another driver compared his mother to the sun, which gives life to the earth. 'When the mother dies, the house is cold,' he said.
It appears that there are more inscriptions about mothers in Sindh, but it must be added that drivers in all provinces of the country showed the same respect and emotion for their mothers in their interviews.

The languages used for inscriptions on trucks are Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Brahvi and English. English is generally used only as part of the registration formula, e.g. Peshawar 12345 and sometimes, but very rarely, for the name of the company on the sides – which is normally English but written in the Urdu script – or phrases like 'good luck.' Balochi and Brahvi are used to express all sorts of themes, but they are so rare that I had to make a special effort to find even nine trucks in Balochistan which had inscriptions in these languages. In Sindh, Sindhi is used, but less than Urdu.
The writing in Arabic does not reflect any conscious choice, as it is the language of Islam and all formulaic, liturgical writing in Islamic societies makes use of it; thus it is always present as an icon of Islam. However, the other languages of Pakistan offer choices for the writer of the inscriptions. To the questions about who decides which language to use for inscriptions and on what basis, most drivers and painters replied that they had jointly decided this and the basis was intelligibility. The language, they said, had to be intelligible to them and to the people they came across during their perennial travels up and down the country. Some workshops have diaries or scrapbooks with couplets, which the drivers can choose from. The present author saw several of such books. One owner of a workshop commented on his scrapbook: "These are the most popular couplets in the last 30 years. When I show them to the drivers, they want them all but are limited by the space available."
Most of the inscriptions are in Urdu, though there were Pashto ones too. The Pashto inscriptions were found even in Rawalpindi, otherwise a Punjabi and Urdu-speaking city. This was explained by painters who referred to the large number of Pashto-speaking truck drivers in all provinces of Pakistan. "We have to cater for the drivers," said painter Abdul Ghani, while painting a truck near Pirwadhai in Rawalpindi. "If they like Pashto, so be it. Besides, we painters can write in Pashto as well as in Urdu – even in English. Actually, English is the easiest." However, as Urdu is used in all the urban trade centres of Pakistan, and is the most common language of communication in the country, it is the major language of inscriptions in the country and can be read, understood and enjoyed by most Pakistanis.
Pashto follows Urdu not because it is understood all over the country – indeed, it is not even taught formally in the Pashto-speaking areas for the most part – but because the drivers are mostly Pashtuns and consider it part of their Pashtun identity.They identify with it and carry it with them as a symbol of their Pashtun roots.
However, there are significant differences between the provinces/regions in the use of Urdu inscriptions on the back of trucks. These differences seem to occur mainly in the NWFP, where Pashto is used along with Urdu, whereas other provinces/regions of Pakistan do not use the local languages so often. If the NWFP were to be removed from the data, there would be no significant differences in the use of Urdu on trucks in Pakistan.
Punjabi is not taught formally in most educational institutions though, like Pashto, it is an optional language in some government schools. Yet it does feature on the trucks, as it is regarded as a language of intimacy, jokes and risqué male, in-group bonding. Thus the following inscription: Rul te gayean/par chas bari ayi (I am ruined/But I really enjoyed myself).
It is found on many trucks and hints at sexual adventurism and its consequences. Yet another line, this one hinting at the lover's frustration with the inability of his beloved to meet him, goes as follows:
Aag lavan teri majburian nun (I feel like burning your constraints). Innuendoes like this are enjoyed by the majority of people, especially men, in Pakistan. Thus, trucks are often a source of diversion on the otherwise frustratingly congested and often pock-marked and cratered roads of Pakistan.
Despite the threat of 'Talibanisation,' the inscriptions on the trucks suggest that the world view of truckers (drivers, painters, apprentices and owners of trucks) remains easy-going, romantic, fatalistic, superstitious and appreciative of beauty and pleasure. To call it 'liberal' may be misleading, as it does not respect women's rights or political liberalism. It draws upon a folk Islam, and not the puritanical, misogynist, strict and anti-pleasure variety of Islam which is associated with the Taliban.
Thus, while the extremist interpretation of Islam prohibits amorous literature or the description of female beauty for the gratification of men, South Asian high culture has always valued romantic verse. The inscriptions on trucks operate within the familiar paradigm of South Asian culture in which poetry, especially romantic poetry, is much in demand. The pandering to the ritualistic aspect of religion, as evidenced by the ritualistic inscriptions on the top of trucks, reflects Muslim popular culture in South Asia. Fatalism, a prominent theme of inscriptions, is also a part of the same world view.
This truckers have much reverence for Sufis and their ideas. Proof of this are the inscriptions which refer to popular Sufis and their shrines in Pakistan: Bari Imam (Islamabad), Data Sahib (Lahore), Pir Baba (Buner), Baba Farid (Pakpattan), Shahbaz Qalandar (Sehwan), etc. Other inscriptions on Sufi themes reference unity (wahdat-ul-wujud) and the omnipresence of the deity.
It appears that ordinary people do not object to the romantic inscriptions, but do take offence at paintings of the human figure, which are considered sinful. However, somewhat surprisingly, in response to a question about whether drivers painted women or got someone to do it for them, most drivers replied that they got a painter to paint a woman for them, while some admitted that they first tried themselves and once unsuccessful, turned to the painters. Most painters said it was their favourite hobby. Only one painter who used to paint women has left because he now considers it a sin. Driver Gul Khan, originally from Swat, said: "I tried to paint women. I like Aishwarya Rai a lot, and tried to copy a picture of her. But it turned out funny – [laughing] it was not like her at all. So I gave up and had painters do it for me." Painter Haseeb Ullah from Rawalpindi told me he liked painting women in tight trousers – often in a police uniform – but since people objected to these, he gave up. "He was forced to give up," said an apprentice. "His women revealed too much." Everybody laughed. As for boys – defined as adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 or so – only a few drivers (15%) said they got painters to paint them, but most denied having done it. Yet, 70% of the painters confessed to painting boys, though one has left doing so on account of it being a sinful activity.
Painter Amanullah from Rawalpindi revealed that many drivers do want boys painted. He tells me that he used pictures of boys in books and magazines for this, and used to like it. Then he adds: "But I heard the story of the Prophet Lut in the Quran, and I never did it again." Children, however, are liked by everybody. Some said they had greater "emotion" in them than other human figures. It became clear that these children – pre-pubescent boys between the ages of 3-10 – were the sons (daughters are not painted) of the owners or, in some cases, the painter himself. Most drivers complained that they would like to get their children painted on the truck they drive but the owner does not allow them, as they have their own children on them. "I want my sons to be with me but the child here is the owner's son. Anyway, all children are innocent," is driver Irfanullah's comment, a reflection of the general sentiment.
One painter from Peshawar said he did not care for the Taliban and would not listen to them even if they destroyed his shop. A driver reported that he knew of trucks that sported pictures of women being stopped by the Taliban, who warned the driver to remove them.
The Taliban even object to romantic verses, calling poetry itself sinful but they [the Taliban] have generally left them unharmed. Most of them object to human figures, calling them a grave violation of the Shariah. Driver Mahabbat Khan from Mansehra had this to say: "My elders often told me not to paint people or animals. The mullah must have told them about it being a sin. But I still get beautiful poetry written on the truck!" For this reason, some drivers who used to get actresses painted are now replacing them with national leaders. Several drivers from Quetta reported that a police officer who had helped truck drivers many a time, had become so popular that his picture still adorned many trucks from Balochistan. President Ayub Khan was also very popular with the truck drivers, but his picture seems to have gone out of fashion. Most drivers and painters still prefer actresses and actors to anything else. However, Professor Martin Sokefeld, a German scholar who has written on truck art among other cultural phenomena of Pakistan, and has been doing field work in Pakistan since the 1990s, notes that on the sides, portraits of women have become very common. "This can be explained in two ways. Either the drivers' and painters' memories go back only to the last two or three years, when Talibanisation began to spread in society, and by this time the trend of making womens' pictures was already on the rise. Or, perhaps the pictures of women have been moved from the backs of the trucks, where they are more prominent, to the sides.
Going by the inscriptions on the trucks it is heartening to note that the world view of people associated with trucks – mainly drivers but also their assistants, painters and owners – has not shifted to radical or militant Islam yet. It still remains rooted in popular culture, which adheres to low church beliefs and practices. However, this popular culture is undergoing a metamorphosis and may be transformed further as Talibanisation increases but, as of now, it offers the hope that some of the core values of Pakistani culture, which made this country hospitable and lively, may be more resilient than the headlines about suicide bombers, the burning of CD shops and the suppression of the arts might have led us to believe.

Ashraf M. Abbasi, PhD.
Ambassador at Large    P Think before you print! Save energy and paper.

President: 2003-2005 Chairman-Presidents Council: 2005-2007 Chairman Advisory Council: 2007-2009  

The Pakistan American Congress (Washington, DC.) is an umbrella entity of Pakistani-Americans & Pakistani organizations in  America since 1990. It is incorporated as a non-profit, non-religious, and non- partisan premier community organization. It serves as a catalyst of social, educational, and political activities which promotes the interests and protects the civil rights & liberties of the Pakistani-Americans in the U.S. It is also vigorously involved in promoting good will, understanding, and friendship between the two countries & two people.

 

 

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