Dawn Editorials (with Summary and Vocabulary)

DAWN EDITORIALS

January 16, 2024 (Tuesday)

Day’s Vocabulary

• Doling.        distribute shares of something
• Credence.   belief in or acceptance of something as true
• Dislodge.    knock or force out of position
• Tarnishing.          lose or cause to lose luster, especially as a result of exposure to air or moisture
• Tarred.        covered with tar
• Umpteenth.          used to emphasize that something has happened on many other occasions
• Huffing.     express one's annoyance or offense; blow out loudly; puff
• Ascension. the act of rising to an important position or a higher level
• Soothsayer.          a person supposed to be able to foresee the future
• Redoubtable.        (of a person) formidable, especially as an opponent
• Protagonist.         the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text
• Flaunts.      display (something) ostentatiously, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance
• Firmament.          the heavens or the sky, especially when regarded as a tangible thing
• Gemologist.          the study of precious stones
• Riveting.    completely engrossing; compelling
• Embellish. make (something) more attractive by the addition of decorative details or features
• Hurtling.    move or cause to move at a great speed, typically in a wildly uncontrolled manner
• Lofty.           of imposing height
• Eclectic.      deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources
• Derision.    contemptuous ridicule or mockery
• Reverential.          of the nature of, due to, or characterized by reverence
• Syncretic.  the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought
• Pervasive.  especially of an unwelcome influence or physical effect) spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people
• Retorted.    say something in answer to a remark or accusation, typically in a sharp, angry, or wittily incisive manner
• Litany.         a series of petitions for use in church services or processions, usually recited by the clergy and responded to in a recurring formula by the people
• Astute.         having or showing an ability to accurately assess situations or people and turn this to one's advantage
• Explicitly.  in a clear and detailed manner, leaving no room for confusion or doubt
• Perpetually.          in a way that never ends or changes; constantly
• Yearns.        have an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from
• Prescriptive.        relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method
• Buzzword. a word or phrase, often an item of jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context
• Nudge.         prod (someone) gently, typically with one's elbow, in order to draw their attention to something
• Prod. poke (someone) with a finger, foot, or pointed object

Saturday night fever

Summary

• The Supreme Court decided that the PTI had not held proper intra-party elections and could no longer participate in the general election as a party.
• This decision will have significant consequences for the PTI in the upcoming election, as they will face disadvantages such as the absence of a common symbol and the need for voters to remember different symbols for the National Assembly and provincial assembly candidates.
• The PTI candidates, if elected, will not be bound by party discipline and can choose to stay independent. Their voting will not be controlled by party leadership, and they can choose any candidate for chief minister or prime minister from any party.
• The judgment by the Supreme Court may have unintended consequences beyond its effect on the PTI.

 

Article

The Supreme Court maintained its time-honoured tradition of doling out justice on the eve of an election, which will eventually affect the entire exercise.

On Saturday night, the court decided the PTI had not held proper intra-party elections and could, therefore, no longer take part in the general election as a party. This is not the first time our judges have yielded such influence, and neither will it be the last.

The PTI will now be taking part in the next election with far more disadvantages than just the absence of a common symbol. Consider: in each constituency, the voters will have to remember the correct symbols for the PTI National Assembly candidate and the provincial assembly candidate — both will be different.

This will not be easy, especially in the rural constituencies, where literacy rates are low. As a result, the room for mistakes and rejected votes will increase.

Once these candidates get to parliament — if they survive the ongoing harassment, in addition to the absence of the balla — they will not be bound by any party discipline if they choose to stay independent (though there is little guarantee they will be allowed to form a group once elected).

Their voting, too, will not be controlled by a party leadership, and they can choose any candidate for chief minister or prime minister, and from any party. As journalist Maria Memon tweeted on Sunday, “Yesterday’s ‘historic’ judgement by the SC might have unintended consequences beyond its effect on PTI. Is the door now open for a non-PML-N chief minister in Punjab?”

The party will also not be able to get its quota of indirectly elected seats after the election. The battle is thus more than uphill for the party.

For many younger Pakistanis, the heavy-handedness is new and the PTI its first victim.

Indeed, that this coming election will be unfair and unfree has been lent more credence after Saturday’s decision. Along with the arrests, disappearances and general harassment, only the parties in power after Feb 8 will now consider this a legitimate exercise.

And while there are many who point to past injustices under martial laws, what they tend to forget is that for the young population of Pakistan, which can at best remember Musharraf, the current times present a turning point. Other than those who study it, history can perhaps be no match for lived experience; and this is why, for many younger Pakistanis in some parts of the country, the heavy-handedness is new and the PTI its first victim. This perception will be hard to dislodge.

To return to the PTI, these heavy-handed tactics have done a greater disservice to more than just the party and its supporters. The crackdown, which culminated with the decision on the party symbol, has left a sense that the PTI’s popularity was so unprecedented that it required a dismantling, which, too, was excessive. If in 2018 it was sufficient to disqualify and imprison the party leadership, this time around individuals were picked up and forced to renounce the party, campaigning was disallowed and its symbol taken away.

This aggression has simply established the PTI’s popularity as unmatched, even before an election result could ‘prove’ it. Consider what this means for other parties in the running.

More than tarnishing the election, this has also tarred the PML-N and its possible victory (or of the PPP, if it wins any significant seats in Punjab). Whatever the result of the election, the winning party will be seen to be the one cruising to victory only because the god of winds was puffing hard at their sails. Those behind the helm will get little credit.

To repeat for the umpteenth time, such a government will hardly be able to govern and deliver. Power will lie with those who did the huffing and puffing. This is all the more certain given the lawmaking the PDM government had done during its last days in power. With the SIFC seen as the decision-making centre, the next prime minister, like all previous interior ministers, will have to spend much time worrying about Islamabad and ordering CDA around.

More than that, though, it is intriguing what impact this will have on the party and its voter base beyond the short term. Will the party need to pick a fight with the establishment to regain its popular base again? Or will its time in power allow it to strengthen its patronage links in Punjab? The future of the PML-N remains as unclear as the winter sky in Lahore.

But unlike the PML-N, the fate of the Supreme Court is perhaps more evident. The decision that came on Saturday will be remembered for long for the role it played in weakening democracy, while the current chief justice will be remembered more for this decision than any of the ones that have come from the court since his ascension.

If in the recent past, constitutional provisions introduced by dictators were used to disqualify politicians, this decision, arguably, didn’t just take a small step, but a giant leap to disenfranchise the voters of a political party. And I wouldn’t even believe a soothsayer if he or she said on national television that this judicial precedent will not be used again. After all, Jehangir Tarin was disqualified merely months after Nawaz Sharif.

We have just been delivered our latest version of 58 (2)(b).

Postscript: It is interesting to note that there are growing whispers that this election will lead to an unstable regime which will not last very long. While some are predicting a few months, the more optimistic accounts tend to speak of a year or two. It is hard to remember the last time such rumours began even before the election took place.

The death of a Muslim musician

Summary

• Ustad Rashid Khan, a prominent Indian classical vocalist, has died at the age of 54. - He was considered one of the most accomplished musicians of his generation.
• Khan's death has sparked discussions about the role of Muslim musicians in Indian culture.
• Muslim musicians have historically played an important role in Indian music, but have faced challenges in recent years due to the rise of Hindu nationalism.
• Khan's son, Armaan Khan, is also a talented singer and may carry on his father's legacy.
• The article also discusses the history of Muslim musicians in India, and the challenges they have faced.
• It highlights the contributions of Muslim musicians to Indian music, and the importance of preserving their legacy.

Article

In Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (music room), the tired and lonely zamindar is played by the redoubtable Bengali actor, Chhabi Biswas. In a scene in the movie, the protagonist requests the caretaker of his mansion to summon a particular ‘Musalman’ singer for the evening concert.

The film flaunts a medley of Muslim musicians performing in the music room, including a remarkable live performance by Begum Akhtar and an off-screen recital by Ustad Salamat Ali. The music for Jalsaghar was composed by sitar wizard Ustad Vilayat Khan.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s morning concert in Abu Dhabi in the 1980s boosted the point Ray touched on about Muslim singers. A fan requested Panditji to perform the morning melody, Raag Lalit. “The singer of Lalit is no more, sadly.” Bhimsen Joshi found himself paying a spontaneous tribute to Ustad Amir Khan, the pre-eminent Muslim vocalist who died prematurely in a car accident in Kolkata.

It’s not often that eminent singers praise other eminent singers publicly. Joshi sang Miyan ki Todi instead that morning. It didn’t end there. Asked elsewhere about the future of classical music after him, he picked an unknown name at the time, a young Muslim singer from the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana, who had been trained at a respected music academy in Kolkata.

It showed his belief in the young Rashid Khan that Bhimsen Joshi would go on to perform a duet with the little-known star of the musical firmament. It’s difficult to say if Panditji ever sang a classical duet with another singer. Joshi’s indulgence of Rashid Khan was that of a gemologist.

Ustad Rashid Khan was indeed among the more accomplished musicians from India’s current crop of classical vocalists. His death from prostate cancer at the peak of a critically applauded career at 54 last week spurred some to describe him as the last of the legends of a riveting form of north Indian music, the khayal.

The singular praise seemed an exaggeration, however, given that there are amazing singers around to embelish the legacy of khayal gayaki. But the fact that Rashid Khan happened to be an immensely talented Muslim singer, makes the claim worth pondering; not least in the context of a rightward hurtling, culturally Hinduising India.

Ustad Rashid Khan was indeed among the more accomplished musicians from India’s current crop of classical vocalists.

Rashid Khan’s death is not the end of the road for Muslim singers, of course. There is Rashid’s own son, for example: Armaan Khan, who has shown the spark to pursue his father’s legacy. With more experience, and lots more practice, Armaan has it in him to become a living tribute to the lofty traditions of his father’s gharana. There are other attractive, albeit less visible Muslim singers — for example, from the Agra gharana — but they have struggled to get the big stage that Rashid Khan was lucky to find.

Why do we need to speak of Muslim singers today? For one, Muslim musicians helped Nehru’s India to staunch the encroachment of Hindu communalism on music. While it has not been easy, the effort was credible. Their eclectic embrace of India’s spiritual motifs won for Muslim musicians a soft corner in the hearts of fellow Indians. But it also earned derision from a narrow-minded Hindu elite.

Be it Ustad Karim Khan’s facility with Hindu scriptures, or Fayyaz Khan performing compositions praising Lord Krishna, or Bade Ghulam Ali Khan weaving bandishes with reverential Hindu motifs, or Bismillah Khan playing the shehnai at Varanasi’s historic temple to Shiva, they consciously or possibly unknowingly helped shore up Nehru’s project of establishing a syncretic culture across the arts.

The project was a challenge and a necessity in the wake of the violent partition of the country, which has since threatened to undermine its secular promise. Late 19th-century critics of Muslim musicians, led by Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, had a field day berating what he called the ‘pollution’ Muslims had infused into Indian music.

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande claimed a bulk of Muslim musicians lacked the rigour and discipline he sought for his new nationalist project. It involved discarding the ustads as untutored in the grammar of Indian music. Ustad Karim Khan challenged both Maharashtrian Brahmins.

Historian Janaki Bakhle offers handy references to this effect in her book, Two Men and Music. Published in 2005, the book describes the challenge that would befall Rashid Khan’s peers and other Muslim ustads. The prejudice against Muslims and the accusation that they had polluted Indian music was pervasive. The assault in Maharashtra was all-out and pervasive compared to, say, Bengal, where a degree of respect for the ustads was never quite abandoned.

Bhatkhande’s countrywide project to write a textual, classical, and connected history for music, and Paluskar’s project to expand his network of Gandharva Mahavidyalayas, tested the established gharanas and their ustads in different ways, writes Bakhle. “Paluskar had instituted communal prayers in Sanskrit in his Gandharva Mahavidyalayas, and all Hindu holidays were ceremonially celebrated.”

The malaise was widespread. In 1921, Karim Khan moved his school to Pune and was immediately confronted with hateful challenges. “Pune was a Brahmin city where the orthodoxy monitored the public use of water and opposed a Muslim musician teaching Hindu boys,” says Bakhle. “Pune’s orthodox Brahmins viewed all of Abdul Karim’s students as contaminated because of their intimate association with him.”

Bhatkhande on one occasion taunted Karim Khan to sing a raga named Nayaki Kanada. “Abdul Karim retorted that he could sing three different kinds of Nayaki Kanada, one from Kirana gharana, one from Rampur, and one that lay musicians sang.

He then challenged Bhatkhande to hum a few bars of any Nayaki Kanada he wished and told him that one of his children would sing the sargam simultaneously. This was clearly meant to bring Bhatkhande down a peg. Bhatkhande, not being a performer, could not comply with this request.“

Luckily for Rashid Khan’s craft, and for India’s syncretic journey, for every Paluskar or Bhatkhande, there was a Ray or Bhimsen Joshi.

The missing link

Summary

• There is a disconnect between teachers and school management, leading to problems such as teacher absences, high turnover, and low student retention.
• Teachers often feel they have little say in decision-making and would welcome more open communication and collaboration.
• Several steps can be taken to address this disconnect, including:
• Planning and implementing processes in advance to help teachers manage their workload.
• Providing opportunities for social interaction and collaboration among teachers.
• Conducting supervision rounds that include feedback and opportunities for professional growth.
• Using technology to streamline work and create opportunities for collaboration.
• Inspiring teachers instead of just managing them.
• When teachers feel inspired and supported, they are more likely to be productive and satisfied, leading to better outcomes for students and parents.

Article

Passing the parcel was a favourite game among kids at birthday parties in the bygone days. These days, passing the buck seems to be a running trend among those who like to shy away from accountability. One school owner I met seemed to have a litany of complaints against the teachers employed at her school: excessive absences, lack of classroom management skills and an unprofessional attitude were cited as reasons that land a school into ill-repute.

Meanwhile, teachers point fingers at the school management’s inability to provide the necessary resources, training and development, reward and recognition. Whilst these may indeed affect the teachers’ motivation, they are not the drivers of performance or the lack thereof. Those who are experts in their subject and professionally astute don’t usually rely on external factors to motivate them.

There might be a missing link in this equation — a gap between how the teachers perform and the school management’s perception of them. When this gap grows, it becomes a gaping wound, leading to teacher absences, high turnover, lower student retention rates, mediocre academic results and complaints by parents — all resulting in disgruntled school leaders which, in turn, clouds the entire school culture.

Communication and collaboration may help address this missing link between teachers and management. Often, teachers have little agency in contributing to the transformation processes at school. From timetabling and scheduling of classes to the choice of books for their subjects, most decision-making rests with those at the top. When parents complain, teachers get only a filtered version of it. When the teachers underperform, the management cannot necessarily put their finger on the reason for it, and the blame game continues.

Teachers would welcome more open communication.

Part of the transformational growth at schools requires an inquiry mindset where the management collaborates with teachers and seeks their insight on growth, obstacles and opportunities. Most teachers would welcome more open and frequent communication, as would parents, who desperately want answers regarding their children’s experiences at school.

Planning and implementing processes, such as rosters for substitution, assessment schedules and parent-teacher conferences, in advance can help teachers manage their workload more efficiently. Often, teachers are overloaded with unplanned substitution duty for absent teachers, or tend to find out at the eleventh hour that a working Saturday is coming up due to parent-teacher meetings. Planning events much in advance establishes expectations and minimises nasty surprises that can dampen motivation.

Social interaction amongst the teachers also has a huge bearing on teacher motivation and well-being. Yet, in most schools, the aim is to minimise social interaction or reserve it for end-of-term school dinners. Work relationships among colleagues evolve continually, and it would help to provide regular opportunities for teachers to engage with each other during frequent breaks, collaborate on lesson plans and teaching strategies and plan their modules together.

In most schools, only the heads conduct supervision rounds, although it could be very useful for junior teachers to shadow the more experienced ones and give constructive feedback as well as learn from seniors. There can be massive professional growth in watching and learning across the board. Besides, the supervision isn’t always followed up with feedback, so teachers may not be explicitly aware of the aspects of their teaching that need improvement. Similarly, many school or subject heads ask for weekly or monthly lesson plans but do not add­re­­ss the disparity between the plan and what is actually being taught in class. Reflection sheets that can steer teachers towards pinpointing what they do well and where they need support are greatly beneficial for continuous learning.

School management may want to leverage available technology for digital reminders, discussion boards and tracking content taught in class by having teachers enter records each week. Sustainable systems in place can streamline much of the work being done, besides providing opportunities for collaborative work online vis-à-vis shared lesson plans.

Most teachers want to be inspired, as opposed to being managed, and inspiration can lead to dramatic positive change. When the work is shared across the board, the management would be less fearful of lack of productivity and teachers would get a chance to showcase their work and receive timely feedback. The ultimate beneficiaries — students and parents — walk away with greater satisfaction.

Corporate purpose

Summary

• Corporations should strive to create "profitable solutions to problems of people and planet", not just enrich shareholders.
• The current focus on shareholder profit maximization is leading to social disorder, energy crises, and corporate bank failures.
• Citizens have become mere consumers, with no say in corporate decision-making.
• ESG reporting standards are a step in the right direction, but they are not enough to address the problem of corporate purpose.
• There is a need to realign the profit motive and embed purpose into the corporate legal framework.
• Pakistan has an ambitious climate change action plan that relies on public-private partnerships.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has issued ESG-focused regulations, but more needs to be done to embed corporate purpose into company's constitutional documents.

Article

Who am I? Why are we here? What happens to us when we die? Complex questions which every individual seeks to answer in a lifetime.

According to Colin Mayer’s Prosperity, the purpose of the existence of a corporationis rather simple: “producing profitable solutions to problems of people and planet”. The current socioeconomic business model creates an overabundance of wealth for businessmen, shareholders and CEOs. The scarcity of natural resources necessitates that the role of corporations goes beyond the stakeholder capitalism prevalent in the environment, social and governance (ESG) policy today.

The reasons behind social disorder, energy crises and corporate bank failures are ‘as clear as day’, yet perpetually unseen by a few. The world yearns for real, sustainable and permanent change — a change in the way we conduct business, treat the environment and build a better future for coming generations.

Governance can help the corporation become a source of benefit to society and diminish the likelihood of harm caused to citizens. Orthodox shareholder primacy has been rejected across the Atlantic, but the alternatives to solving issues related to prosperity and consumer welfare need further examination. The citizen has become merely a consumer, with no active participation in the decision-making process. The consumer is deprived due to profit maximisation at each stage of interaction between the individual, state and corporation. Prescriptive mandatory rules and best practices to redefine the corporate purpose of companies in both the Global North and South are required immediately.

The citizen has become merely a consumer.

Do ESG reporting standards and frameworks solve the problem?ESG addresses a company’s performance and risk exposure based on its environmental impact, social responsibility, and how it is governed. The idea is to integrate a broad corporate strategy, addressing stakeholder and regulatory demands. ESG programmes are driven by investor demand, workforce pressure, enterprise management, and competitive advantage. Institutional investors employ ‘sustainability-linked’ loan-lending strategies to gain a better understanding of risks of an investee firm.

According to the UN Principle of Responsible Investment estimates, global sustainable lending activity grew from $6 billion in January 2016 to $322bn in September 2021. However, sustainable investing approaches differ widely by strategy and products, making it difficult to measure ESG performance. The greatest challenge faced by institutional investors is ‘greenwashing’ — funds which have branded themselves as ‘sustainable’ but are not fundamentally different from traditional funds.

The UN Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2023 states: “Growing awareness of misleading practices is creating disillusion, threatening the entire market’s credibility and leading to an increase in regulatory measures to enhance transparency and accountability.”

Realignment of the profit motive and embedding purpose in the corporate legal framework lies at the heart of the issue. How is a buzzword of any use to a shareholder if it carries no instant return or promotes stakeholder interests at the cost of financial capital? The answer is not straightforward. ESG guidelines nudge private actors at the corporate level. Alternatively, SDG goals and the Paris Agreement’s Nationally Determined Contributions prod public actors at the state level. A truly sustainable society is visible through the lens of shareholder governance, but can only be manifested through a paradigm shift towards stakeholder governance.

Pakistan has an ambitious climate change action plan, exhibited recently at the pavilion of COP28 in the UAE. Two things seem quite obvious, first, despite its low greenhouse gas emissions (490 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2017-18) Pakistan’s frequent exposure to natural hazards and significant dependence on monsoon rain and the glacier-fed Indus Basin make it vulnerable to climate change. Second, public-private partnerships are integral to achieving the transformation of 60 per cent of the country’s energy production through ‘clean and renewable’ resources by 2030. It is an inflection point for the Global South, which can either embrace economic growth in a measured sustainable method or follow the path of the Global North’s industrial expansion, which is irreversible.

Various regulators in the country, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, the Pakistan Stock Exchange and the State Bank have issued ESG-and sustainability-focused regulations, policies and guidelines. However, time is of the essence; the quick remedy lies in embedding corporate purpose in a company’s constitutional documents — which is variable on a self-regulatory basis but loosely monitored by the SECP.