SESSION TWO

SESSION TWO

The session was chaired by Dr. William Tsuma. The session addressed the second part of the theme of Conceptualizing a Plan for South Asia. It began at 14:30hrs, carried three presentations and subsequent discussions and came to an end at 16:30hrs.

Dr. William Tsuma informed the participants about Prof. Sridhar Khatri’s inability to join the seminar and said that Mr. Muhammad Salman, faculty member of the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi will fill the gap. He will present Nepal’s perspective on EWER. Dr. William thanked Mr. Muhammad Salman for volunteering a presentation in the seminar.

Initiating the session’s proceedings, Dr. William Tsuma said that in the first session we had a very interesting discussion around the region. We are able to bring to the table whole range of issues, which he found very interesting and extremely complex. He hoped that the meeting would continue planning, and brainstorming and hopefully by the end of the day would be able to draw a road map towards South Asia action plan as far as preventive action and destructive conflicts are concerned.

Mr. M. Salman began with the statement that in 2006, centuries old monarchy was toppled by revolutionaries and in November 2006, they were able to reach the peace accord, as a result of which they were able to adopt an interim constitution and it was adopted aiming social-economic transformation and establishing different commissions in order to reconcile and bring reconciliation among conflicting factions of Nepalese society. But unfortunately such efforts failed and what we saw was the outbreak of conflicts among different factions and eruption of violent conflicts in Nepal and there was continuous change of governments in Nepal, and because of this disappointment among the Nepali people over monarchy and over political parties Maoists were supposed to fill that vacuum which was created by the toppling of the monarchy. However, they failed to deliver and were unable to create opportunities for Nepalese people to survive in post conflict situation. So I would like to highlight some major conflicts in Nepal in my presentation.

One of the major issues in Nepal is the existence of a bitter conflict between Maoist party and ruling coalition, the coalition for power sharing and different approaches to retrenchment along the fatal lines, fall of government, integration, and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants in Nepalese army, democracy, structural reforms, autonomy of judiciary, political pluralism, elections, citizenship criterion etc. There is lack of willingness on the part of all the parties and all the factions of Nepali politics to change their habits and to reform their views of rival political parties. They always highlight and emphasize on the wrong points and negative points of other parties. Furthermore, they are not ready to compromise, or they are not ready to accept positive suggestions coming up from their adversaries and they are very much reluctant to compromise as I mentioned. The other issue is that there are extra parliamentary social movements of various social classes, political masses and dispossessed such as women workers, landless people, bourgeois classes, ethnic and indigenous people and youths and their power and recognition of their identities, and all these problems have strengthened the scope of unsustainable politics. It is beyond the capacity of state to fill the gaps because of fragility of state itself. And there are also demands from different groups for their separate sovereign states. These groups and parties work under slogan One Madhesh One Province, and apart from this there is one more very important issue which is also exacerbated in some conflict which is under representation or non-representation of some minority groups such as Badees and Raoos in the constitution assembly. And there are also other political factions and adjustments to the recent development of Nepali political process. There are three mainstream political parties in Nepal, and their unadjustment to newly enforced consensus of establishment of secularism, republicanism and the federal state and their plea for referendum on these issues is seeking to delegitimize the establishment and its insistence on unitary monarchist Hindu state has created common interest with the leaders of many old parties, including some of the Hindu groups in India.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the ex-monarch Gyanendra Shah, had also once said that the monarchy is not going to end in Nepal, and his morale was also boosted by large public support. One of the surveys suggested that there is considerable part of Nepalese people who still want to see the monarchy back in Nepal. Although credibility of the survey has been questioned many a times but it indicated some basic trends in Nepali politics.

According to the survey, 49 per cent Nepalese hope for the revival of monarchy, which is very alarming. This public support is also endorsed by another important political leader KR Bataya.

There was also strong threat posed by more than a hundred non-state armed groups and it would be very important to mention here that only 7 of them are engaged in peace negotiations. Ethnic armies and militant groups of various political parties and radical left outfits have produced conditions of statelessness, and the institutions of state are seen as really ineffective. The state has failed to provide security to the people which is the first most important task of a state to provide security to their subjects, and armed-non-states factors have continued to grab land and extorted money from the people and engaged in competitive violent actions against each others and eroding the state sovereignty, and essentially most of these groups across the boarders have developed relations with such groups that adds to complex geo politics of the region.

So that is what we usually observe in post-conflict societies, when they are going through a transitional phase, and the process of reestablishing of their institutions, they always face these kinds of problems, unless there is a will to reform and there is a will to change their behavior or will to reconcile.
We have observed that majoritarian model of democracy has not worked in every society, especially in current world scenario, most of the so-called nation-states have multi-ethnic societies. So there are different interest groups working within these states. A consensual model of democracy rather than majoritarian model of democracy may yield better results because we have seen that majoritarian model of democracy is also a source of conflict or creating other problems as well, and by keeping in mind these conflict I will have some suggestions specially in the context of early warning and early response mechanism.
There has to be an effective implementation of internal constitution, and provisions of peace accord, which was applied to reach a permanent constitutional accord by the mid of 2010 that they have not yet reached. In order to complete this process of reconciliation and constitution building in time and total management of transitional politics followed by consensual approach and improvement of security systems by establishing rule of law and encourage cultural dialogue and negotiations by organizing seminars, conferences, and workshops and civil society has a very important role to play in it.
But what we have seen in Nepal is that it is not very effective; it not very vibrant and its is not playing its vital role and it would not be sane to expect civil society perform where the state itself has not in an absolute manner.

International community has to play a very responsible role, specially neighboring countries in Nepal, they should not try to increase their influence in Nepal and should try to support and help Nepali people to rehabilitate, to restore themselves to continue the democratic process in its truest sense.

So there has to be a support from International Community, specially their neighboring countries, and the major responsibility is on the political parties of Nepal. They have to behave in a sincere manner, and they have to go for a consensus, and they have to avoid conflict, and it is very much easy to maintain peace, but it is very much difficult to sustain peace, so a mechanism such as early warning and early response can only be established there when there is strong state, and strong stat can only be achieved when they are able to overcome their differences and their contacts in Nepal.

Prof. Dr. Moonis Ahmar, in his presentation on EWER: Social and Political Issues: A Case Study of Pakistan said that he would like to focus on various prospects of early warning and early response system in Pakistan. Pakistan is a country of 180 million people, and these people are vulnerable to all sorts of social and political issues like other South Asian countries. The war on terror has destabilized our society. The first question would be: are we capable enough as a country or as a South Asian to primarily predict, and then not only to predict but also to cope with some of the important issues which people are facing in our part of the world?

Dr. Moonis outlined ten important issues in his presentation and said Pakistan provides a fertile ground to have a mechanism for early warning and early response, not to talk of man made disasters or natural disasters but also in case of political and social issues. The first and the most important issue is the political implications of internally displaced persons, as a result of natural disasters, which he put it as number one because he thought, what had happened in case of Pakistan in last few months as a result of massive floods, right from Gilgit-Baltistan to as far as the tip of Sindh is concerned, no one was unaffected. Twenty million people were either on the roads or on the open grounds. It is still an issue that natural disasters, if not properly handled, can cause the exodus of people, and then they are vulnerable to various political fallout, as it happened in case of Pakistan. There was the early warning about the floods but the response from the government was lukewarm and it was not effective. There was an earth quake in Pakistan in October 2005, in which 73,000 people were killed in just one day, and an area of 20,000 kilometers was effected. As a result of that earthquake, the human disaster was enormous, and then how the international community responded, how the aid and the humanitarian assistance at the domestic level and national level came to Pakistan. We have to see that do we have the capacity at the state level in Pakistan and at the societal level, to deal with the political implications of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as a result of recent floods. PML-N government in Punjab responded well to the early warning because the early warning was, if you don’t do something concrete to help millions of hungry, shelter less and (some of them) politically motivated IDPs, they will go to Lahore, and then they will create a major problem.

Same threat existed in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa (KP) and in Balochistan as well. But despite of that the floods which created millions of IDPs, Pakistan did not have any system of early warning and early response here to deal with that issue. There is another early warning that there is possibility that floods in Pakistan have come to stay, meaning that it will be a phenomenon that will continue for coming five years, as a result of global warning or as a result of other reasons. Therefore, one can consider that as one area of discussion as far as EWER is concerned.

The second issue is the election and post-election violence. Now, I think, we have its experience also, because despite the warnings which were given to Mr. Z.A. Bhutto not to go for early polls, on January 7, 1977, he made the announcement to have general elections in Pakistan on March 7 for national assembly and March 10 for provincial assemblies respectively. You know very well that in developing world in post-colonial states we have the rulers who are surrounded by sycophants, and these sycophants are such people that they are the ones who are a source of problem, because they misguide, they give wrong advice, and they are cutoff from the main stream and the ground realities. Mr. Bhutto was advised but he was warned by others that you have a year and a half, you can remain prime minister of Pakistan according to 1973 constitution till August 1978 and holding of early elections may not be in his interest.

Although early warning was there that the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) and opposition parties may destabilize the country but Mr. Bhutto failed to manage the crisis which culminated into the imposition of longest martial law in Pakistan on July 5, 1977. So we have to do something with election and post-election violence. Of course in democracy there is no alternate to elections, provided the election are free and fair, and we have the international observers, who monitor elections. So is there any signaling any early warning or any monitoring just to let people and government know the situation and give the warning? Then there are charges of rigging, manipulation and then it results into the outbreak of violence.

The third is the State versus militant groups and the IDPs. In Pakistan, we have seen how the IDPs most of the times are vulnerable to the militant groups, because state’s response is very late and ineffective, and the reports that in the North Western Province, the military operation was launched in Swat in 2009, so when there were floods in Swat the militant groups who were ousted from that region as result of military operation came back to win heart and soul of the people and also to warn them against angriness of God who sent floods to teach them a lesson.

Therefore, if the state of Pakistan is trying to act against some of the militant groups it is bound to result into the proliferation of these IDPs and IDPs suffer both from the state side and from the militant side as, they are sandwiched between them. So there has to be some policy in order to deal with this problem in Pakistan which is a very serious thing and also in Baluchistan, that is the province which is very vulnerable to internal strife and particularly in some of the parts of Baluchistan which have become no-go area.

Non-locals are being targeted in Baluchistan, and while we are discussing early warning and early response, there are early warnings for non-locals in Baluchistan almost every day by various Baloch nationalist groups whom we call secessionist groups and the government has banned some of these groups like Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) and others. So the conflict in Baluchistan is resulting into problems of non-local IDPs.

Fourth is the lack of good governance. I think mis-governance results into a situation in which we see the augmentation of social and political crises, that is the problem with Pakistan governments and also in many South Asian countries i.e. the lack of good governance. Every government that has come to power in the last 30-35 years after the Zia era has talked about good governance, but to what extent they were able to deliver is questionable. So if there is good governance, I don’t think the social or political instability will get so acute or serious.
The fifth one is the ethnic and class based conflict in Pakistan. That problem also provides opportunity for a viable early warning and early response system. Ethnic conflicts in Pakistan are on rise. Even now, Pakistan has not been able to settle as a nation state so as long as ethnic problem remains, in Sindh, Baluchistan, KP or Siraiki area, in southern Punjab, and the central Punjab, and in Gilgit-Baltistan, there are reports that class based conflicts are also escalating. ZA Bhutto’s slogan was Bread, Shelter and Clothing for every one. But class based conflicts still exist. I think ethnic and class based conflicts are present in almost all the South Asia countries, so the early warning and early response system can be a very good arrangement in order to effectively deal with these conflicts.

The native Sindhi population as far as Karachi is concerned is hardly 5 per cent if you go by the statistics, Total population of the city of Karachi in 1947 was only 300,000 and it was a non-Muslim majority city, because there were Parsees, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Jews. There were 20,000 Jews living in Karachi then.
The demographics of Karachi have changed with the influx of refugees from India and then the internal migration which took place from other provinces. So now we have a situation in Karachi in which it is said that all the exit and entry points of Karachi are controlled by what is argued as the non-Urdu speaking groups, primarily the Pashtuns.

There is early warning about the outbreak of large-scale ethnic violence in Karachi. The Pashtun community in Karachi is very assertive; there are more Pashtuns in Karachi then in Peshawar, because Peshawar is primarily a non-pushtun city as such. Of course pashtuns live there, and they are around 40-45 per cent but Peshawar is primarily a Hindko speaking city and not pashtun majority city. Likewise, Quetta is not a Baloch-majority city, it is a pashtun majority city or non-Baloch majority city. But Karachi is different because Karachi has a population of around 18 million and it is called as mini Pakistan, and why we are having this meeting in Karachi, because it represents all of Pakistan. But the fact is that this city is vulnerable to so much of ethnic and sectarian conflict and violence and the warning is there but the adequate response is missing. To what extent the instruments of power i.e. rangers, military and other such bodies will be deployed in Karachi to prevent the ethnic violence between the two communities?
We have to note that ethnic and class based conflicts require an approach at the grass root level, particularly at the societal and educational level so that we have at least some thought process in Pakistan.

So what is being written on the wall, it is clear, it is very much there. Baluchistan is vulnerable to all such forces; there is a great game going on in Baluchistan. The warning is there that there are major players in Baluchistan, and how these players are operating, and how these players are operating in Karachi. How these players are operating as far as tribal areas, Islamabad and other cities are concerned but we don’t see an effective response, and if it is there the response is not mature because of the fragility of the regime in power.
The seventh issue is the religious and caste based persecutions in Pakistan. There has been a systematic attempt to create an image of fanatic and militant Pakistan during last 20-25 years and the response on the part of state and society to cope with persecution of minorities in Pakistan is lukewarm. Eight, gender and youth based tensions. Of course, this is another area of major concern. Pakistan has roughly 49 per cent female population. How much they are empowered. The youth in Pakistan as I said is around 30 per cent of Pakistan population. What is their future? To what extent they can see their prospects? Do they have hope? Do they have any positive image of Pakistan? Do they realize which way they are heading? The answer to many, if not all of these questions is big No.

I am not saying there are tensions between gender and youth. But there is a situation in Pakistan, it is argued that there is gender discrimination, and if that discrimination is not checked then it may further destabilize the society. There is a leadership vacuum in Pakistan. Student’s elections at the state owned educational institutions which used to be very vibrant, are banned. Only few students, who have some sort of link with political leaders can close the University. Early warning is there but the response is that they can close the university.

Research data shows that youth based tensions are increasing in Pakistan since 1984, when the military regime of General Zia banned student’s unions. Student Unions were not all good and they were involved in some of the ugly things also, but by and large they had a positive contribution and there was a training of student’s tolerance and the process of student’s involvement in their own affairs through elections was contributing meaningfully in the society.
When Zia ul Haq imposed a ban on the students’ union and as a sequel to that what we see is that political parties are leaderless now because during the last 26 years there has been an erosion, as far as the basic training of youth is concerned.

Ninth, health related issues are on the rise and need early warning and early response from the authorities on emergent basis. How various health related issues such as aids, cholera, dengue fever, flue and other diseases cause a lot of instability and crises in society and how an effective response from the concerned authorities is provided is a big question.

It is rightly said in case of Pakistan and South Asia that since we have not properly educated our people or youth, so they have become illiterate. Since we have not fed them properly and we have not given them better hygienic food, clean and safe drinking water, so they have become weak and sick. Since we have not trained them and have not properly educated them so they have become anti-social element to a large extent. So therefore, just imagine for a minute if 30-40 million people are sick out of 180 million or are not in good shape then it has a very negative effect. There is no response on part of state on such matters.

Finally is the issue of collapse of public utilities We cannot provide smooth electricity, clean and safe drinking water to people. I know how in the1960s, there were high officials visiting Pakistan from Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and other countries and ask the governments at that time to inform them of their country’s miracle. Pakistan per capita income and its GDP growth rate was faster at that time and we were better off. But the existing conditions and future prospects in terms of politics, security and economy seems to be very dim.

Prof. R.A. Ariyaratne, Associate Director, Regional Center for Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka presented Sri Lankan perspective of early warning and early response. He said almost from the beginning of our independence i.e. from 1948 onwards we have several such incidents reminding us that we are heading towards some kind of problem. We adopted the British system without thinking any thing about it such as how it is going to suit our own country. It had been a form of government, the electorate, they gave us universal franchise, adult franchise way back in 1932, first in Asia, at a time when our leaders said no we don’t want this. We are not prepared for it and it might create problems for us, but the British insisted if we are giving you this, we must first give you responsibility by giving you first the universal franchise, first elect your own leaders, then after if some problem arises, don’t blame the British, blame your own leaders, that was their logic.

So when we said we don’t want vote at 21, it was lowered to 18 subsequently. They nevertheless gave us vote, and we went on living in this fool’s paradise in so many years, thinking that we are supreme; we are the best in Asia and we are the most democratic nation in Asia. But when it unfolded, it was a different story altogether. No body knew what is universal franchise as very few people have registration, that kind of a thing to qualify him/her to be a voter of present constituencies.
In the first universal franchise based elections, British governor Mr. Freemen contested the seat and what he told us about it. He knew these people don’t know any thing about voting and just told them that a big white man is contesting: either you vote for him, or I go back to England. People voted for him, overwhelmingly.

That shows the nature of democracy we have there. Although we are talking about it now, and also the early warning equally evident in many riots we had series of riots 1958, 1983, so if any person with some statesmen mission would have been at the helm of series in the corridors of power, they would have understood that look the problem is coming, the tide is coming, better be prepared, make amends and build some kind of big places to hide or change the tide, or calm down the tide, but nothing happened. So 1958, 1983, 1985, 1987 and so many riots took place and so many people were displaced, our rulers did not take any notice of it until the massive outbreak of violence that happened it 1983.

One can argue the government was partially involved. I saw one of our ministers drove his car fast and reached where there were some shops of the opponent people. He stopped the car, and took petrol out of it and pour the petrol on Tamil’s shops and set them on fire. That kind of thing was led by a government minister.
So Early Warning was there but no body bothered about it. The warning was there for every one and also for Tamil militants Tamil’s make up of less than 15 per cent of the population, and out of that population, very few people actually demand for a separate state.
Asking for a separate state and agitating for it is fine but how can you justify the use of arms, and it was something you might not be able to win and attain. But some kind of understanding, and misunderstanding was there in the beginning but Tamil militants didn’t listen to it, so finally the two forces converged and produced the 1983 riots, and over a million people were out and still there are more than 70,000 people are living in camps in India.

The whole episode should be looked up from the perspective of general democracy as it is practiced in the South Asia. It should not be mistaken that the military victory in May 2009 is the end of violence and the challenge to maintain a state or holding of a nation together, by military victory, has been met. There are other problems that Sri Lankans are facing like democracy, economy, poverty, social problems, and host of other problem. Ethnic problem is spreading in the South Asian countries, so it is spreading in Sri Lanka also.
The political systems in the South Asian countries have been forced whether you like these systems or not. A statement such as democracy is better than the others would be highly unscientific and absurd kind of a comparison. It has become necessary but in the process of democratization at different levels of various countries, also gives us the fact that political systems are in continuous state of flux. One can’t simply compare them over months or years, because one may dream of ideal type, that remains static for more than couple of years, few years or at their best for decades, even during the brief spans of times during which they remain unchanged, whether they are democratic, dictatorial, monarchical, they begin to develop wide gaps of transitional zones, subterranean under currents than the standard definition of democracy Rule by the People, becomes utterly inadequate. Even in countries where most attributes of democracy have been galvanized into the forms of government, their success in achieving the desired outcome is subject to the caveat propounded by those that people’s judgment is always true.

Now democratization is operating in three different levels in South Asia: some countries are trying to put it in place as the basic framework while the others are grappling with maintaining whatever the rudimentary reforms have been introduced, and third is trying to force a possible derailing of democracy and Sri Lanka happens to be in the third category. Sri Lanka is trying to prevent erosion of democracy which was granted by the universal franchise in 3 years before the British itself had a general elections based on the universal franchise, in the 1970s and 1980s the whole system came under threat of internal uprisings to some of them major uprisings. So day after day, little by little, all the benefits enjoyed by the minority communities granted under the constitution were withdrawn as a constitutional process.
First the Indian Tamils’ voting rights were withdrawn. Then the protection given to the minorities by clause 29 of the constitution was withdrawn. Little by little it became a majoritarian constitution, without making any effort to accommodate the legitimate aspirations and wishes of minority communities. Although we can talk about it in terms of western democratic governance, why don’t you get them to the decision making process which is not possible under the existing franchise regulations in Sri Lanka, because minorities are concentrated in two or three provinces, and the political parties are composed on ethnic loyalties so even in the best case scenario, all the minorities combined they could not get one fourth of the parliament and the more than 3/4 majority under the numerical superiority. No body made a serious effort to amend the system, so think about the majority principal as such, while the conventional political parties failed to produce desirable levels of good governance in the country.

We should also consider that all these riots erupted without interrupting the parliament’s role in the country and around three governments exchanged powers during this period democratically without having the intervention from Army. It seems a good record for any country in Asia and other part of the world but the system that has been put in place by the democratic forces did not consolidate the democratic gains in the country, this is because, circumstances that contribute to initial establishment of democratic regime also did not contribute towards the consolidation in long-term stability, this is the problem in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan polity did not come into; did not appreciate and did not recognize what is known as old Latin consensus that new identities are coming all the day. So it is necessary to change the way of the governance to accommodate these changes. This tendency became particularly on wholesome for the minorities and the underprivileged rural classes not only for the Tamils and the Muslims but also for the people, who are living in the outline provinces of Sri Lanka.

So in the end of 1970s, Sri Lanka was faced with three uprisings at least at the end of the one of them cabinet approved emergency regulations, and it has become part of governance for the last 35 years. We have been living under these Emergency Regulations, continually because each month the regulation is reviewed in parliament but this process has been going on. Even all the opposition members are saying YES to the continuation of emergency rule.
Any way, behind this facade of a participatory democracy the polarization of two communities went apace leading to the level of full scale. The fact that we have regular elections and although there are every form of institutions of good governance, the voting alone doesn’t ensure the solution of problems that are prominent in a political culture. For instance, people work for elections. It seems they are participating in some kind of rituals, the maturity, the wisdom and the kind of thing that a candidate is capable of is missing. for example recently we have couple of persons and they broke into government offices and openly intimidated senior government officials, that person had been elected by majority of 20 per cent, but after beating the government servants and creating hell out of the situation he was elected by the majority of 140,000 votes, so that is the level of democracy we are talking about. I recently saw on the TV that a girl who was a TV actress, was somehow elected to the parliament. When she was asked are you thinking about leaving the party or you would stay with the party, she replied I really don’t know, I will ask somebody else. So this is the kind and level of political maturity, sophistication that is existing in the country. We boost ourselves by saying that we have five star democracy, regular elections, old local bodies and that sort of things but there is little maturity and sophistication that is applied to the constitutional amendments.

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION

Dr. William Tsuma added few more issues to the early warning and early response, the most important issue now a days and in the coming future is the scenario in Pakistan particularly and the whole region in general after the withdrawal of the NATO forces from Afghanistan. My analysis says that Taliban or Taliban like forces will be in power, so whether this will destabilize the region or stabilize the region is a matter of debate and further analysis.
The second issue is the conflict between Iran and the other Arab states, and this is a very big problem which our region is now facing. You know that the USA is continually exploiting the situation. This is also affecting the situation inside Pakistan in terms of sectarian conflicts.
Other issue is related to gender and youth based tensions. The future of the unemployable youth, this is also a problem for India also and may be in Bangladesh. They know nothing because of the deterioration in the education. So what will be the future of such youth is a significant question of immense value. And the last one is that may be the extension of the last issue, it is the environmental pollution. Not only the health but the environment itself is becoming a problem.

Prof. Imtiaz said he has some points to discuss as far as the situation in Nepal is concerned. The issue is different and I don’t think it is on the political parties there, because in Nepal, the sovereign itself has got divided, which has not happened in other countries, because you have a national army but you also have the Maoist army so the issue is two armies. Now in other scenarios one army gets into the other army. The Maoist army and the national army are trying to consolidate their powers, so here you listen one army chief saying the other one should be replaced. The situation gets more complex when neighboring countries excursive their influence.
Now in Sri Lanka’s case, I think we talk about democracy. One easy way where early warning can easily be looked into and people start working on it is the lack of internal democracy, because this is something I think all of the South Asia, suffers from. All the political parties champion democracy outside but not inside. So until or unless you have structures of democracy within political parties it would continue to produce all kinds of other distortions of democracy because they are using the word democracy, and we know that elections alone does not work. And having all the directions, until or unless you have grass root elections within political parties and then organize free and fair elections in country. This way thing may start getting better, of course with some time of practice.

Prof. Imtiaz said, Dr. Moonis, at the end of his presentation reflected a kind of nostalgia that the 1960s were good enough. In the nostalgia of 1960s, the students movement of 1960s has problems also, not only in South Asia but throughout the world, the paradigm was shifting in the 60s behaviorism was coming then we also had the Sino-Soviet conflict.

The way Chinese and the South Asians deal their problems is quite different. The Chinese have this understanding that is called ‘balancing the opposites.’ For example, the mainland China does not even recognize Taiwan. There are no relationships between the two and if any body wants to create a relationship between the two, they get angry too. But Taiwanese investment in China is the largest investment. If you go to Beijing, you will see all the coffee houses, almost all are Taiwanese investment. Similarly Chinese have serious problems with India, they have territorial claims but they have no problem in having a relationship with India. India is the largest trading partner of China. Beijing went against Bangladesh as the first veto against Bangladesh in UN was from China. But if you talk to any person in Bangladesh about China these days you will find that it is a very popular country in Bangladesh.

I think Chinese think in terms of option not in terms of conflict, if one solution doesn’t not work, try another, contradictions are part of life.
South Asia’s colonial legacy or whatever we are more into an approach which I term in one of my papers as the Biryani Approach, where you put everything in it, some fruits in fact, the taste is very good, the best Biryani is in Dhaka, it may be good for your taste but in terms of policy I don’t think this approach can take you very far, because the moment you are talking about politics, for example Kashmir, other things also come, you need to address this first or that first kind of things. All this Biryani approach is keeping us tide in the kitchen and not really taking us very far. So even in early warning system I say we need to keep in mind where is the methodology we should go for or we should keep taking a Biryani approach.

Dr. Fateh Muhmmad Burfat said, one lesson we can take from Nepal is that if the people want change, they will, and these are the symptoms or characteristics arising in our country also, particularly in Pakistan, we should be conscious. I think we must also consider the external factors, All ethnic groups emerged after 1977, particularly Ziaul Haq’s martial law years are very important for present Pakistan.

As far as population growth is concerned, Pakistan has a plural society. If you go into history, then I am sorry to say that first ethnic based riots started in 1947. I would say that democracy is not suitable for Pakistan as a majority because 55 per cent population belongs to Punjab, and other provinces such as KP, Baluchistan and Sindh, they are in minority. If they join together even then it would be difficult to defeat Punjab (The big brother). So I think, we must be very realistic. Then as far as history is concerned, I think it is unfortunate what we are teaching in our text books that is not the true history. It is another dilemma of Pakistan. My children don’t know much about Pakistan. For example history of Karachi doesn’t start from 1947. You must remember 1843, many people in Pakistan do not know about 1843. However, they do know about 1857. Even the first war against the British was fought in Sindh in 1843. At that time Karachi was a major city of the Sindhis. There has been no census after 1998 in Pakistan because of these ethnic issues. I would like to refer to a report by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, (Sindh Chapter) from January 2010 to June 2010, 889 people have been killed only during this period in Karachi, out of them 39 were children, 89 were women, 266 were targeted.

One important point is that arms are easily available in the city. In the past, Karachi was a city of Peace. Before 1947 if you go by the book Karachi was termed as one of the neat and clean cities of the world.

Now it has become one of the dirtiest and deadliest cities of the world.
The history has mysterious links such as 1977 is related with 1978, and 1978 is related with 1979. Those who know International Relations, can easily understand, in Pakistan everything happens as a consequence. So when we are mentioning 1977, we should also mention 1978, and 1979. When we mention October 1999, we can’t understand this without 2001. As far as other issues are concerned over population, unemployment, 66 per cent children don’t have school facility, 50 per cent people don’t have safe and clean drinking water. My concern is that as living in Karachi 50,000 children are living on streets here. They are known as street children in this city. After 10 years they will be young men without any socialization and education. I think they will be a threat for our society so these are the real issues,

Prof. Amal said when we speak of the South Asia region there are not only intra-state problems but there are inter-state problems too. it is very important because mostly because the intra-state problem are also connected to inter-state problems, regional cooperation within the region came very late because of the problems between India and Pakistan, and you mentioned about the small arms and also about the education, I don’t think so you can find an answer to these problems without a regional solution, thinking on the regional level solution but on the other hand it is very difficult to think a regional solution.
I think the space for civil society organization in Sri Lanka is very limited. I mean at what point civil society organizations plan and fight something. Classically, it should be height of a crises situation, but what happens now is at the height of the crises situation, these civil societies become silent sometimes but in some regions, some times, it’s the crisis situation that has given sharpness to civil society organizations in terms of the working and goals, I think these are also issues to discuss here.

Dr. Moonis while responding to questions and observations about his paper said environmental solution along with health issue is a major problem not only in South Asia and Pakistan but in other developing regional countries as well. We have not been able to control deforestation, and what happened in shape of present floods in Pakistan, vast area of the country was devastated. We have not been able to control the pollution in terms of release of gases from the vehicles and factories. Then there is unemployable youth. I think, I have mentioned that they are vulnerable to all sorts of threats, and to what extent there has been some mechanism or some planning or some brainstorming in order to deal with those issues.

Post-NATO withdrawal situation that Afghanistan and Pakistan would face will destabilize not only Pakistan but other countries as well. Withdrawal of NATO forces and US forces from Afghanistan or staying in Afghanistan is like a devil and a deep blue sea. If they remain in Afghanistan, there are problems, and if they leave Afghanistan it is also a problem. I mean if they remain then drone attacks, suicide attacks in retaliation would continue in Pakistan, and if they leave then we should be better prepared for another round of civil war, and the influx of fresh wave of refugees.

Prof. Amal said it is difficult to restrict the discussion on one or two issues, because the situation is very complex in South Asia. Extra-regional factors, inter-state and intra-state conflicts and all these things, therefore conflict assessment may be done in two stages: one is to assess the whole situation and the other state of more viable issues we can worked together. But I don’t think we should group again to find new members. I think this group should continue.

Vote of Thanks by Dr. Fateh Muhammad Burfat
Dr. Fateh Muhammad Burfat extended warm thanks to Dr. Moonis who provided the participants a chance to get together for a whole full day, from morning till the evening to share invaluable thoughts, to enhance knowledge about global issues and regional issues and then the local issues. He said that it was a point of congratulations that Dr. Moonis has gathered very scholarly multidisciplinary team from mathematics, chemistry, political science, media, mass communication and also international people like Prof. Imtiaz, Dr. William Tsuma, Prof. Ariyaratne and Prof. Dr. Amal Jayawardene. He said that it was a good chance for him and all his colleagues there. He hoped Dr. Moonis Ahmar will give them all another such chance to continue this dialogue also. He said the day was a very learning one. Prof. Dr. Amal also thanked Prof. Moonis Ahmar for his efforts in organizing the meeting. Prof. Amal said he has done a wonderful job. Though the meeting could not receive presentations from India and Nepal but the gap was filled ably by his department’s faculty.

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