Dawn Editorials (with Summary and Vocabulary)

 DAWN EDITORIALS

January 25, 2024 (Thursday)

Day’s Vocabulary

• Malicious.  characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm
• Scrutiny.    critical observation or examination
• Censure.     express severe disapproval of (someone or something), especially in a formal statement
• Lax.   not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful
• Derided.      express contempt for; ridicule
• Venerated. regard with great respect; revere
• Skewed.       suddenly change direction or position
• Scathing.    witheringly scornful; severely critical
• Flak.  strong criticism
• Deference. humble submission and respect
• Gag.   a piece of cloth put in or over a person's mouth to prevent them from speaking or crying out
• Proclivities.          a tendency to choose or do something regularly; an inclination or predisposition toward a particular thing
• Imprudent.           not showing care for the consequences of an action; rash
• Cursory.      hasty and therefore not thorough or detailed
• Annals.        a record of events year by year
• Penitentiary.        a prison for people convicted of serious crimes
• Atonement.           reparation for a wrong or injury
• Imperilling.          put at risk of being harmed, injured, or destroyed
• Aberrance. departing from an accepted standard
• Wary.            feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems
• Stewardship.        the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property
• Wean.           accustom (an infant or other young mammal) to food other than its mother's milk
• Chronic.      (of an illness) persisting for a long time or constantly recurring. Often contrasted with acute
• Spurt.           gush out in a sudden and forceful stream
• Brewing.     make (beer) by soaking, boiling, and fermentation
• Reckless.    (of a person or their actions) without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action
• Ensuing.     occurring afterward or as a result
• Mundane.  lacking interest or excitement; dull
• Schism.       a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief
• Peeved.        annoyed or irritated
• Encore.        a repeated or additional performance of an item at the end of a concert, as called for by an audience
• Starker.       severe or bare in appearance or outline

JIT is no answer

Summary

• The Pakistani government has formed a JIT (Joint Investigation Team) to investigate a social media campaign against Supreme Court judges.
• The author questions whether a JIT is the right approach, given the divisive nature of social media and the public's right to scrutinize public servants.
• He argues that judges in democracies are accountable to the public and should expect criticism if they fail to uphold the law or make controversial decisions.
• The author cites examples of ethical and jurisprudential problems within the Pakistani judiciary, including corruption charges against one judge and the resignation of another under mysterious circumstances.
• He suggests that the judiciary needs to change its behavior and norms to better align with the public's expectations of justice and fairness.
• The author criticizes a recent decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the ECP's denial of PTI's party symbol, arguing that it raises questions of propriety, interpretation of the law, and precedent.
• He concludes that a JIT or crackdown on social media is not the answer to addressing problems within the judiciary. Instead, the judiciary needs to focus on jurisprudential correctness and consistency.

Article

The federal government has formed a joint investigation team comprising officers of various investigation and intelligence agencies to “ascertain the facts behind a malicious social media campaign against Supreme Court judges”. Three critical questions must be raised: can the JIT objectively ascertain the ‘facts’, given a highly divisive and toxic social media? Aren’t the facts leading to the unfortunate targeting of judges already known to the government, in view of some recent decisions, which are perceived as controversial, emanating from the court? And would the JIT’s findings, followed by a set of coercive measures against the transgressors, really save the judges from future attacks while court decisions regarded as controversial as well as internal divisions continue? To answer these questions, we must understand the role and nature of our public service, particularly the judiciary, and its impact on public behaviour.

Across democracies, the actions of public servants, including judges, come under public scrutiny. In fact, accountability is embedded in em­­ployment laws both at the institutional and public levels. At the institutional level, it sets the rules for evaluating the performance of public functionaries. The latter operates on agency principal, meaning that public servants are supposed to act as agents of the people who employ them and pay for their services. Therefore, they must act in the interest of their principal, ie, the people.

The judiciary forms a separate and specialised branch of public service in a democracy, but essentially, the judges’ job is no different from other public functionaries. They must also render justice to and for the people, and thereby keep the state and government within the confines of the law and Constitution. Likewise, judges are also liable to public censure if they fail to deliver, professionally or ethically. No wonder, the law protecting judges has lost much of its significance in Western democracies. Only the obstruction of process or disobedience of judicial orders draws state sanctions.

But lax protection rarely causes the judges to be derided or defied by the people. Competent and upright judges are universally venerated, for they protect people, individually and collectively, against the excesses of their fellow citizens and state authorities. They face criticism only for ill conduct or ‘skewed’ judgements. Recently, two US supreme court judges, Thomas Clarence and Samuel Alito, came under scathing criticism; the former for receiving expensive gifts, and the latter for accepting free trips. But the public backlash did not go in vain. It led to the codification of “rules and principles that guide the conduct of members of the court”. Similarly, Republican-appointed conservative judges are receiving flak for ‘rewriting’ settled laws on such socially and politically explosive issues as abortion, LGBT, guns, and voting rights.

Across democracies, the actions of public servants, including judges, come under public scrutiny.

We’ve also had our share of ethical and jurisprudential problems. Recently, we saw a Supreme Court judge bowing out after corruption charges were pressed against him. Another judge resigned in mysterious circumstances, triggering speculations about his personal dossier. However, contrary to Western traditions, our judges tend to be more sensitive about their image than the authority they wield. Many politicians have been punished under the law of contempt. But this colonial model of ensuring deference for judges is becoming increasingly ineffectual, notwithstanding the plethora of penal laws and liberal use of the state machinery to gag voices of criticism. People are vocal because they are unhappy with the judges’ perceived ‘camps’ and ‘political’ proclivities. And social media has provided them with a vast outlet to express their disaffection in a more effective and organised manner.

Therefore, it would be imprudent of the authorities, and judges, to expect the people — millions of them — to change their behaviour towards courts that are widely perceived to have failed to protect fundamental rights. What is needed, instead, is a behavioural and normative change in the judiciary in view of the common folk being long denied their aspirations to security, liberty and honour as promised to them by the founding fathers and reiterated by every judge taking his or her oath.

Traditionally, politicians have been accused of passing legislation inconsistent with the Constitution. But a cursory look at the judicial annals shows the courts also engaged in a jurisprudential back-and-forth, playing dice with the law. Recent judgements appear to boost this observation. The court under the new CJP has engaged in a series of curative, corrective, and even ‘penitentiary’ adjudications. It upheld the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act and thereby curatively provided for an appeal against judgements passed in its original jurisdiction. Taking a corrective view, it removed the lifelong ban imposed on politicians under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution. The court was also expected, in an act of atonement, to cleanse both its conscience and the stain of unjustly convicting and hanging a former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

But then, the happy streak suddenly saw a reversal. A three-member bench headed by the chief justice upheld the ECP’s petition denying the PTI its party symbol, throwing it out of the electoral arena. The ECP decision may be technically ‘correct’, but it raises questions of propriety, construction (or interpretation of the law), and precedent. Should the CJ have sat in a matter involving PTI and its founder who had previously brought action against the current CJ, imperilling his office, attempting to tarnish his image, and putting him and his family in great distress?

Moreover, if the construction provided more than one determination (as it apparently did in ECP’s case) shouldn’t the court have adopted the one that allowed the PTI — arguably the most popular political party — to participate in elections, ensuring a level playing field for all contenders? And finally, why did the court have to deviate from the principle set in many a precedent, including the ‘Benazir Bhutto’ case? Ironically, history has answered such questions before, though in a varied and tragic form: ie, military takeovers, rigged elections, a polarised judiciary, ‘controlled’ democracy, the persecution of politicians, etc. But no lessons have been learnt.

A JIT or a crackdown on social media is no answer to judicial aberrance. Public behaviour towards the judiciary cannot be regulated, except through jurisprudential correctness and interpretational consistency. History records such coercion as witch-hunting to influence the outcome of the elections.

Comparing economic performances

Summary

• It's difficult to say which political party has the best track record of managing Pakistan's economy.
• Be wary of parties that tout their economic performance using a few select indicators. These indicators only provide snapshots of the economy at a particular point in time and don't capture the full picture.
• The best economic policies often take years to produce results. This means that the party that implemented them may no longer be in power when the benefits are realized.
• Some economic policies can produce short-term growth but have negative long-term consequences. Examples include building expensive infrastructure projects that don't add to the economy's productive capacity and printing money to pay government expenses.
• It's common for governments in Pakistan to promote economic growth using unsustainable measures and then blame the resulting problems on the next government.
• It's important to be critical of the economic performance stories that parties present, especially during election season.

Article

People often ask which political party has the best track record of managing the economy and producing the best results. It is a tricky question to give a straightforward answer to, but if pressed, the most obvious reply would be ‘none of the above’. The reason is that all major parties have had their stint in power and yet Pakistan continues to be the most reliable client of the IMF, the institution that is the emergency room for economies in distress.

But if one is willing to be a bit patient, there is a more worthwhile answer. First of all, beware of any narratives that roll out a handful of indicators as measures of economic performance. Be very wary if any party tries to tell you that the GDP growth rate was higher in their time compared to that of others, or that exports hit a higher peak, or revenue collection grew the fastest, or foreign exchange reserves climbed faster and higher in their time than of their rivals, or that inflation was lower during their tenure, or large-scale manufacturing output grew faster than in the time of others or any other such indicator.

There are good reasons to be wary of a performance report card presented in this manner. First, indicators such as these do not capture economic performance in a useful way. They only provide snapshots of what is happening in areas of the economy at one point in time. The real story always lies in how these indicators are connected to each other, and how they evolve over a period of time. It is as if somebody gave you a handful of indicators, such as good blood pressure, good body mass, a robust appetite as signs of good health. What you don’t know, and what these indicators will not tell you, is whether a serious problem is growing inside the body.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, one problem in measuring economic performance is that the results of actions taken today can take a few years to materialise. The best economic stewardship is the kind that produces results over the long term, meaning years after the party that implemented them is no longer in power. This is one reason why the steps needed to wean the country off its chronic dependence on the IMF are not taken by any party. They will not be around to claim the credit.

What the indicators will not tell us, is whether a serious problem is growing inside.

The worst stewardship the economy can be given is the kind that produces short-term positive results but medium- to long-term harm. For example, building projects that are not economically or financially feasible, and do not add to the economy’s productive capacity, but cost a lot of money, especially in borrowed foreign exchange. These projects can produce a short-lived spurt in activity that can potentially produce a bump in GDP growth, and give us impressive-looking structures like lavish roads or highways. But they do not help the economy’s underlying weaknesses, while adding to its debt service bill.

Another example is printing money. If a government resorts to printing money to pay its expenses, it will give a short-lived boost to the economy, but after 18 to 24 months, it will either produce very high inflation, or a rising demand for dollars that the foreign exchange reserves are not able to service, leading eventually to large exchange rate devaluations.

What happens very often in Pakistan is that the government promotes economic growth using tools like the borrowing and printing of money, and points to the resultant growth spurt as evidence of its superior management. But when the inevitable problems appear, they make excuses just long enough for their term to end and power to pass to the next government following elections. Then they blame the next government for the resultant mess, whereas it was they themselves who had created it.

This is what happened in the years leading up to the 2008 election, when the Musharraf regime left behind an inflation bomb and brewing balance-of-payments crisis due to its reckless borrowing and printing polices. And then went on to blame the incoming PPP government for the resultant detonation that happened in November 2008. It happened again in the run-up to the 2018 election, when the polices of PML-N’s Ishaq Dar, which had produced a short-lived growth spurt but birthed massive balance-of-payments deficits, left behind a crisis-like situation for the incoming PTI government. Then they went ahead and blamed the PTI for creating the mess and destroying the growth they had generated. It happened one more time when the PTI government was ousted in a vote of no-confidence in April 2022, leaving behind an inflation bomb and a balance-of-payments crisis for the incoming PDM government to manage, and then blaming them for it.

In each case, the policies that produced the growth that respective parties bragged about as their achievement, also produced the ensuing crisis. But the growth came during the time the party was in power, while the crisis was left for the next government to tackle, thereby making it easy to take the credit for the growth and blame the crisis on the successor. Fact is, both the growth and the ensuing crisis were two sides of the same coin, and could not be looked at in isolation.

This is why it is important to be wary of the report cards that parties present when giving their economic performance stories. In all cases, the growth presented has contained the seeds of its own ending. It is a story of throttling and choking the economy, in quick succession, in their aim to claim the growth as their own and blame the disaster on the other. It is important to reject these performance stories as elections approach, and a new government prepares to take the reins of the economy.

A saffron rebirth

Summary

• A lavish temple dedicated to Rama was consecrated in Ayodhya, India on Jan 22, 2024.
• The temple cost Indian rupees 1,800 crore ($217 million) to build.
• It was funded by private donations.
• The consecration was a major political event for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• Modi attended the consecration with the head of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat.
• The event was widely covered by the media.
• It is seen as having cemented Modi's re-election, which is due to take place this summer.
• The consecration was controversial.
• Some Hindu leaders, including the four shankaracharyas, did not attend.
• There are doctrinal disputes about the temple, as it is dedicated to a Vaishnavite deity, while the shankaracharyas are Shaivites.
• Some also feel that the consecration was premature, as the temple is not yet complete.
• The Ayodhya mandir project is the most expensive religious project built to date in India.
• However, it will take decades or even centuries for it to catch up with the wealth of India's richest temple, the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram.
• Modi is likely to continue to use religious projects to boost his popularity.
• He may order the construction of a new temple to mark the birthplace of Krishna at Mathura.
• This would likely help him to secure re-election in 2029.

Article

Modern India’s founding father M.K. Gandhi was shot on Jan 30, 1948, by Nathuram Godse, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s secular India died on Jan 22, 2024, in Ayodhya, the janambhumi or birthplace of Lord Rama.

No one knows for sure where or when Rama was born. A site has been contested for at least 500 years, since the first Mughal emperor Babar’s order for a mosque to be built there. The date of Rama’s rebirth on Jan 22, 2024 — not as his legendary successor Lord Krishna but as a modern political avatar — will never be forgotten. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured that.

Accompanied by Shri Mohan Bhagwat, head of the RSS, Modi attended the pran prathistha or consecration of the lavish temple dedicated to Rama at Ayodhya, built at a cost of Indian rupees 1,800 crore ($217 million).

The media made much of the event, as PM Modi and his alter ego Amit Shah had planned it should. A select group of invitees included business tycoons who fund the BJP, stars from Bollywood to whom the over-decorated temple must have seemed as familiar as a film set, and once ambitious BJP politicians Modi cut to size.

The Ayodhya mandir project has cemented Modi’s re-election.

Hidden amongst them was L.K. Advani, ever proud of his RSS affiliation and a founder member of the BJP, who organised the first Ram Rath Yatra that began from Somnath (Gujarat) on Sept 25, 1990. It aimed at concluding in Ayodhya a month later. Advani used this yatra to sensitise his fellow Hindus to the Ram janambhumi issue, raising it from the mundane level of a local property dispute to the pious height of an emotive national crusade. Once deputy prime minister, he lost his claim to the top job after he made a complimentary but ill-timed reference to the Quaid-i-Azam in Karachi — their shared birthplace.

Prominent absentees from the Ayodhya festivities were Congress leaders still attached to the umbilical cord of Nehru’s secularism, affronted non-invitees lurking beyond the pale of Modi’s hospitality, and most noticeably the four shankaracharyas representing the cardinal points of Puri (east), Karnataka (south), Gujarat (west), and Uttarakhand (north).

The presence of any of the four shankaracharyas (although not mandatory) would have lent an aura of religious sanctity to the solemn pran prathistha. India’s teenmurti would have shown a singular Hindutva face. The absence of all four, though, attracted the wrong sort of attention. It was as if (the analogy is not an exact fit) Charles III’s recent coronation ceremony had been held in the absence of the bishops of Bath & Wells, of Durham, Hereford and of Norwich.

Some say the schism was doctrinal. The temple is dedicated to a Vaishnavite deity whereas the shankaracharyas veer towards Shaivism. Others felt that as the temple is still incomplete, its consecration is premature. For Prime Minister Modi, the inauguration of the Rama temple now was crucial. It was the fulfilment of BJP’s campaign promises made over numerous elections. A few suspect that one of the shankaracharyas was peeved that promises of custodianship of the Rama mandir made to him by the Congress party when in power had not been honoured by the present BJP government.

All or none may be true. The management of shrines in every faith has always been a lucrative business. The Roman Catholic Church became rich on individual contributions — Peter’s pence — collected in churches across the world. Muslim shrines are often prone to disputes among stick-fingered trustees.

Although the Rama temple at Ayodhya is the most expensive religious project built to date in India (funded by private donations), it will take decades if not centuries for it to catch up with the accumulated wealth of India’s richest temple — the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. Said to have assets worth Indian rupees 120,000 crore, managed by a trust headed by the Travancore royal family, it has in its eight underground vaults a treasure trove of “gold idols, gold, emeralds, antique silver, and diamonds”. The inventory ordered in 2011 by India’s supreme court has yet to be completed.

The Ayodhya mandir project has cemented Modi’s re-election this summer. What will he do for an encore? Conceivably, he will order the construction of a fresh temple to mark the birthplace of Rama’s avatar Lord Krishna at Mathura. Ayodhya has cleared the way for him. All Modi needs is evidence of a previous shrine, endorsement by the supreme court, and an avalanche of donations. His re-election as prime minister in 2029 seems assured.

Modi believes that Lord Rama has answered his prayers. To a billion Indians, Modi’s success in propelling their country into economic superpower status is an answer to theirs.

Building trust

Summary

• Climate change is one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing humanity.
• The world is not on track to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement, and the consequences of failure could be catastrophic.
• The World Economic Forum's 2024 risk report identifies climate change as the top four global risks in terms of severity.
• Climate change is already having a devastating impact on people and economies around the world, and the worst is yet to come.
• The lack of progress on climate finance is a major obstacle to global climate action.
• Developing countries need significantly more funding for adaptation to climate change.
• Mobilizing and delivering adaptation finance to developing countries is essential to building trust, reducing risks, and controlling global warming.

Article

There is no doubt that climate change is one of humanity’s most complex challenges and needs to be urgently tackled. But is the world faltering in forging a cohesive response? The year 2023 was the hottest recorded, with the annual average global temperature climbing 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Intergovern­mental Panel on Climate Change reports indicate that world temperatures could tip over the 1.5°C threshold by 2030. Prospects of failing to realise the targets of the Paris Agreement are getting starker. Such a scenario could have irreversible catastrophic consequences.

Climate change is already exacerbating existing crises and triggering new ones. The nexus between climate change and socioeconomic issues is increasing poverty, inequality, and hunger in the Global South. The inextricable link between climate and heath is responsible for the rise of infectious diseases and aggravation of chronic health conditions. Floods and droughts displace people, deprive them of a means of living and subject them to mental stress. According to the World Bank, by 2050, climate change would have internally displaced 216 million people, mostly in Africa and Asia.

A fresh account of how climate change-related risks continue to rise each year is furnished by the World Economic Forum’s risk report for 2024, released this month under the WEF theme ‘Building Trust’. This year, like the last, the first four global risks in terms of severity are related to climate change. These are extreme weather events, critical changes to Earth’s systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and natural resource shortage, in that order, as well as pollution, which ranks 10 on the list of 34 global risks. The report warns that connections between climate change risks and other risks “may collectively evolve into a ‘polycrisis’ centred around natural resource shortages by 2030”.

The report found that the impact of climate change could result in the loss of $12.5 trillion to the world economy and lead to an additional 14.5m deaths by 2050, mostly due to extreme weather events, including floods, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and tropical storms.

The inadequacy of climate finance is deepening the mistrust.

Floods, “the highest acute risk of climate-induced mortality”, are estimated to claim 8.5m lives by 2050. Droughts, the second leading cause of climate-related mortality, are estimated to cause another 3.2m deaths. In terms of economic losses, heatwaves top the list with an estimated loss of $7tr to the world economy by 2050. Being the most vulnerable and least prepared, South Asia and Africa will bear the brunt of these human and economic losses. In countries most vulnerable to climate change, floods, intense heatwaves, prolonged dry spells, and droughts are adversely impacting lives in terms of health and livelihood. Air pollution and heavy smog are making people sick and badly disrupting economic activity in Pakistan and other parts of South Asia.

While urgent climate action is needed, efforts of the international community to control global warming are dampened by geopolitical tensions, conflicts, inflation, and economic fragility, further exposing the population to the severity of extreme weather events.

Noting the lack of “deep and concerted progress on climate targets”, the WEF re­­p­ort says, “growing demands on public- and private-sector resources from other crises will reduce the speed and scale of mitigation efforts over the next two years alongside insufficient progress towards the ad­­aptation support required for those com­­munities and countries increasingly affected by the impacts of climate change”.

The inadequacy of climate finance, a major contentious point in climate negotiations, is deepening the mistrust between the developed and developing nations. Slow progress in mobilising adaptation funds is preventing concerted global climate action. Even if the already committed amounts for adaptation are realised, these will be too little too late to bridge the gap between available and required resources, which stands between $194bn and $366bn per year and is widening.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that developing countries’ financial needs for adaptation will soar from $215 billion to $387bn by 2030, and rise significantly by 2050. A global response to climate change will only be effective when adaptation in the Global South is prioritised besides mitigation measures in the industrialised countries. COP28 reiterated the call for doubling adaptation finance by 2025 and scaling it up even further.

For building trust, reducing risks, and controlling a further rise in global warming, it is vital to mobilise and deliver funds for adaptation to developing countries. The lives and hopes of billions of people depend on it.