I have been an avid reader of Business Recorder (BR) for some length of time. One started with the Pakistan Times and then the Morning News and even the Civil and Military Gazette. Dawn obviously featured for most Pakistanis at that time but the paper was received late upcountry. Is it objectivity that one looks at, is not all objectivity based on subjectivity? Is subjective-objectivity possible at all? There are shades of this in the nation's written press. What was my finding in respect of this was that the BR was the most objective and did not have a slant on news as the other papers had. The motives could only be known to the editors of those newspapers. Perhaps the debacle of East Pakistan could have been avoided if the news on that province had been truthfully and objectively recorded. To my horror the geography of East Pakistan was not known to many and East Pakistan was referred to as "Dacca". Plain and simple. So this newspaper has objectively reported the facts and passed on the information to the public. It serves the business and economic aspects of life in Pakistan along with generalized news. There is no sensational news and no favors sought by inflaming a situation. The best part of a newspaper is its Editorial. Now that our economics is not pure there is a part of political economics I find that the newspaper provides a balanced view of political economy. The language of the paper has not been intemperate and I find that the newspaper has excitement on all its pages and there is no fillers as such. The policies of the government have been objectively recorded and whenever there was some lacunae these were properly identified. It provides the nation of where our industrial functioning is taking us and of late the other less well recorded sector of the economy-agriculture.
But that is not all that one has started expecting from the newspaper under examination? My articles have been for those that have been excluded from the economic systems of Pakistan. The poor and the disadvantaged of this country who may have toiled for the country but never received living wages. These are iconoclastic articles and I have been pushing the edge, albeit sometimes, to force the hand of the policymakers of whatever hue or colour.
I have been writing articles on the economy and testing the various theories of western economists and have been particularly severe on those that have no idea of ground realities but tread along as experts. My reading of an expert is that he has lost his bearing. I for one would never claim any such expertise.
What then is the way forward for Pakistan? The way forward is where the energy of the mind is applied to the natural resources of this country. In my life as a bureaucrat I have broken most rules for rules are fastidious and outdated. If the rules have not been broken then one cannot go forward. Rules are made by invidious idiots who call themselves farishtas (angels). In life, and in Pakistan especially, the mistakes of East Pakistan need not be repeated. That means that the marginal and peripheral people and areas are to be considered in the inclusive development. Our political leaders may have learned the jargon but they really do not know what to do in these circumstances.
Two examples will suffice with some caveats. In my lexicon there is no bad water and no Banjar Zameen (infertile land). I can give more but these will illustrate what the way forward for Pakistan will be. Sea water is also useable and in a recent summary to the CM I had offered that rice can be grown in the 700 mile coastal belt up to half a mile in the ocean. No water and no fertilizer would be required. The pigeon brains do not understand the implication of providing jobs to those inhabitants that were living there. The area from Quetta to Varan is a desert and bland with no tree. I did a workshop on waterless agriculture and to this workshop Baluchis came in large numbers and when I stated what could be done, there were a lot of nodding heads. Come to Thar. All subsoil can be cleaned at the household level no matter what the level of subsoil salinity is. Instead they went in for millions of dollars of reverse osmosis. Fine play with the resources of the country.
In the nineties I went as a consultant to Texas and Sicily for bio fuel. I had already tried some of this in Thar. PSO came in to act and had the program cancelled. That biofuel was not based on sugarcane or on corn but on a plant called jatropha. The plant was successfully grown in Mithi and in Bahawalpur. The Pakistanis in Canada had provided Canadian $140,000 as grant. Why listen to PSO. The diesel oil from the plant would have been available at Rs 9 per litre. Schools and colleges were promised by the Pakistanis living in Canada. Cholistan and Baluchistan would have been forested by the plant that had a drought tolerance of five years!!! Why are our policymakers suffering from an inferiority complex? I wish Dr Ajmal had been here to carry put a psychological study of these idiots that listen to everyone from abroad but do not have the abilities to use their own minds. They have a virus of the mind.
This illustration is from the salt range where the subsoil water is more saline than sea water. There we experimented successfully with growing sugarcane, cotton and maize -three crops in a year. Sugar from salt range? But there it is. Cotton similarly has a new belt from Malakand to Jhelum and gone are the areas of Multan, Rahimyar Khan, etc.
The requirement is for the development of conceptual issues. The way forward is by people whose imagination can fly and they can implement what is required. Alas the highest requirement is really of people that can place themselves as subservient to the common cause of Pakistan. I can go on ad infinitum but there is always a case for instigating an excitement. Pakistan's soils are such that any plant can be grown anywhere with any and less water. Efficiency, equity and efficacy are the concepts that have to be worked in to the system. Or take another East Pakistan.
If the lessons of history are not to be repeated then effective steps have to be taken to apply energetic minds to the specific issues in specific areas by specific people. But there is no place for gimmickry and trickery. Make mistakes, break fastidious rules that have been made by the dead. I have done it at some cost. But one lives to fight another day. Courage to the brave and may BR live a long and as adventurous a life. I consider the BR as a paper that furthers innovation. Thought for the day-where does all the mobil oil go when it's drained from the cars? Think? The waste economy is something to think about. Mad hats in the belfry!!!