Pakistan’s Historic Elections ‘Not Perfect,’ but a Start

Holding a “tiger,” their party election symbol, supporters of Pakistan’s 

prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif celebrate PML-N’s victory at the party’s 

Brooklyn office on Coney Island Avenue. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

By Jehangir Khattak
This article first appeared in Voices of NY

As Pakistan makes a historic transition to its second democratically elected government in a row, the Pakistani community in New York, mirroring the political divisions back home, is having mixed reactions to the results of the landmark May 11 parliamentary elections.

While supporters of prime minister-elect Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party celebrated their victory in Pakistani community enclaves in Queens and Brooklyn, supporters of parties that garnered fewer parliamentary seats expressed disappointment. In the wake of the elections there have been widespread allegations of vote-rigging, and voting was suspended for a week in one electoral district, or constituency, in the southern port city of Karachi.

Sharif, an industrial tycoon who was twice prime minister in the 1990s, has promised to control lawlessness, end the crippling electricity crisis and revive the sinking economy of the South Asian country.

“It’s a big relief for the people of Pakistan after historic misgovernance,” says Rohail Dar, president of U.S. chapter of the PML-N. Dar, a long-time supporter of Sharif, is hopeful that his party will restore people’s confidence in the government.

“Pakistani people have been through a lot of turmoil. God has given our party the opportunity to clean the rot,” Dar, an engineer by profession, told Voices of NY.

So far results for 267 of the 272 directly elected National Assembly seats, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, have been announced. The PML-N leads the tally with 126 seats. It needs 137 seats to win a simple majority. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of President Asif Ali Zardari has emerged as the second largest group with 31 seats followed by former cricket hero Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with 29 seats. Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) retained its 18 parliamentary seats.

New York-based PTI supporters who allege election fraud in the central Punjab province – home to most of the parliamentary constituencies – question Dar’s optimism. “People have multiple proofs of massive rigging in the Punjab province and urban centers of Sindh such as Karachi,” said Yasir Ali, a PTI supporter since 2009.

Pakistani social media has gone viral with amateur cellphone videos showing supporters of competing candidates stuffing ballot boxes with bogus votes in many constituencies in Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

European Commission observers who monitored the polls have reported electoral fraud at 10 percent of the 69,801 polling stations across the nation. Free and Fair Election Network, an Islamabad-based non-profit that monitored over 8,119 polling stations, reported more than 100% voter turnout in 49 polling stations. In some instances, according to Pakistani media, the turnout was more than 300% of the registered votes in an electoral district.

The PTI has identified 25 National Assembly districts where it alleges rigging and is demanding a recount of votes. Many analysts call the electoral fraud reports a bad omen for Pakistani democracy.

“I think we are moving too quickly on interpreting the election results. The vote rigging scandal is just emerging and is looking dangerous,” says Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact.  He foresees a “scary situation” if these allegations are proved.

Ali argues that leading experts on Pakistan’s politics had predicted before the elections that a high voter turnout would help Khan’s PTI. “The disappointing results despite high turnout is one more reason to believe that results were doctored,” says the 41-year-old Bronx-based businessman. Pakistan’s election commission says that despite violence, turnout was 60 percent, the highest the country has seen since the 1970 elections.

PTI’s New York-based supporters are planning a protest against election rigging in front of the Consulate General of Pakistan on May 16. Its angry supporters have been protesting in the port city of Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and capital of the Punjab province, ever since the results were announced.

Agha Saleh, a Jackson Heights, Queens-based PPP supporter blamed vote fraud, PPP’s own poor governance record and its failure to mobilize its voter base as the reasons for its defeat. “There was a clear disconnect between PPP supporters and the current leadership,” he said. Saleh, who ran for the National Assembly in 1990 elections, believes that the party has deviated from its ideals of political and economic empowerment of Pakistanis. “It pains me to see the PPP evaporating on Pakistan’s political scene.”

ANP's Rahimullah. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

Brooklyn-based supporters of secular Awami National Party (ANP), which draws its support from ethnic Pashtun population in northwestern Pakistan, blame Taliban-driven violence against their party candidates as the main reason for its trounce.  The party won only one National Assembly seat compared to the 13 it captured in the 2008 elections.  The anti-Taliban party has lost 700 of its leaders and supporters in extremist attacks in the last few years.

“We are not surprised by the election results because we were never allowed to reach out to our voter base,” says Rahimullah, the information secretary of  the U.S. chapter of the ANP who goes only by one name. The party’s supporters in New York staged a noisy protest in front of the UN headquarters on April 26 against Taliban-instigated attacks on its leaders.

Optimism About The Future

Despite all their reservations and disappointments, critics of the May 11 elections agree that it is a step toward a more transparent democracy. “Eventually the results will be positive,” agrees Ali who hopes PTI’s candidate Khan, a charismatic advocate for political change and dialogue with the Taliban to end violence, will make a comeback in 2018 elections.

Whether the new government can reach a peace deal with the Taliban or not, the Pakistani community in New York is looking forward to a more determined and unified approach from their newly elected leaders to tackle the country’s complex security and economic challenges.

In Pakistani enclaves across the city, supporters of political parties that emerged victorious in the election celebrated in traditional style.

Supporters of Muttahida Qaumi Movement celebrate their party’s victory at a restaurant 
in Jackson Heights, Queens. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

A show of optimism was on display when Dar and his fellow supporters of the PML-N danced to the drumbeats of Boota Dholi, Brooklyn’s famous Pakistani drummer, at their party office on Coney Island Avenue. Same was the sentiment at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, where supporters of MQM celebrated.

The Pakistani elections may or may not mitigate the challenges in the lives of its 180 million citizens, but it did bring some business to the six bakeries selling Pakistani sweets on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue. Traditionally Pakistanis distribute sweets to celebrate an occasion.

Rana Kashif, manager of Gourmet Sweet on Coney Island Avenue, displays the 
extra ladoos he prepared for the elections. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

“The sweet shops had made extra ladoos [a ball-shaped sweet made of flour, sugar and other ingredients] in advance to cater to the expected higher demand after the election results were announced,” said Mohsin Zaheer, editor of Brooklyn-based Urdu weekly Sada-e-Pakistan. “Coney Island Avenue’s sweet shop owners were the biggest winners of Pakistani elections in the U.S.,” quipped the veteran Pakistani journalist.

A New York-based attorney of Pakistan origin best summed up the results.

“A day to celebrate the progress of democratic process in Pakistan: The current electoral transition is certainly not perfect but at least it moved forward on its own strength and dynamics despite horrendous odds,” wrote Saleem Rizvi on his Facebook message.

“Regardless of our party affiliations, commitments, connections and activism, we must not lose our hopes to build a progressive, prosperous and pluralistic Pakistan,” Rizvi wrote and added that Pakistanis must not allow the Taliban and their partners in crime to hijack the country for their hateful ideology.

Pakistan Election Violence Reverberates in New York

By Jehangir Khattak
The story was originally published in the voicesofny.org 

Supporters of ANP protesting in front of the UN headquarters. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak via Voice of NY)

Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front of United Nations headquarters in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, on April 26. He wanted to add his voice to the condemnation expressed by more than two dozen supporters of Awami National Party (ANP), who had gathered to protest bomb attacks on its candidates ahead of May 11 landmark elections in Pakistan.

Khan, who runs a fried chicken business and has been in the U.S. since 1991, shouted slogans in unison with his comrades. “We want peace”; “Stop killing Pashtuns”; “Stop terrorism” and “Stop target killing ANP candidates” were some of the demands that reverberated against a background of  traffic and nearby construction noise. The protesters were referring to Taliban violence against the ANP’s predominantly Pashtun (also spelled “Pakhtoon”) leadership.

ANP is a Pakistani political party with a support base in the country’s mostly Pashtun northwest. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has announced plans to target three major secular parties — the ANP, the Pakistan People’s Party, to which President Asif Ali Zardari belongs, and the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Around 60 people have died in bomb attacks on ANP, PPP and MQM campaign workers and leaders across Pakistan since the beginning of April.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated TTP, an umbrella group of over two dozen Taliban outfits, is based in the North Waziristan region of the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) corridor along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. It is blamed for the scores of terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of over 40,000 Pakistanis since 2004.

The protesters converged in front of the UN in response to a call from the U.S. chapter of the ANP. Unlike Khan, the majority of the participants had travelled from Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue, of ‘Little Pakistan’ fame. Almost all major Pakistani political parties maintain their presence in the United States mostly as non-profits. Some of these non-profits often raise campaign funds for their parent parties in Pakistan.

“Stop the killing of ANP leadership and innocent Pakhtoons in the Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,” said Taj Akber Khan, organizer of the protest who is also president of the U.S. chapter of ANP, reading from a resolution over a megaphone. The interim government, said Taj, should provide a peaceful environment for holding free and fair elections by taking action against those committing “these evil acts.”

“We want to bring to the attention of the international community the organized violence against secular parties in Pakistan,” Taj told party supporters. The UN, he demanded, should press Pakistan’s interim government to create a conducive atmosphere for campaigning.

“Right now, electioneering is just taking place in Punjab (Pakistan’s most populous province) but candidates in the other three provinces (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and parts of Sindh) cannot reach their electorate,” he said, fearing that fair elections might become a distant reality under such conditions. ANP says it has lost over 700 of its leaders and supporters over the past few years in attacks by extremists.

The protesters raised slogans against terrorism. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak)

The small but noisy protest in front of UN headquarters received big coverage in Pakistan’s mainstream television channels, since it coincided with a powerful bomb explosion in the country’s southern port city of Karachi. Eleven ANP supporters were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded near a small campaign gathering for the ANP candidate for the Sindh province’s legislature, of which Karachi is the capital. The Taliban instantly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Taliban attacks are a new phenomenon in Karachi, which has seen political, sectarian, ethnic, militant and criminal violence for the past many years. According to a report by the United States Institute of Peace, the violence has claimed more than 7,000 lives since 2008.  The Taliban violence has induced old political rivals – the MQM and ANP – to join hands against a common enemy. The two parties have rivaled each other for years to win political space in the port city.

Just hours after the protest in Turtle Bay, Taj Akbar joined local leaders and supporters of the MQM at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, to condemn the attacks. Pakistan Club, USA, a Queens-based community organization, hosted the event.

Pakistan Club USA members and supporters of MQM at the event to condemn election violence. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

“When candidates cannot run their election campaigns freely, how can the elections be fair?” Anees Siddiqui, of the MQM, asked a small audience at the Kabab King restaurant located at 73^rd Street and Broadway in Jackson Heights. The event’s host, Raees Warsi, shared Siddiqui’s sentiments.

Extremists dictating election results?

The Taliban do not believe in a secular democratic system, claiming Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and thus their brand of Sharia should be the supreme law of the land there. The Taliban explained on April 29that it was targeting the three parties because of their secular ideology and support for military operations against the group.

But not everyone sees this as the sole reason for their latest bloody campaign against pro-democracy political parties.

Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact, believes the violence is connected to wider trends in the Middle East.  “The liberal space is continually shrinking and nationalist and conservative forces are resurgent in the Middle East, as they have been in Pakistan,” he told Voices of NY in response to an email query. “There are different reasons for this, but one of them is the war on terror. It may also be linked to the dysfunction of the liberal autocrats that triggered the Arab Spring.”

Ansar fears that the violence could have far-reaching domestic, regional and international implications. “It can decisively shift the balance in favor of conservative, nationalist and religious elements in the elections. These forces were already resurgent due to factors such as war on terror and the failure of secular parties to govern and deliver.”

Ansar believes that if the conservatives or religious elements come into power as a result of this shift, they will exert influence on the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the direction of Pakistan’s relations with India and the U.S.

Many in Pakistan and the community here in the U.S. fear that the upsurge in violence could delay the elections. But Arif Ansar doubts there will be a delay. “Barring some major tragedy, like assassination of a major political leader, there is little chance of this happening,” he says, adding that even the murder of Benazir Bhutto failed to stop the 2008 elections. He says the international community also wants these elections on time “irrespective of how imperfect they may be.”

The impact of violence on the election results makes many Pakistanis nervous, including Khan, who is a native of Swat valley in the country’s mountainous northwest, an area which was liberated from the Taliban in 2009 after a military operation.

“I don’t think elections will be fair. The militants are sidelining the Pashtuns from the national mainstream,” he said, while blaming the country’s security establishment for failing to provide adequate protection to the election candidates.  Explaining the urgency that drove him to join the small protest, leaving his business to his employees, Khan said: “The stakes are higher than the profits from a day’s business.”

Saving elections from ‘ill-actions’

By Jehangir Khattak

An edited version of this article first appeared in The Express Tribune.

Election ferver in Rawalpindi Pakistan. (Photo by Olaf Kellerhoff via Flickr)

As electioneering heats up, politics has shifted to high gear of rhetoric. All political parties have completed the ritual of unveiling largely ambitious manifestos. With few exceptions, these manifestos give semblance of half-baked utopian visions and hazy roadmaps. But politicians are promoting them to the points of fantasy.

One problem with most of these manifestos is their almost identical recipes for national issues. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32^nd US president once said: “An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as two peas in the same pod.” Politicians selling these manifestos are trying to prove wrong the tested philosophy of Roosevelt. And to their advantage, media, intelligentsia and voters are not raising too many questions about the practicability of these programs.

This disdain has failed to generate the kind of issue-based debate that shapes up election results in Western democracies. In the West, elections are the name of competing programs, ideas and ideologies. In 2000 presidential elections, the promise of reforming social security contributed to George W. Bush's victory. Economic pundits for long have predicted insolvency of social security system after 2030. Bush's program despite being controversial won the voters’ confidence and helped him reach the White House.

In 2008, voters were looking for a leader to pull the US out of its history's most expensive wars that were contributing to its economic crisis. This time Barack Obama was the man of moment. Obama believed that Bush's policy of “either with us or against us” had isolated the US internationally. His bloody and expensive wars needed to be ended responsibly and American troops brought back home. Americans elected Bush and Obama at difficult moments in their history after being convinced that their roadmaps to extending the American century would work. 

The wheel of democracy moved in opposite direction in Pakistan. The PPP ascended to power on sympathy vote after Benazir Bhutto's assassination. It was not elected on its program but on its political rhetoric -- remember "democracy is the best revenge" mantra?  

The PPP lived up to its promise, promoting a strange combination of corrupt political culture and creditable constitutional reforms. It made history by completing its term but left behind a complicated baggage of economic mess and lawlessness. Its rule left deep imprints of statesmanly decisions of NFC Award, renaming NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 18th Amendment to thuggishly handling the economy and governance. It piled up the largest ever domestic and international debt in a single term in Pakistan's history. Under its watch, the Pakistani state shrank within its geography. 

Pakistan is caught up in expensive and bloody fight against terrorism and extremism, a failing economy, crippling energy crisis and a tattering state structure at the end of its rule. These daunting challenges cannot be met with sexy manifestos and catchy slogans.

Thomas Edison once said that visions without execution are mere hallucinations. And rightly so, these manifestos seem like hallucinations when judged on the track record of the parties touting them. The biggest losers on this plank of judgment are parties of the erstwhile ruling coalition and the leading winners could be the untested PTI, PML (N) with comparatively better governance record and smaller religious and nationalist parties.

Lack of clarity in thought and action on voters mind on polling day thus could make or break a new Pakistan’s promise. Voters can save these elections from becoming “ill-actions” by making the parties realize that their vote is no longer available on rosy promises but clear visions and solid roadmaps to salvation.

The election results will hold credence only if all political players have been afforded an even playing field. The security threats to left-leaning secular PPP, ANP and MQM are bad omens. If extremists succeed in paralyzing election campaigns of these parties, which they largely have especially in case of ANP, it will make the electoral exercise meaningless, leaving the field open for only right-leaning parties. The caretakers and the establishment must create an environment that denies terrorists the space to dictate the results and make mockery of the ballot through their bullets.

The writer is a Senior Editor at http://www.voicesofny.org. He tweets @JehangirKhattak

Growth of New York's ethnic and community media

An interview with Adam Carol of WBAI about the growth and growing power of New York's ethnic and community media.
(The interview starts after minute 31)

WBAI interview adam carol 12:20

Pakistani Press Reports on Sandy Through Election Lense

  By JEHANGIR KHATTAK 
This story first appeared on voicesofny.org 

Like elsewhere, Hurricane Sandy also brought down trees in Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, also called “Little Pakistan.” (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer via Sada-e-Pakistan)

The Pakistani community newspapers in New York has had a two-front approach to covering the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy.

The papers mainly relied on translations into Urdu of stories from the mainstream press but their own articles largely focused on the storm’s effects on the November 6 elections and the Obama Administration’s response to the disaster.

“Sandy will determine Obama’s future,” was the headline of the lead article in Pakistan Post, a leading Urdu language weekly.

The article noted that Sandy will likely have an impact in the campaigns of President Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney.

“The storm may affect voter turnout on November 6 which may have negative implications for President Obama’s re-election bid,” noted correspondent M. R. Farrukh.

“Sandy changes, economy, politics” was the headline of another article on the front page of Pakistan Post. The author, Azim Mian, wrote that the superstorm had “exposed” the farsightedness of New York City agencies whose planning  seemed helpless in the face of nature’s fury.

“One cannot escape the feeling after looking at the scale of destruction that a superpower that wins every economic, cultural and military challenge in every corner of the world looks helpless in front of this calamity.”

The newspaper praised President Obama’s handling of the crisis in an editorial and urged Pakistani American voters to join the massive relief effort and use it as a window to enter mainstream America.

“We  appeal to the million-strong Pakistani community in the U.S. to not just make an effort to join the national mainstream but also prove to their compatriots through their actions that they are part of this society,” says the editorial. It praises ICNA Relief, which describes itself as the only American Muslim disaster relief agency, for being the first Islamic faith-based agency to join Sandy’s relief effort. ICNA has established a $100,000 Disaster Response Fund for families impacted by the hurricane.

Some in the Pakistani media also criticized Pakistan’s embassy in Washington, which announced that it was setting up a hotline to help affected families even before Sandy made landfall. The Pakistan Post reported that the embassy had gone on Pakistani television channels and other media outlets to talk about the hotline which would be available 24 hours a day. “But the fact of the matter is no one picks the phone when you call the hotline number,” said the report.

Nadeem Hotiana, Pakistan’s press attache at the DC embassy, denied the claims in the story. “We did not receive any complaints from any one within the community,” he told Voices over the phone.

In an editorial, the Urdu Times praised the Obama Administration for its handling of Sandy. “The government was well-prepared for the storm. All the cities and state agencies were on alert and every effort was made to minimize the human and property losses. The government was largely successful in the effort and deserves full credit for it.”

The community paper Sada-e-Pakistan carried stories about the storm while The Pakistani Newspaper, an online news portal also produced by Sada-e-Pakistan, carried some video stories in Urdu, showing the scale of destruction. 

Small Group Steps Up to Bring Halal Food to Hundreds at Storm Shelter

By Jehangir Khattak
This story first appeared in the voicesofny.org 

People affected by Sandy line up for halal food at FDR High School in Midwood, Brooklyn. (Photo by Farhan Sheikh)

Baza Roohi cooked until 2 a.m. in her home kitchen in Midwood, Brooklyn, on Wednesday night, a day after Hurricane Sandy devastated large parts of New York, New Jersey and several other states.

Roohi was not cooking three large trays of legumes and curry for her small family. She had on her mind over 250 Muslims who took shelter in a Brooklyn high school and who had been making requests for halal food, meals prepared in accordance with Islamic dietary guidelines.

Roohi, who runs an accounting firm on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue, is one of few Muslims of Pakistan origin in Brooklyn who have come together to provide community members uprooted from their homes with a warm plate of halal food at the FDR High School in Midwood. The school is serving as a shelter for more than 1,200 storm victims, according to Roohi.

“A significant number of those taking shelter at this location are Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middle East and Africa,” Roohi told Voices of NY.  She and a small team of six volunteers from her women’s rights group, the American Council of Minority Women, have been serving lunch and dinner for Muslims and non-Muslims since Monday.  She prepares some of the food at her home, some is donated by a local restaurant and some is purchased.

“We need donations both in cash and in-kind to continue to serve halal food. I cook some of the food at home to save money but the demand is such that we have to look for donations from the local halal food restaurants or have to buy it,” said Roohi.

Baza Roohi (left) getting ready to serve halal food at the FDR High School shelter in Midwood, Brooklyn. (Photo by Farhan Sheikh)

Bibi Jan Tax Accounting and Mortgage Services, Roohi’s small firm, is even helping to foot some of the bill. “Me and my business partner Farhan Sheikh are determined to continue to serve the food from our own pockets if no one comes forward to support us,” she said.

Other Muslim community organizations are providing halal food to storm victims in other parts of the city.

The Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development (MWIRD), which runs two halal food pantries in the Bronx, has been serving lunches and dinners at its two locations in the Highbridge and Parkchester sections of the Bronx. Parkchester is home to a large population from Bangladesh and West Africa.

“We have been getting referrals from the Red Cross and local organizations because we are part of the local hunger relief network,” said Nurah-Rosalie Amat’ullah, executive director of MWIRD, a faith-based community organization.

“Over 100 people were served at each location yesterday [Thursday],” Amat’ullah told Voices.

Roohi’s small community organization sprung into action after one of her volunteers, an Arab employee at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, informed her of the requests for halal food being made at the FDR High School shelter on Monday. Roohi said her organization was allowed to serve lunches and dinners at the school after the Health Department inspected the food.

“We need halal food for 250 people in shelter. Please contact us 347 865 2769 or drop cooked food at Mithaas Restaurant, 1150 Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn,” read a text message sent by Roohi to hundreds of community members on Monday, hours before Sandy made landfall.

Volunteers from the American Council of Minority Women at the kitchen of the FDR High School. (Photo by Farhan Sheikh)

The message sparked a response from cross sections of the community. From Zikria Khan who runs Gyro King restaurant on Coney Island Avenue to Chaudhary Ilyas, a Brooklyn-based contractor, and several private individuals, every one chipped in with a contribution in cash and in-kind.

When the donations started drying up on Wednesday, Roohi and her volunteers doubled their outreach and found more support. By Friday, they had enough pledges from community businesses to continue serving at the FDR High School for the next few days.

“Thankfully, one individual pledged a significant donation last night so today I feel very relieved,” Roohi said Friday. “I may not have to cook till 2 a.m. tonight.”

To help, contact Baza Roohi at (347)865-2769.

Impending Water Wars: Increasing Demand Poses Major Threat to Indus Water Treaty

By Jehangir Khattak

The landmark Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan is coming under increasing pressure because of Pakistan's increasing thirst for water and India's construction of new hydropower projects on the  rivers flowing into Pakistan, says a new report released by the Atlantic Council. 

Signed on September 19, 1960, the Treaty has served as a shining example of conflict resolution between the South Asian rivals for over 50 years. The Treaty allocated three western rivers (the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) to Pakistan, with some water apportioned to India, and offered India exclusive rights to the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas). India’s rights to develop hydropower schemes on the western rivers are articulated in the Treaty. The Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) is the largest infrastructural enterprise, accounting for US $300 billion of investment and contributing US $18 billion (over 21 percent) to Pakistan’s GDP during 2009–10.

The report has been authored by Shahid Ahmad, the chief scientist at the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC). He says the rising demand for water has put the Treaty under strain and it may be threatened in the next decade because it does not resolve the core issue of sharing water resources during dry periods (October to March)—a period where water flows are almost half those of wet periods (April to September). "This includes the total impact of storage from the flows of the Chenab into Pakistan, and the Wullar Barrage and Kishanganga Project on the Jhelum and Neelum rivers."

The report says Pakistan must seriously consider better ways to ensure adequate water supplies for its country, with better storage facilities within its borders. Storage from the Mangla and Tarbela dams provides the main source of water for the winter season when water is scarce. Although the Kalabagh Dam could not be constructed, consensus allowed for the construction of the Bhasha and Akhori dams, with the prospect of increasing the amount of available water supplies during dry seasons.

Pakistan has a poor resource governance. More than 90 percent of the country's water resources are used for agriculture, yet the country's farming sector is ravaged by water wastage. Flood irrigation is used much more than water-saving drip irrigation, while sugar and wheat -- some of the world's most water-intensive crops -- dominate Pakistan's agriculture mix.

The report recommends that the provinces should be allowed to market their unutilized share of water allocated to them under the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord. "Additional protocols to the Accord may be added that will allow each province to use their water entitlements as needed; any excess can then be auctioned to other provinces or private operators."

It also calls for investment in the proper infrastructure to deal with floods and similar natural disasters. It also recommends  redefinition of the Water Apportionment Accord’s entitlements in terms of the existing conditions, not only based on future conditions that depend on non-existent infrastructure. "The entitlements per province were originally based on the assumption that future storage needs would be met. Both the scenarios. with and without additional storage, have to be defined in the Accord while allocating water to the provinces."

The report, says the projected per capita water availability in the Indus-Pakistan will reduce to 761 cubic meters (m3) by 2025, which will classify it as a severely water-scarce sub-basin. However,

the Indus-India will have per capita water availability of more than 1,000 m3 even beyond 2050. "The potential for Pakistan to increase its water-storage capacity is evident. The per capita water storage capacity available in Pakistan is 144 m3 per person, slightly higher than that of Ethiopia, which has less water resources but comparable water storage. In another perspective, the Colorado River provides flows of up to 900 days, while storage from the Indus Basin in Pakistan is sufficient only for flows of 30 days.

This scary scenario could further complicate the security environment in one of the most militarized regions of the world. Little wonder Pakistan-India tensions will go beyond their precarious broder disputes, which makes the possibilities more dangerous. The two nations may or may not live without Kashmir or Siachin, but none can certainly live without water.

There is not much in Shahid Ahmad's report on the need, potential and urgency for building new water reservoirs and improving water infrastructure, especially protecting against the ravages of flood. Pakistan could delay if not minimize its impending water shortage by improving its water infrastructure and building new water reservoirs, especially small dams, enacting new laws at the federal and provincial levels to protect and develop the country's vast and under-utilized waterways. The clock is ticking for Pakistan and it needs to move fast on tapping and conserving its water resources before it is too late.

Attack on Malala Yousafzai Reverberates in NY’s Desi Enclaves

Hundred of Jackson Heights residents watch the first presidential debate at Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights. (Photo via VOPA)

This story first appeared in Voices of NY.

The Taliban attack on 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai reverberates in Americans of Pakistan descent 10 days after she was shot in the head while riding in a school bus in Mingora, the largest city of the Swat Valley in Pakistan’s troubled northwest.

Now considered an icon for girl education the world over, Malala has helped unite the divided Pakistani nation on the question of how to deal with extremism. Pakistan has seen unprecedented condemnation of the attack on Malala who is undergoing treatment at Queens Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, U.K.

The sentiment on the streets of New York, especially in South Asian enclaves such as Jackson Heights, Queens, and Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn is no different.

A stream of opinion articles, press statements and media talks by community leaders and commentators, as well as regular folks have a similar message: the time has come for Pakistan to go after terrorists hiding in the treacherous mountains along the country’s porous border with Afghanistan. There have been calls for launching a military operation against the militant hideouts in North Waziristan, the home of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the terrorist group fighting the Pakistani state.

“Will Malala prove to be a game changer because she has done what (Pakistan) army could not do? She united the people on the question of girl education,” wrote Masoud Haider, a veteran New York-based Pakistani journalist who is a correspondent for Pakistan’s largest daily Dawn, in the Pakistan Post. “Malala brought a revolution despite being from a region where common folks didn’t even hear girls’ whispers. She herself didn’t know on that fateful day when she was ambushed on her way to school that her voice was so powerful that it could stand up to Taliban.”

A number of New York-based Pakistani and South Asian community groups, including Voice of Pakistanis Abroad (VOPA) and Social Uplift, Knowledge Hope Initiatives (SUKHI), screened A Schoolgirl’s Odyssey, a 20-minute documentary produced by New York Times on the struggle of Malala.

The video was shown after the live screening of the vice presidential debate on October 11 at Diversity Plaza, on 37th Road in the heart of Jackson Heights. Interestingly, according to senior community journalist Hasan Mujataba, some Pakistani and Bangladeshi community members objected to the showing of the video. Mujtaba mentioned the incident in an article in the Pakistan Post.

Agha Saleh, one of the film screening organizers, told Voices of NY that some community members approached him to stop the showing. “Their pretext was that the film’s screening will promote Taliban cause,” said Saleh, adding that he still could not comprehend the logic. The screenings attracted politicians such as City Comptroller John C. Liu and Councilman Daniel Dromm to watch the presidential and vice presidential debates along with over 300 people from the area.

VOPA’s founder Agha Saleh (right) with Councilman Daniel Dromm (center), who was given the first “Malala cap.” (Photo via VOPA Facebook page)

Saleh said his organization is promoting the Swati cap, a woolen cap widely popular in the Swat and Chitral valleys of Pakistan, as “Malala cap,” a way of telling the world that Malala is the true face of this picturesque part of Pakistan that has seen a rise in militancy since the 1990s. The first cap was presented to Councilman Daniel Dromm.

“VOPA distributed the Malala caps among people on the street with an appeal to wear it this winter as message to the evil forces that majority of the human beings reject their extremists cowardly acts,” said Saleh.

“We are not going to stop sending our girls to school or university,” Bazah Roohi, a Brooklyn-based entrepreneur who founded the non-profit American Council of Minority Women in 2005 told Desi Talk.

She said if the Taliban was expecting schools and colleges to shut down because they shot an innocent child who campaigned for the right to education, they were sorely mistaken. It was not Pakistanis who did it, she said, and everyone back home believed these are people who wanted to give Pakistan a bad name.

“There have been so many educated women around Pakistan for so many decades, in every field. We are going to fight them. They do not frighten us,” Roohi said.

Some community members believe that the fight in Pakistani’s mountainous northwest is not just against the bandits, thugs, violent extremists and terrorists but also against a mindset.

“Pakistan is at war with the Taliban mindset and their narrative. Their defeat lies in taking away the narrative from them,” said Nafis Takkar, executive editor of Deewa radio, Voice of America’s Pashto language radio channel for northwestern Pakistan, during a interview with a Pakistani TV show in the U.S.

“Malala is the true face of Pakistan. She is a beacon of hope for girls education in Pakistan,” he added on Khabar-o-Nazar (News and Views), hosted by this reporter. Takkar believed the best way to fight extremism could be through the spread of education, especially among girls, transparent and efficient government and bringing opportunity and hope to the region.

But some people are voicing suspicions about the motives behind the brutal Taliban attack on the girl. Some Pakistani-American critics of U.S. policy in  the region, such as Ansar Ahmad, do not hide their fears that the government could use the incident as a pretext for a military operation in the mountainous regions of northwest Pakistan, bordering with Afghanistan.

“I oppose the attack on North Waziristan at this stage because it is not in Pakistan’s national interests,” Ahmad, a former pilot fighter in Pakistan’s Air Force who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, told Voices of NY.

According to the regional government of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, the province of which Swat is a part, extremists have completely destroyed or partially destroyed over the past few years more than 2,000 schools in the valley and adjoining semi-autonomous tribal regions, leaving more than half a million children without a school.

Saleh said Voice of Pakistani Americans, which has over 18,000 Facebook followers, is currently running a fundraising campaign to rebuild the schools.