Ahmad Rafay Alam ‘s exclusive piece for Pak Tea House.
I stopped writing for The News after their attacks against Asma Jehangir during the run-up the Supreme Court Bar elections in 2010. I knew The News catered to every constituency – from the sublime to the ridiculous. It has to. It’s in business, after all. But what they tried to do with Asma was reckless and unforgivable.
There are plenty other papers out there, I thought to myself, why be associated with this one. I have not regretted my decision.
Last week, I saw the same ugly underside of the paper’s editorial policies when Ahmad Noorani tried to uncover a scandal that wasn’t there. Noorani, who is known to call helpless interviewees late at night and record their conversations, made headlines some time ago by trying to embarrass Nazir Naji. Naji, however, didn’t have the good sense to turn the other cheek – a good strategy in the face of a smear campaign, especially when you don’t have a microphone as loud as The News’.
Noorani had spoken to Dr. Nadeem Ul Haque, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. Haque was due to deliver a lecture on development, and plug his baby, the New Growth Framework for Pakistan, before an audience at the National Defence University. He’s done this plenty of times, as anyone on the conference circuit in Islamabad can attest to. However, NDU cancelled the lecture last minute, apparently because it was due to be held in the middle of the December 25/Christmas break.
Nevertheless, like a mouse scrounging for scraps, Noorani thought he saw a story in the cancellation and promptly called Haque. He spins the tale, in an article titled “Progress, N-Plan can’t go together”, thus:
The PPP government was on the verge of making yet another blast to complete the implementation of the notorious ‘Memo agenda’ on Monday when the deputy chairman Planning Commission was all set to deliver a lecture at the National Defence University on the growth strategy based on major cuts in the country’s nuclear budget or completely giving up the nuclear programme, it is reliably learnt.
Credible sources told The News that Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq was preparing the lecture he was to deliver at the NDU on December 26 with the aim of convincing his audience of Pakistan Army officers that the only way to take the country ahead and to make economic progress was to make major cuts in the country’s nuclear programme and subsequently follow the South African Model.
These sources revealed to The News that under instructions of the present government, Dr Haq was to come out in public on the last point of the memo, something the Prime Minister Gilani had stopped short of doing in his two fiery speeches on Thursday.
Noorani is one of those journalists for whom facts are not really something that get in the way of a good copy. He records Haque’s side of the story thus:
When The News approached Dr Nadeem, he differed completely with this interpretation and said his speech, which had been cancelled, was not to focus on the nuclear programme in any way.
But, never mind the other side of the story, the game is set and the script runs thus: Haque is an IMF plant in the Government and is now an instrument of Western World’s plan to roll-back our nuclear program.
The Planning Commission issued a clarification to Noorani’s article the next day (there’s a report in The Express Tribune as well). What I find amazing is the brazen defiance Noorani displays in his rejoinder to the clarification:
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Nadeemul Haque, despite great condemnation of his statement against the country’s nuclear assets across Pakistan, stuck to his words and did not take his statement back during the whole day on Monday, but tried to play with the words by issuing a press release saying: “The story misquoted the presentation he was to give in NDU”.
Arrey bhai, the man says he didn’t say it in his clarification and you just go and call him a liar. The story should have come to an end then and there. But no, with the game set, it was only time before The News let someone else come and play. Enter Shamshad Ahmad, former Foreign Secretary, with his op-ed on “Intrigue and National Security”, and this is where all semblance of The News’ credibility goes down the drain. Ahmad states:
Given our colossal economic mess-up under the present government, we always thought there is no real economist available to it. But we have now discovered it does have one. He happens to be the head of the now almost defunct Planning Commission. The story goes that last week this distinguished economist, who had never been heard of ever since this government came to office, was to present the blueprint of a plan for Pakistan’s economic recovery and development.
The story further goes that the venue of his presentation was to be the prime military institution, the National Defence University (NDU), regarding the contents of the notorious May 10 memo. Ironically, this was also the place where our civil and military leadership had assembled 13 years ago to take the decision to go ahead with our nuclear tests on May 28, 1998.
Symbolically, therefore, it would have been a blow delivered to the nation by this government through an inconsequential functionary. Timely detection of the radioactivity from the ill-designed “testing device” even before its explosion seems to have pre-empted an embarrassing event. The economist was told not to come to the NDU. The testing device he was to explode was certainly not compatible with the location, a university. No wonder, the planned presentation was aborted.
The Planning Commission “almost defunct”? Haque “an inconsequential functionary”. This is yellow journalism at its worst. Carrying out character assassination.
Nevertheless, Ahmad’s op-ed opens up another aspect of this entire story. The elephant in the room, so to speak. And that, of course, is the role of military expenditure with respect to the development budget. Everyone knows that the billions spent on our nuclear program have done bugger all for the country’s security (Dr. Parvez Hoodbhoy makes this point far more eloquently) and that, amongst so many other things, that money could have spent saving the hundreds of thousands who perish every year because of impure drinking water. Even now, as the development lobby cries hoarse over cuts in development expenditure, no one sits back to notice that the lion’s share of the pie goes into a one-line budget entry that remains inaccessible to the public. But no, Ahmad comes from that rare breed of diplomats who fancy themselves economists: later in his essay, he offers the following chestnuts of advice on how to run the country:
Instead of seeking to undermine the country’s national security, our economist friends should have been using their professional skills to control governmental spendings, rooting out corruption from all segments of our society, promoting self-reliance, simplicity and austerity in all spheres of life, and eliminating the VIP culture, including the lavish perks and privileges extended at government expense to holders of public office. What is needed is tightening of belts at the top levels, reducing governmental borrowings, controlling inflation, rationalising of GDP targets, restoring macro-economic balance, and banning non-essential imports and luxuries to reduce the trade gap.
No doubt a fine actor, Ahmad continues to masquerade as an economist for large tracts of the article. If you have the time, I recommend his anachronisms for your amusement. But for now, I want to stop and make a couple of observations.
First, anyone who’s enjoyed Secretary status at the Federal level shouldn’t be allowed to lecture us on “eliminating VIP culture”. Secondly, anyone who’s retired from Government service and is still alive bears some measure of responsibility for the mess Pakistan is in. And here, I’d like to remind Ahmad that he, too, must have played no small part in determining the fortunes of our blighted land. I’d like to ask him what good strategic depth in Afghanistan ever did for schoolgirls in Quetta. I’d like to ask him whether his oversight of the Sir Creek Dispute ever made a difference for people in South Punjab.
The relentless hounding of Haque and his Growth Strategy is base and undignified. I don’t know what bone Ahmad may have to pick with Haque, but his op-ed certainly makes me think the less of him. If you want to criticize Haque and the National Growth Strategy, do so (and there’s plenty to engage on; for me, I’d like to mention that the document is thin on issues such as the environment and climate change), but properly. The News may never live to meet such a standard, but surely there are people out there who can tell right from wrong.
Ahmad Rafay Alam is a lawyer, columnist and an environmental activist based in Lahore. The views expressed here are those of the author.
