Is Pakistan’s education crisis responsible for the economic crisis?

Pseudo modernism has labeled the education status of a country to be the major determinant of economic growth. As per the International Bureau of Education, the education sector of a country must ideally inculcate certain lifelong competencies in students so that the economic and social spillovers of education may add to the economic development of the nation. There is no doubt that the economic returns to education are tremendously positive, nevertheless, the marginal returns – measured by the employability and productivity of labour – vary across the globe. New growth theories also emphasise on treating education as a separate input in the production function as it has a tendency to make production units achieve economies of scale (Sianesi and Reenen, 2000). Social returns to education on the other hand include a reduction in poverty incidence, improved civic behaviour, improved health and the minimisation of political cynicism. Despite these spillover effects of education, their universality remains overrated due to the incompetency of the education system, especially in the case of developing countries. In Pakistan, despite a strong emphasis on the pseudo modernistic nexus between education and economic growth, the ground realities give a contrary picture. The figure below reflects the difference in the trends of the education budget (as a percentage share of the GDP) and rate of economic growth over a decade. It is clear from the figure that the growth rate neither responds to the changes in the education budget nor does it follow the trend similar to that of the education budget. The education budget has remained within the range of 2% to 3% of the GDP since 2009, whereas the trend of growth rate has shown significant volatility i.e. it has touched 6% and has also become negative during the same time span. Thus, the volatility of economic growth rate is independent of the education budget. Contributing factors behind this non-association between education and economic growth can be divided into three broader categories: 1) governance related challenges; 2) access related challenges and; 3) education quality related challenges. Governance related challenges Whenever the issues associated with the education system are raised, increasing the education budget is considered as the frequently proposed remedy. The education budget of Pakistan has increased from Rs 304 billion to Rs 980 billion since 2009, but the percentage share of the GDP allocated for the education sector has remained between 2% to 3%, which is far less than the international standards (i.e. 15% to 20%) and cannot meet the education demand of the growing population. Education is given the least priority in terms of budgetary allocations in Pakistan. The possible reason behind this is the fact that that the relationship between education and economic growth is nonlinear i.e. the marginal returns to educating one generation can only be seen in the long-run, not in the short-run (Stiglitz, 2006). In other words, education takes three to four cycles of government regimes to deliver returns, therefore the elected leaders prefer investing in sectors that either give returns in the short-run or increase the probability of their re-election in the very next government regime. Adding to the misery, a significant proportion of this 2% to 3% education budget remains unspent every year. For instance, during 2017-2018, 45% of the education budget of Punjab, 35% of the education budget of Sindh, 43% of the education budget of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and 41% of the education budget of Baluchistan remained unspent. It is important to note that increasing the education budget is an important tool to solve problems associated with the education system, but it can only address supply side issues, leaving behind the issues that impact education demand (such as access to education and education quality) unaddressed. Access related challenges In Pakistan, despite the provision of free and compulsory education, out of pocket expenses and the opportunity cost of sending children to schools are higher than making children an earning member of the household. This results in a low school enrollment rate, low transition rate and low retention rate. As per the Human Development Report (2018), Pakistan needs another 60 years to get all children of school going age into school. Moreover, an astonishing 81% of the public schools in Pakistan are primary schools, hence posing a huge challenge in terms of retention and transition of students at the post-primary level. Quality related challenges The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, Pakistan) details a number of grade five students who are unable to read grade three Urdu and English text books. Empirical evidence further reveals that reading and writing inability, once developed during academic grades, offers severe implications for years to come (Juel, 1988). This puts human capital development at stake. Moreover, in Pakistan, formal education and technical education are treated as substitutes rather than compliments, and the majority of students enrolled in technical and vocational training institutes are those who drop out of school. This substitution keeps the skills level of college and university graduates low. However, the irony is that the employers prefer employees with a higher level of education over TVET diploma holders. Eventually, Pakistan ends up having worse performers in the job market, and the unemployment rate among graduates is higher compared with other segments of the labour force (UNDP, 2018). In light of the aforementioned incompetence of the education system, relating either to education demand or education supply, it is inferred that the determinants of economic growth are beyond the education sector itself. Volatility in the growth rate is largely because of unprecedented price rises that have increased the cost of living and shrunk peoples’ marginal propensity to consume; and foreign debt that rose from $73.9 billion (July 2016) to $105 billion (May 2019) within past two years. It means that every single citizen owes Rs. 82300.73 on account of increase in the external debt, and this debt burden reaches Rs. 125,000 if the state’s internal liabilities are also incorporated. Unfortunately, Pakistan relies on the policies framed by international monetary authorities to address these economic challenges, ignoring the fact that those policies are designed considering the economic condition of developed countries and that the multiplier effect of the same policy is always different for developed and developing country. We cannot reap targeted outcomes unless we frame policies that address our own priorities. We need effective utilisation of the resources that we already have in this country. Pakistan is a labour abundant country with 64% of the population below the age of 30. The economy must utilise its labour productively by imparting certain skills in them so that the labour brings value addition to the production sector and eventually to the GDP. We must learn from the example of Muslim emperors who ruled the subcontinent for centuries and made the economy so lucrative that 23% of the world’s GDP came from the subcontinent. This was not the outcome of education but skill development.

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Russian-Chinese ties improved due to India, but aren’t aimed against it

Much better than any alliance The past week saw confirmation from Russian and Chinese officials that their strategic partnership with one another is perhaps the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world right now. Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov recently remarked that the importance of their ties has now surpassed that of a traditional alliance, further noting that neither of them is the dominant partner like would be the case in an alliance like NATO so their relations are truly equal in this respect. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reciprocated the Russian diplomat’s unprecedented praise by confidently declaring that “we see no limit, no forbidden zone and no ceiling to how far this cooperation can go.” The comprehensive synergising of these two Great Powers’ capabilities has resulted in them becoming the catalyst of positive geopolitical change in the 21st century. The definition of win-win cooperation Political cooperation is excellent, extending from the height of the UNSC to regional fora such as the SCO and all the way down to the local inter-municipal level. Economic ties are similarly close, involving not just natural resources, but also close collaboration on the two transcontinental connectivity corridors of the Northern Sea Route and Eurasian Land Bridge. As for military relations, they importantly involve significant arms sales and Russia’s support of China’s missile warning system. Altogether, the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership has become the primary catalyst of positive geostrategic change in the 21st century, representing a powerful force for opposing the US’ unipolar hegemonic designs. The deep trust that characterises their ties ensures that no effort to divide and rule them will succeed, which is important to keep in mind since one such attempt was recently made with respect to the US’ strategic exploitation of India. The importance of Russian-Indian relations The South Asian state is Russia’s decades-long historic partner and arguably one of the most important in its millennium-long history. Their relations remained consistently strong throughout the Old Cold War unlike Russian-Chinese ones which slipped into an intense intra-communist rivalry for some time. President Putin and Prime Minister Modi are also on very close terms with one another, and their personal bonhomie is undeniable every time they meet. Russia and India have the promising potential to pioneer a New Non-Aligned Movement (Neo-NAM) for advancing the cause of multipolarity in an increasingly bipolar world dominated by the US and China so long as the political will is present between both sides. On the surface at least, there’s no reason why their relations can’t be just as consequential as Russian-Chinese ones (i.e. surpassing the importance associated with a traditional alliance), yet some unexpected problems have arisen. Divide-and-rule drama Foreign Minister Lavrov’s recent criticism of American influence over India, particularly with respect to the possibility of the South Asian state playing a more active role in the US’ efforts to “contain” China through the Quad, provoked serious ire in New Delhi. I analysed this nearly three-week-long drama in a series of articles for Pakistan’s The Express Tribune that should be reviewed by the reader in order to familiarise themselves with the relevant background context. These are “India’s Unofficial Response To Russia Might Exacerbate Growing Distrust”, “Why Are Former Indian Diplomats Really Unhappy With Russia?”, and “Russia’s Unofficial Response To India Did Everything Right”. I noted how the real trigger for all of this was the publication of influential BJP ideologue Subramanian Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article in early November which spit in the face of the historic Russian-Indian friendship and read like an information warfare attack scripted by the CIA. In defence of Russia’s “balancing” act Considering the fact that heated divisions between members of India’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) over their country’s role in the US-China-Russia triangle had visibly spilled over into the public as a result of that info-war provocation, it’s understandable why Foreign Minister Lavrov felt compelled to warn about America’s pernicious influence over New Delhi. This wasn’t an attack on their nation, but an objective observation of a very dangerous “deep state” development which threatens to divide and rule Eurasia if this American plot succeeds. Russia has done all that it can to woo India away from “containing” China in the Quad, even going as far as supporting its maximalist claims to Kashmir (which include the Chinese territory of Aksai Chin) and planning to sell jointly produced BrahMos supersonic missiles to the Philippines despite Manila’s territorial tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea, but to no avail. India looked the Russian gift horse in the mouth Instead of appreciating these strategically risky moves which threatened to inadvertently provoke Chinese concerns despite Russia’s well-intended efforts to serve as an “honest broker” that “balances” between them to the best of its ability, India overreacted to Lavrov’s latest warnings about the Quad and therefore manufactured a fake drama that only serves American interests. Unwittingly, however, it also strengthened Russian-Chinese ties since Beijing saw that Moscow will defend its interests vis-a-vis the far-ranging plot to “contain” it through that emerging military alliance. The very fact that the Russian Foreign Minister would speak out to so publicly against the new staple of its Indian strategic partner’s foreign policy proved that Moscow never intended to threaten Beijing’s interests by supporting New Delhi’s maximalist claims to Kashmir and planning to sell jointly produced BrahMos supersonic missiles to the Philippines. Concluding thoughts In fact, one can even say that the unexpected drama that some members of the Indian “deep state” provoked with Russia over nearly the past three weeks was responsible for the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership unprecedentedly strengthening in the time since as evidenced by Ambassador Denisov and Foreign Minister Wang’s historic comments about the significance of their relations. By standing up to the American-backed plot to exploit India as a means for dividing them from one another like what could have eventually happened had Moscow not spoken out so loudly against the Quad last month, Russia reaffirmed the independence of its foreign policy and proved that it won’t let anyone interfere with its game-changing strategic partnership with China. It’s little wonder then that these two Great Powers entered the New Year celebrating their relations since they’ve unquestionably become the catalyst of positive geopolitical change this century.

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Dissecting the actions of PTI’s online brigade

In 2019, while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz was speaking at a huge rally in Mandi Bahauddin, a party stronghold, a Twitter trend, “#رنڈی_اِن_منڈی” (Prostitute in Mandi) was becoming viral. The disgusting trend was thoroughly misogynistic and was being propagated by none other than some ‘educated’ supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Disgusted, I took to Facebook to express my outrage. One of my cousins, another PTI supporter, while ‘condemning’ such behaviour, commented that “What goes around comes around because Nawaz had done the same to Benazir Bhutto. Allah kee lathi beawaz hoti hai. (God’s retribution is silent). It’s a punishment for Nawaz from Allah”. He was referring to an alleged incident in the late 1980s when photo-shopped nude pictures of Benazir Bhutto had allegedly been air dropped over several cities in Sindh. At that point I realised that perhaps my cousin was even worse than the propagators of the aforementioned trend. Instead of condemning them he was actually rationalising their behaviour and framing it as some kind of retribution from God. It escaped his otherwise rich imagination that the supporters of PTI were behind the trend and that they were in no way trying to ‘avenge’ Benazir Bhutto but simply targeting Maryam Nawaz for being an opponent of their leader. I found it funny that Benazir Bhutto herself eventually had become very close to Nawaz Sharif and had no qualms in signing the famous “Charter of Democracy”, yet somehow the PTI trolls, who hate the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with an equal intensity, were avenging what Nawaz Sharif had allegedly done. The PPP’s own supporters however were fine. In fact, they were cheering Maryam Nawaz on. The trend and subsequent justification by some perfectly demonstrates the collective mind-set of some supporters of the PTI: abusive and reeking of self-righteousness – a combination which precludes any introspection. That was more than a year ago. A few days ago, during the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) rally in Multan, there was another trending hash tag, #رائیونڈ_کی_رنڈی (Prostitute of Raiwind), once again targeting Maryam Nawaz. Apart from her, another favourite target of such vile behaviour is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is constantly called a transgender by individuals who claim allegiance to the PTI. One can dismiss this attitude by just brushing it aside as ‘typical’ of Pakistani politics and argue that it is not fair to single out PTI. After all, abusive behaviour and misogyny are rampant in all parties. This is true to a certain extent, but some parties appear to be guiltier of indulging in such behaviour than others. According to statistics compiled by “The Coalition for Women Journalists”, social media accounts relating to PTI supporters are behind 42% of the incidents of online abuse aimed at female journalists. In contrast, PML-N – PTI’s foremost rival in the political realm – accounts for merely 3% of such online behaviour, and PPP for less than 1%. Moreover, PTI trolls not only target critics but often abuse their family members also. For example, I still remember when the anchor-person Mansoor Ali Khan’s daughters and wife were abused in the comments section of his Twitter account. Likewise, Mohammad Hanif, while writing for the BBC, shared an incident when PTI trolls posted a pic of his wife in his Twitter comments section and called her a traitor. In a similar incident, journalist Hasan Zaidi was forced to lodge a formal complaint to Bank Alfalah when one of its employees, a PTI supporter, abused his mother on social media. The said employee was fired by the bank, prompting another abusive online campaign against Zaidi by angry PTI supporters. Even Malala Yousafzai, who has never said a word against PTI, is regularly targeted by the PTI trolls. But such behaviour becomes even more of an anomaly given the fact that many of these PTI supporters belong to the white collar, urban middle class and might be more ‘educated’ than supporters of other parties. Perhaps there are multiple reasons behind this phenomenon. Firstly, such behaviour is actively encouraged by the PTI leadership, including Imran Khan who has constantly indulged in the usage of derogatory language against his opponents and has also gone to the extent of deliberately addressing Bilawal as “sahiba” (madam). Moreover, PTI has deliberately appointed foulmouthed individuals such as Shahbaz Gill, Faisal Vawda, Fayaz Chohan, Fawad Chaudhry and Firdous Ashiq Awan as its spokespersons. These individuals regularly indulge in crude rhetoric against PTI’s political opponents. Additionally, on social media, PTI has a large footprint and its social media cell often indulges in coordinated attacks against its critics. Since the encouragement is coming from the party leadership as well as its social media cell, ordinary supporters of PTI have no hesitation whatsoever in indulging in abusive behaviour. Secondly, the primary factor behind this is the cult of personality model which PTI has adopted. This model glorifies Imran Khan extravagantly by projecting him as the only ‘true’ leader and Pakistan’s ‘last hope’ while demonising his opponents by labelling them as corrupt and disloyal to Pakistan. This lopsided glorification coupled with the scathing vilification of PTI’s political opponents encourages PTI supporters to abuse Imran Khan’s opponents and critics. In fact, it does something worse. It gives them an instinctive comfort in their vitriolic behaviour as they feel that Imran Khan’s opponents ‘deserve’ all the abuse because they are corrupt traitors. Lastly, a major reason behind this is the general polarised political atmosphere in Pakistan. As the PDM surges and battle lines are being drawn and re-drawn, the political polarisation has also increased; which in turn has made many PTI supporters even more intense in their support of the party and therefore even more abusive. For many of them, PDM is merely a union of the old corrupt elite to save their looted wealth. This perception only further encourages them to abuse all the opponents and critics of PTI.

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How to ensure teacher professional development in Pakistan

As an Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development (AKU-IED) Master of Education (M.Ed.) course participant, it was an illuminating experience to participate in the ‘Effective Management Practices’ (EMP) course, which was undoubtedly a journey of transformational learning and deep insights. This course allowed me to reflect on my previous practices as a head teacher, enabled me to question and unlearn the different key aspects of my traditional practices and motivated me to learn new and innovative practices in the field of educational leadership and management. The following text portrays my understanding gained from the EMP course on Teacher Professional Development, which is just one key and insightful aspect of the EMP course offerings; and pray that these ideas enlighten heads, teachers and education providing systems on the need, significance and ways of initiating PD in schools. Professional development of staff broadly refers to providing enabling conditions to staff to enhance their productivity in the various dimensions of their day-to-day responsibilities including those related to their technical and personal spheres of profession. The professional development of teachers could be defined as teachers’ learning: i.e., how they learn to learn, how they reflect on and make meaning from their learning, and how they apply their knowledge to support pupils’ learning (Postholm, 2012). Hence, teacher’s professional development has deep roots in and integrally linked with students’ learning outcomes and their overall achievements and wellbeing. In educational settings teachers play an important role in achieving the goals of teaching and learning processes. However, it is due largely to knowledge growth at an unprecedented speed in the contemporary world that it becomes increasingly difficult for teachers to keep themselves updated on the evolving and rapidly growing knowledge in education. Needless to say, that in their profession teachers have to continuously aspire to grow on an ongoing basis, otherwise, they run the risk of redundancy and decline in their professionalism. Hence, the need for them to grow professionally which could be through engaging in the reflective practices, through self-directed learning, especially increasing their theoretical understanding of the day-to-day issues and trying to put their theories into practice, and/or through availing from time-to-time the formal (i.e. tailor-made) professional development opportunities to ensure their continuous growth and renewal. It is important to bear in mind that teacher professional development is not an event, it is, instead, an ongoing process that needs quality time, conducive environment, necessary resources, ongoing efforts, and critical reflection to gain pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) needed to improve student learning outcomes. Professional development in the school context Learning is an enigmatic process; therefore, it is important to consider how people learn and how the school-based as well as the external conditions shape, influence and determine their learning (Belanger, 2011). What we clearly know today is that learning is guided by our own philosophies of learning such as behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and social constructivism. These theories/philosophies elaborate how knowledge is perceived, constructed and approached. Teacher professional development primarily involves the task of enabling teachers to challenge their existing beliefs and approaches about the ‘what,’ ‘how,’ ‘why,’ and ‘when’ aspects of their learning processes. What we also know from our experiences of work in AKESP, a prestigious education providing institution of AKDN, is that schools define and deliver professional development based on the analysis of their current needs. So, the needs analysis becomes the first step in determining the goals of teacher professional development. In fact, the Annual School Improvement Plan (ASIP) is used as a tool to identify and define the needs. Generally, the outcomes of the Training Need Analysis (TNA) relate to enhancing teachers content knowledge, upgrading teachers’ pedagogical skills, improving their problem-solving techniques, managing conflicts, engaging teachers in reflective practice, relating student home tasks with their conceptual learning, strengthening teachers’ assessment techniques, helping teachers understand the twenty-first century leaning skills, and augmenting their leadership skills. Role of the Head Teacher in managing staff professional development School leadership has the pivotal role, of course, after classroom teaching, in influencing and shaping student learning. In fact, it helps improve teaching and learning processes indirectly and through their influence on staff motivation, commitment and working conditions (Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008).  Therefore, the school leadership role becomes more significant in professional development of staff. Literature identifies four areas where head teachers have substantial impact on teachers learning, these include: head teacher as instructional leader and learner; the creation of learning environment; direct involvement in design, delivery, and content of professional development; and the assessment of professional development outcomes (Bredeson, 2000). Other forms of professional development include motivation from head teacher to improve teachers academic and professional qualifications through distant learning degree programs. This will result in new learnings for staff and help create knowledge societies within the school through sharing of knowledge with colleagues. Also, head teacher could play her/his role in encouraging teachers to develop reading habits and share their knowledge from the literature with colleagues and students. In addition, opportunities for discussions and reflecting on classroom practices in informal sessions also leads to professional development and knowledge creation. Also, in institutions like AKESP head teachers and teachers are also encouraged to design and implement action research projects to improve small yet important learning aspects related to students. Such innovations from head teachers always benefit the teachers, which then helps the organisation to become a learning organisation. In-house professional development programme Head teachers are not indispensable agents and gatekeepers of teacher learning, but they as leaders and learners become role models, coaches, facilitators, and guides to move teachers towards greater and higher levels of independence and professional autonomy (Bredeson, 2000). The traditional, i.e., authoritarian, approach to school leadership style has numerous undesirable consequences including poor results, dwindling teacher motivation, misappropriation of financial resources and expanding the gulf between school and parents. Hence, the need for head teachers to become sources of inspiration and encouragement for their teachers, students and parents. When it comes to providing teachers in-house professional development opportunities, head teachers need to make the best use of pedagogical content knowledge expertise available in their schools to conduct in-house professional development sessions. This requires head teachers to identify the diverse talents their staff possess. In order to share a practical example from my own practices as a head teacher in an AKESP school, I identified that majority of my staff members were not good at using ‘prepositions’ and ‘adjectives’ while speaking and writing English. I discussed this matter with the language teacher at my school who was strong in his content knowledge. In close collaboration with this teacher we planned and conducted a professional development session for my schoolteachers. This sessionwas received very well and appreciated by teachers. Encouraged by this initiative, we did the same for improvement of math skills (i.e., average, percentage, and ratio) for all teachers, which was again a success. Followed by these professional development initiatives were other in-house sessions on computer literacy, communication skills, pedagogical skills, subject specific and assessment techniques. The topics of these sessions, in fact, were suggested by our teachers, which clearly showed their intrinsic motivation to attend these in-house professional development sessions. Therefore, it is important for head teachers to practice a leadership style that transforms the school into a community of learners. Being the most important person in the school, head teachers are required to earn respect of her/his staff (as well as from his school community) through humility, possessing strong mentoring skills and promoting leadership in all the staff members by delegating them different roles and responsibilities to play in the school improvement processes. Staff encouragement for self-driven PD activities Pedagogical leadership is a powerful approach and an effective alternative to improve schools as it invests in capacity building by developing students social and academic capital and strengthening teachers intellectual and professional capital (Sergiovanni, 1998). Here, the role of head teacher is to create an environment where teachers learn from each other by reflecting on each other’s practices. Along with creating a learning-conducive environment, staff also need encouragement for what they do. This brings motivation to teachers and has direct impact on teacher productivity. As our experience shows that some teachers are money-motivated while others find recognition, appreciation, and rewards as sources of motivation (Ganta, 2014). The encouragement factor helps teachers to be motivated intrinsically and this results in better performance and innovation in their work. There is consensus amongst the researchers today that use of incentives including ‘encouragement’ and ‘recognition’ work as engines driving teachers job satisfaction and motivation, which, in turn, prepare them to work in collaboration with their other peers and colleagues in and outside schools. The intrinsically motivated staff not only develop themselves professionally but also create an environment where they make academic alliances, discuss, and reflect on each other’s practices, go for team teaching, mentoring, and observe classrooms practices and provide feedbacks on each other’s work. Hence, they form a community of learners promoting their intellectual and professional capital, which meets a basic condition needed to create the knowledge society. An appeal to the Head Teachers and teachers on professional development In sum, contrary to the popular notion of always demanding for and relying on the financial resources to initiate professional development of staff in schools, it is primarily head teachers personal desire and commitment to make a difference in the lives of teachers, students and school community, and their vision and motivation to steer their schools to become the “schools-of-choice,” that makes all the difference in achieving the goal of staff professional development. This brief article concludes at offering the following menu of ideas which might help and guide head teachers in initiating and promoting the culture of professional development in schools: Since ‘reading’ is a miraculous process that facilitates and transforms our professional growth, it is important for heads and teachers to become role models for their students in ‘reading,’ and use their ‘example’ to inspire their students (and their parents) to become avid readers; Students of the twenty-first century are good at using technology and they enjoy learning if technology is incorporated in the lessons they are taught.  Hence, there is a dire need to make teachers informed about technological advancements and encourage them to use technology and learning applications through teacher trainings, which should lead to improve students’ learning achievements. In order to develop the school-based professional development culture, head teachers must encourage senior teachers to mentor novice teachers to enhance their pedagogical skills. What is convincingly evident in schools is that the novice teachers are stronger in content knowledge but in most cases lack pedagogical skills. Reflection on actions is the key to learning, therefore, head teachers must make an endeavor to promote a culture of reflective practice in their schools by engaging teachers, students and staff to critically discuss and analyse factors facilitating and/or hindering school improvement processes. Creating leadership opportunities and assigning teachers (students and staff) leadership roles could bring more intrinsic motivation, sense of ownership and a deep sense of joy for being part of the school. Head teachers could form different school-based committees and delegate roles to teachers to perform in these committees. Our experiences have repeatedly shown that this initiative effectively leads to teacher leadership development in schools. Teaching is a dynamic profession, it needs heads and teachers to be proactive planners, strategic thinkers, and agile risk-takers. Head teachers must encourage teachers to bring innovation in their teaching strategies on an ongoing basis by introducing team-teaching, micro-teaching, and cooperative learning techniques. One of the hallmarks of the best performing schools is that they have a culture of compassion, care and growth for all school stakeholders. The head teachers will be required to review and assess the quality of their endeavors to promote such an environment in schools. It is always this culture where the notion of staff professional development blossoms and achieves its noble goals. It is also noteworthy that the culture of compassion cannot be promoted overnight, in fact, it takes constant effort and time to nurture and safeguard it from sliding back to the conventional school milieu. References Belanger, P. (2011). Theories in adult learning and education. Verlag Barbara Budrich. Bredeson, P. V. (2000). The school principal's role in teacher professional development. Journal of In-Service Education, 26(2), 385-401. doi:10.1080/13674580000200114 Ganta, V. C. (2014). Motivation in the work place to improve the employee performance. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 2(6), 221-230. Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership. School Leadership and Management, 28(1), 27-42. doi:10.1080/13632430701800060 Postholm, M. B. (2012). Teachers' professional development: a theoratical review. Educational Research, 54(4), 405-429. doi:10.1080/00131881.2012.734725 Sergiovanni, T. J. (1998). Leadership as pedagogy, capital development and school effectiveness. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1(1), 37-46. doi:10.1080/1360312980010104

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Is Pakistan’s N-CPEC+ vision finally beginning to take shape?

Pakistan’s unique geostrategic location at the crossroads of East, South, West, and Central Asia enables it to function as the “Zipper of Eurasia”, as I wrote over half a decade ago in September 2015 for the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies. I built upon this observation in March 2019 to declare that the creative leveraging of the unprecedented trans-regional connectivity potential offered by CPEC enables Pakistan to become the Global Pivot State. This ambitious vision is finally beginning to take shape after Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Uzbekistani Minister of Transport agreed to pursue a trans-Afghan railway line on Wednesday. I previously proposed such a corridor in my April 2019 debut analysis for CGTN about how “CPEC+ Is The Key To Achieving Regional Integration Goals”, which described the northern branch of CPEC through Afghanistan into Central Asia as N-CPEC+ (“N” referring to North). Eventually, this corridor could expand as far northwards as Russia to create a new North-South integration axis across Eurasia which aligns with President Putin’s vision for the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) like I explained in an academic article that I co-authored over the summer that was republished by the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). As Pakistan begins to take on a more prominent role in trans-Eurasian integration processes, its strategic importance to both China and Russia will continue to rise. Both Great Powers have a shared interest in the South Asian state fulfilling its destiny to unite the supercontinent through CPEC+. It’s only through this connectivity paradigm that a true Convergence of Civilisations can occur, like I explained in an analysis for CGTN in May 2019. The outcome of Eurasia’s diverse civilisations cooperating on trade and other forms of integration could powerfully discredit Huntington’s infamous prediction about a coming “Clash of Civilisations”. Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani interests are all directly served through N-CPEC+. Moscow’s regional allies can become more internally stable as their economies grow upon securing access to the global markets that this corridor provides through the Indian Ocean, as could Russia’s resource-rich Siberian region. Beijing, meanwhile, will see its Pakistani-based CPEC investments put to use as a springboard for trans-continental integration processes and could also secure contracts to construct parts of its northern branch expansion as well. As for Islamabad, it would financially benefit by having its ports facilitate Central Asian trade with the wider world. N-CPEC+ is therefore more than just a connectivity corridor, it’s a grand strategic concept for the future of intra-Eurasian relations in the emerging Multipolar World Order. Russia, China, and Pakistan are coming closer together as each country realises that they need the others in order to fulfill their shared vision of stability in the supercontinent. In fact, continued movement in this direction might even lead to the creation of a new multipolar trilateral between them to replace the stalled one between Russia-India-China (RIC). The end result could be that a Golden Ring rises between them, Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan in the Heartland of Eurasia. To be clear, this won’t happen overnight, but the progress that was just made on agreeing to the Peshawar-Kabul-Mazar-e-Sharif trans-Afghan railway shows that the political will is certainly present to take this vision to its ultimate conclusion with time. Some formidable obstacles still remain, however, such as the unresolved conflict in Afghanistan and the efforts of external powers like India to sabotage this vision. There are also obvious questions of financing and other issues related to project implementation, as well as identifying which companies in the region and beyond are most eager to immediately tap into this project upon its completion. Nevertheless, there are plenty of reasons to remain optimistic, especially since it’s becoming undeniable that Russia and China both appreciate the strategic significance of Pakistan’s N-CPEC+ initiative to their GEP and Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) respectively. In fact, as GEP and BRI continue to synergise their connectivity capabilities, their patron states are realising that N-CPEC+ is indispensable to the success of their joint vision for the supercontinent. This understanding is accelerating trilateral integration between them and therefore leading to one of the most exciting geopolitical developments of the 21st century thus far.

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The Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline raises Russia’s stakes in South Asia

Last month’s agreement to begin construction next summer of the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline – formerly referred to as the North-South Gas Pipeline – shows that Russia is raising its stakes in South Asia. It represents the evolution of its fast-moving rapprochement with Pakistan and gradual movement towards an eventual strategic partnership. The “military diplomacy” between the two which first began due to shared security threats stemming from ISIS’ presence in Afghanistan and then laid the basis for February’s planned multilateral AMAN-2021 naval drills is now transforming into “energy diplomacy”. Moscow is visibly diversifying its regional interests by progressively engaging in mutually beneficial forms of cooperation with Islamabad, which can’t help but draw New Delhi’s attention. The Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership is being tested like never before after influential BJP ideologue Subramanian Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month exposed the ruling party’s split over whether or not to retain their country’s decades-long privileged relationship with Moscow. India’s unofficial response to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s warning about American influence in New Delhi might have even inadvertently worsened growing distrust. It’s against this backdrop that next summer’s planned construction of the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline begins to take on a much more strategic significance than most observers might have initially thought. It’s one thing for Russia and Pakistan to stage annual anti-terrorist drills in each other’s countries, as well as participate in multilateral naval drills, and another entirely to invest so significantly in a multibillion-dollar energy infrastructure project. Russia is sending the message that it won’t be deterred by India from establishing tangible stakes in Pakistan’s stability and helping it meet its pressing energy needs. This is the largest Russian investment in Pakistan since the Pakistan Steel Mills project in the middle of the Old Cold War, which was initiated during a thaw in their relations at the time. Unlike then, however, no realistic chances for a geopolitical competition between the two exist anymore since they’re nowadays on the same page regarding Afghanistan, to say nothing of the USSR’s dissolution totally changing Moscow’s strategic calculus towards the region. This observation results in optimistic predictions about the future of their fledgling partnership since even more investments might soon be on the way. Publicly financed Russian international media outlet RT reported a little over a year ago on 9 December 2019 that “Russia looks to invest in Pakistan in a big way” after a 64-member delegation led by Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov “inked their largest-ever cooperation deal, worth billions of dollars, to expand trade and business...It includes huge investments in energy, rail and steel industries.” The publicly disclosed details are scarce but the outlet did reveal that Russia promised to invest a whopping $14 billion in Pakistan’s energy sector, only $2.5 billion of which is for Pakistan Stream. This very strongly suggests that the recently agreed project might be but the first in a series of similar megaprojects all throughout the country over the next decade, which would align with both countries’ complementary balancing strategies vis-a-vis one another. Russia can also show India that it has regional alternatives to that country in the event that New Delhi replaces Moscow’s presence in certain spheres with its Western competitors instead. To be clear, Pakistan is not a replacement for India, but is perceived by Russia as a complementary component of its comprehensive South Asian balancing strategy. Unlike India which dishonestly claims to be “multi-aligning” in order to unconvincingly disguise its pro-Western pivot that it’s carrying out at China’s – and increasingly also Russia’s – expense, Russia is truly embodying that principle by not doing anything which genuinely harms Indian interests. While it’s true that the American-influenced zero-sum mind-set currently prevalent in that country would prefer for Pakistan to never meet its ever-growing energy needs, let alone from Russia, the multipolar-influenced win-win one that India pretends to embrace while engaging with BRICS and the SCO should praise Russia for helping Pakistan in this manner. Officially speaking and overlooking Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article, the Indian government regularly reaffirms how much it “trusts” Russia so there shouldn't be any problem with it engaging in an apolitical non-military investment such as the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline. The regional impact of this megaproject’s successful completion will actually strengthen South Asian stability by improving the lives of tens of millions of average Pakistanis in contrast to the regional impact of India’s de-facto pro-American military alliance through the Quad which stands to upset the regional balance of power with potentially devastating consequences. Nevertheless, it’s understandable that the Indian leadership might feel uncomfortable about this project since they hitherto assumed that they had Russia wrapped around their finger so much that Moscow wouldn’t ever dare to do anything to improve the lives of average Pakistanis, yet the Eurasian Great Power is showing the aspiring South Asian hegemon that it truly practices an independent regional strategy. While the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership is among Moscow’s most important bilateral relationships anywhere in the world and in fact even in its millennium-long history, the country won’t allow it to be exploited to impede its regional aims. Those said aims are to restore a semblance of balance to South Asia after India’s de-facto military alliance with the US radically changed the status quo. Russia’s balancing act will naturally be imperfect since it doesn’t aspire to replace India with Pakistan which is unrealistic in any case, but it’ll still be important enough to simultaneously show New Delhi that it can’t boss Moscow around any longer while also signalling to Islamabad that it can count on the country for further investments. Russia won’t ever officially participate in CPEC in order to avoid “provoking” India, but megaprojects like Pakistan Stream represent its growing unofficial role in it. The more tangible stakes that Russia obtains in South Asian countries other than India, be they Pakistan or whichever others might soon follow, the more diversified and therefore independent its regional strategy can become. This might ultimately lead to Russia no longer playing second fiddle to India in South Asia but actually becoming an equal player in its own right after showing that it doesn’t depend on New Delhi for relevance. It’ll of course take time for this strategic outcome to unfold and there are veritably several variables that could offset its success, but the prospects are still real promising and could thus revolutionise regional affairs.

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Why did PDM’s Lahore jalsa not live up to expectations?

In the July 2018 general elections, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) bagged over 1.37 million votes in the 14 National Assembly (NA) constituencies in Lahore, averaging nearly 100,000 votes per constituency and winning 10 of the 14 NA seats. Similarly, the party dominated all of Lahore’s neighbouring districts, winning three out of four seats in Kasur, three out four in Sheikhupura, one out of two in Nankana, all six in Gujranwala, all five in Sialkot and both the NA seats in Narowal. Overall, PMLN won 20 out of the 23 NA seats in these six districts and on an average got over 100,000 votes per constituency. Lahore and these six adjoining districts accounted for nearly 30% of all the votes PMLN received in the last elections. Therefore, it was no surprise that Lahore was chosen as the venue for the grand finale of the first phase of the opposition’s anti-government movement. Even if PMLN could mobilise a tenth of its vote bank from Lahore and its surrounding districts, the jalsa would exceed 350,000. Add to it whatever the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) can bring, as well as Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s captive madrassah crowd, and the rally would be big enough to set the tone for a fearsome second phase; long march and mass resignations. In fact, if the Lahore jalsa had lived up to its potential, the government would likely have caved in even before the long march, and the opposition would have entered the negotiations from a position of strength. Understandably, it was billed as the “Aar Ya Paar” moment of the campaign by the opposition itself. The number of people that actually attended the jalsa could be anywhere from 5,000 to 500,000 depending on which news outlet or politician you choose to believe. But the shift in political momentum in the one week since the jalsa provides a more authentic assessment of the success or failure of the Lahore show. Since the jalsa, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has extended the deadline for Prime Minister Imran Khan’s resignation from December 31st this year to January 31st next year; no date for mass resignations could be announced, and the final decision regarding the much-awaited long march has now been postponed till February 1st. Hence, instead of catapulting the PDM into a fiercer second phase of the movement, the Lahore jalsa seems to have put a damper on the opposition’s plans. The government, on the other hand, instead of being intimidated appears to have gained in confidence; the January 31st deadline was rejected a day after it was announced, opposition’s mass resignations are now being anxiously awaited and the government has announced its intent to hold the Senate elections as soon as legally possible. Clearly, this is not where a successful Lahore jalsa would have left the two camps at. There are several reasons why the PDM’s Lahore jalsa fell well short of expectations. Firstly, the opposition alliance has fashioned its anti-government movement around a narrative that has historically not resonated with the people of Central Punjab. Instead of focusing on inflation, unemployment and poor governance – issues faced by the average Pakistani on a daily basis – the opposition has made the establishment’s involvement in politics the cornerstone of its narrative. While this may have greater currency in smaller provinces, or even in other parts of Punjab, a majority of the GT road belt populace has historically sided with the country’s powerful establishment. In fact, several key leaders of the PMLN – party expected to bring the lion’s share of the crowd to the Lahore rally – do not appear to wholeheartedly support the opposition’s anti-establishment stance either. Several PMLN stalwarts have strong ties to the establishment dating back to the eighties, and while they cannot afford to leave the party, they cannot side with the Maryam Nawaz camp beyond a certain point either. This is probably why several winning horses who were expected to bring tens of thousands of workers to the rally did not deliver. Secondly, the way this jalsa was organised left a lot to be desired. Maryam Nawaz, who was spearheading the mobilisation campaign across Lahore, has never contested an election in her life. While she is effectively heading the party in Pakistan at the moment, until less than five years ago, she was not politically active. Her lack of understanding of, and influence over, key factions within the party’s cadre and the electorate at large significantly dented the on-ground organisation. Historically it was Hamza Shahbaz, the de facto deputy Chief Minister from 2008 to 2018, who was deeply involved in managing the elaborate system of ‘dharnas’ and patronage in Punjab, specifically in Lahore. Currently Hamza Shahbaz is imprisoned, but even if he was not, there is little reason to believe he would lend his support to a Maryam Nawaz led campaign targeting the establishment. A successful rally led and organised by Maryam Nawaz would only further marginalise Hamza Shahbaz, both as a potential heir to the Sharif political legacy and as a leader of the faction that favors a policy of reconciliation with the establishment. Thirdly, the quintessential PMLN worker has historically not been known for running popular movements against powerful adversaries. Traditionally, PMLN has enjoyed overwhelming support from the business community, as well as contract workers and daily wagers, from Central Punjab. For these segments of the electorate, it is not particularly onerous to turn up to the voting booth on a national holiday once every five years. But actively taking part in an anti-incumbent and anti-establishment campaign while risking their own interests is not a very appetising prospect. Therefore, sans the support of the state machinery, converting votes into participation at a political rally against the government turned out to be more difficult for Maryam Nawaz than she would have expected. On top of all this, Lahore’s frigid winter and the fears of a raging pandemic did not help. This is partly why the second phase of the movement has been postponed to a date that will now be announced on February 1st. A successful Lahore jalsa could certainly have turned the tide against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. A less than impressive showing, however, has only strengthened the government’s position and has left the opposition with a lot of ground to cover if it plans to challenge the government in any meaningful way come February.

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Why the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is important in Islamic history

On December 21, 2020, the day of the winter solstice, the world will witness a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Though a conjunction of these two planets happens every twenty years or so, rarely do both of them come quite so close to each other or are so clearly visible in the sky. In fact, the last time these two planets appeared in such close proximity was on July 16, 1623; and the last time such a conjunction occurred at night (when it could actually be observed by the naked eye) was March 4, 1226. Now, whilst this rare conjunction may not mean much to most modern observers, planetary conjunctions in general, and the one of Jupiter and Saturn in particular, has held a great deal of importance in Islamic and world history. After all, this was a time when the movements of the planets and the stars were believed to influence human affairs here on earth. Reading their movements therefore held predictive properties. A treatise containing celestial and terrestrial maps produced in 11th century Cairo, for example, held that the inundation of the river Nile could be predicted by observing the velocity of Mars as it passed the sky at the start of the year.[1] The same treatise also suggests regarding the city of Tinnis in the Nile Delta, “This city was founded when Pisces was in the ascendant. The ruler of Pisces is Jupiter, the sign of ultimate felicity, while Venus was in exaltation. For this reason the people of the city are full of joy and happiness. They listen to music, are always delightful, seek comfort and shun anything that causes toil and hardship”.[2] Similar considerations may also have prompted the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur (d.775) to consult Arab, Persian and Jewish astrologers as to what day and time would be most auspicious for the founding of his capital city Baghdad in 762. But where a great variety of star constellations and planetary conjunctions were believed to bring good fortune to rulers and their subjects, it was the planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn – called ‘the Auspicious Conjunction’ – that had the most political resonance in the medieval and early modern world. Indeed, in a fragmented and crisis-ridden world in which the universal empires of the Abbasids and Mongols no longer existed, Turkmen rulers searched for ideologies other than Abbasid and Chinggisid lineage to legitimise their rule as auspicious and divinely ordained. As a result, various Sufi, astrological, Shi’i, and occult concepts became politically attractive in an unprecedented way[3]. Chief amongst these concepts was this aforementioned conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which was believed to mark the arrival of a divinely guided universal ruler who would fill the earth with justice and herald the end times, not unlike the Mahdi before the apocalypse. It was based on the belief that this conjunction had occurred around the time Amir Timur (d.1405) was born that the latter became renowned as the sahib-qiran or ‘the Lord of the Auspicious conjunction’[4]. From this point on, the title of Lord of the Auspicious conjunction, and all the connotations of divinely sanctioned, auspicious, saintly and messianic rule it carried, became an indispensible political concept for all Muslim rulers with universal pretentions. Most notably, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (d. 1666), Ottoman Sultans Suleyman (d.1566) and Murad III (d.1595), and Safavid Shah Ismail (d.1524) all actively claimed it for their own political projects, and cultivated complementary images of themselves as rulers with divine sanction[5]. Far from being a mere curiosity then, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was right at the centre of early modern political and historical thought from the Balkans to Bengal[6]. At the close of a year marked by so much havoc and uncertainty in our own times (as well as hope that things might change for the better with the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine), it is worth remembering how societies in the past attempted to read planetary conjunctions such as that of Jupiter and Saturn in order to predict the future and derive comfort and assurance in trying times. Maybe then, as “the great conjunction” rolls around again and we climb onto our rooftops to catch a fleeting glimpse of this most rare of events, we in the modern world can also, if only for a moment, similarly indulge the more mystically inclined part of ourselves and view the upcoming celestial event as a most auspicious conjunction. [1] Quoted in Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith, Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), p. 69.  [2] Ibid, p. 68. [3] See the introduction to Christopher Markiewicz, The Crisis of Kingship in Late Medieval Islam Persian Emigres and the Making of Ottoman Sovereignty, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). [4] See; Ilker Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf Al-Dīn ʻAlī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 251. [5] Azfar Moin, The Millenial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), Cornell Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân,” in Soliman le magnifique et son temps, ed. Gilles Veinstein. (Paris: Documentation française, 1992), 159-177 and Matthew Melvin‐Koushki, “Early Modern Islamicate Empire: New Forms of Religiopolitical Legitimacy” in Wiley-Blackwell History of Islam and Islamic Civilization, Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli, Babak Rahimi, M. Fariduddin Attar, and Naznin Patel (eds.), (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2018). [6] For more on the Balkans to Bengal complex see; Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015) p. 32.

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Why did PDM’s Lahore jalsa not live up to expectations?

In the July 2018 general elections, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) bagged over 1.37 million votes in the 14 National Assembly (NA) constituencies in Lahore, averaging nearly 100,000 votes per constituency and winning 10 of the 14 NA seats. Similarly, the party dominated all of Lahore’s neighbouring districts, winning three out of four seats in Kasur, three out four in Sheikhupura, one out of two in Nankana, all six in Gujranwala, all five in Sialkot and both the NA seats in Narowal. Overall, PMLN won 20 out of the 23 NA seats in these six districts and on an average got over 100,000 votes per constituency. Lahore and these six adjoining districts accounted for nearly 30% of all the votes PMLN received in the last elections. Therefore, it was no surprise that Lahore was chosen as the venue for the grand finale of the first phase of the opposition’s anti-government movement. Even if PMLN could mobilise a tenth of its vote bank from Lahore and its surrounding districts, the jalsa would exceed 350,000. Add to it whatever the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) can bring, as well as Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s captive madrassah crowd, and the rally would be big enough to set the tone for a fearsome second phase; long march and mass resignations. In fact, if the Lahore jalsa had lived up to its potential, the government would likely have caved in even before the long march, and the opposition would have entered the negotiations from a position of strength. Understandably, it was billed as the “Aar Ya Paar” moment of the campaign by the opposition itself. The number of people that actually attended the jalsa could be anywhere from 5,000 to 500,000 depending on which news outlet or politician you choose to believe. But the shift in political momentum in the one week since the jalsa provides a more authentic assessment of the success or failure of the Lahore show. Since the jalsa, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has extended the deadline for Prime Minister Imran Khan’s resignation from December 31st this year to January 31st next year; no date for mass resignations could be announced, and the final decision regarding the much-awaited long march has now been postponed till February 1st. Hence, instead of catapulting the PDM into a fiercer second phase of the movement, the Lahore jalsa seems to have put a damper on the opposition’s plans. The government, on the other hand, instead of being intimidated appears to have gained in confidence; the January 31st deadline was rejected a day after it was announced, opposition’s mass resignations are now being anxiously awaited and the government has announced its intent to hold the Senate elections as soon as legally possible. Clearly, this is not where a successful Lahore jalsa would have left the two camps at. There are several reasons why the PDM’s Lahore jalsa fell well short of expectations. Firstly, the opposition alliance has fashioned its anti-government movement around a narrative that has historically not resonated with the people of Central Punjab. Instead of focusing on inflation, unemployment and poor governance – issues faced by the average Pakistani on a daily basis – the opposition has made the establishment’s involvement in politics the cornerstone of its narrative. While this may have greater currency in smaller provinces, or even in other parts of Punjab, a majority of the GT road belt populace has historically sided with the country’s powerful establishment. In fact, several key leaders of the PMLN – party expected to bring the lion’s share of the crowd to the Lahore rally – do not appear to wholeheartedly support the opposition’s anti-establishment stance either. Several PMLN stalwarts have strong ties to the establishment dating back to the eighties, and while they cannot afford to leave the party, they cannot side with the Maryam Nawaz camp beyond a certain point either. This is probably why several winning horses who were expected to bring tens of thousands of workers to the rally did not deliver. Secondly, the way this jalsa was organised left a lot to be desired. Maryam Nawaz, who was spearheading the mobilisation campaign across Lahore, has never contested an election in her life. While she is effectively heading the party in Pakistan at the moment, until less than five years ago, she was not politically active. Her lack of understanding of, and influence over, key factions within the party’s cadre and the electorate at large significantly dented the on-ground organisation. Historically it was Hamza Shahbaz, the de facto deputy Chief Minister from 2008 to 2018, who was deeply involved in managing the elaborate system of ‘dharnas’ and patronage in Punjab, specifically in Lahore. Currently Hamza Shahbaz is imprisoned, but even if he was not, there is little reason to believe he would lend his support to a Maryam Nawaz led campaign targeting the establishment. A successful rally led and organised by Maryam Nawaz would only further marginalise Hamza Shahbaz, both as a potential heir to the Sharif political legacy and as a leader of the faction that favors a policy of reconciliation with the establishment. Thirdly, the quintessential PMLN worker has historically not been known for running popular movements against powerful adversaries. Traditionally, PMLN has enjoyed overwhelming support from the business community, as well as contract workers and daily wagers, from Central Punjab. For these segments of the electorate, it is not particularly onerous to turn up to the voting booth on a national holiday once every five years. But actively taking part in an anti-incumbent and anti-establishment campaign while risking their own interests is not a very appetising prospect. Therefore, sans the support of the state machinery, converting votes into participation at a political rally against the government turned out to be more difficult for Maryam Nawaz than she would have expected. On top of all this, Lahore’s frigid winter and the fears of a raging pandemic did not help. This is partly why the second phase of the movement has been postponed to a date that will now be announced on February 1st. A successful Lahore jalsa could certainly have turned the tide against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. A less than impressive showing, however, has only strengthened the government’s position and has left the opposition with a lot of ground to cover if it plans to challenge the government in any meaningful way come February.

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India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust

Relations between decades-long strategic partners India and Russia, which up until the publication last month of influential Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologue Subramanian Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article had been undergoing a renaissance, are at risk of worsening after India’s unofficial response to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s criticisms late last week of America’s pernicious influence over New Delhi. The top diplomat warned that, “India is currently an object of the Western countries’ persistent, aggressive and devious policy as they are trying to engage it in anti-China games by promoting Indo-Pacific strategies, the so-called ‘Quad’ while at the same time the West is attempting to undermine our close partnership and privileged relations with India. This is the goal of the US’ very tough pressure on New Delhi in the MTC area.” Unlike his past comments in this respect, he notably didn’t end on an optimistic note hinting like he usually does that India will successfully resist the United Sates (US). Instead, he very flatly called out the US’ anti-Chinese and Russian intentions with India, which didn’t go unanswered by its Ministry of External Affairs. Spokesman Anurag Srivastava said in response to a journalist’s request for comment about the Russian Foreign Minister’s words that, “India has always pursued an independent foreign policy based on its national interest. India’s relationship with each country is independent of its relations with third countries. We hope that this is well understood and appreciated by all our partners.” This was a mature and measured reaction to what happened, but it’s the country’s unofficial response that came a few days later which raises worries about the future of their relations. Harsh V. Pant, the Director, Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation – one of India’s top think tanks that’s closely connected to the government – and one of the country’s foremost experts on the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership published an article at the Hindustan Times on Sunday about how “Moscow must come to terms with India’s security imperatives”. Although the views expressed are personal, an analyst of his statue with so many connections might very well be saying what the Indian state can’t officially express. His deep insight and the extremely high regard with which his work is held testifies to his accuracy in reflecting India’s true strategic sentiments on a wide array of issues, especially relations with Russia. For this reason, his work can be interpreted as India’s unofficial response to Russia. The problem, however, is that Pant’s article might unwittingly exacerbate growing distrust between the two countries. He’s an analyst, after all, and not a diplomat even if he’s informally functioning as one to send a harsh message to Russia. For instance, he attempted to gaslight the public by wrongly making it seem like it’s Russia, not India, that’s practicing a hypocritical policy. He wrote, “As long as India joins Russia and China in railing against the West, New Delhi can be hailed for its strategic autonomy but if India builds ties with the US and other Western nations, it is merely because there is a devious game at play to ensnare India into relationships that make it an object of other nations’ priorities.” This is the inverse of reality as will now be explained. Russia was remarkably silent about, and therefore even tacitly understanding of, India’s de-facto pro-American alliance up until the past year despite India never tiring of voicing its concern about Russia’s growing closeness with China and Pakistan. As proof of this, former Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal, writing in the foreword to the October 2017 report titled “70th Anniversary Of Russia-India Relations: New Horizons Of Privileged Partnership” which was jointly produced by the Russian International Affairs Council and Vivekananda International Foundation, said, “Russia’s overtures to Pakistan, especially in the military field, are construed in India as linked to our growing connection with the US. The evolution of Russia’s approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan/Taliban’s role in the search for a solution, and, in particular, statements made by mandated Russian officials dealing with our region that make light of India’s concerns about Afghanistan-related issues have caused confusion. The fact that Pakistan has begun to tout a Pakistan–China–Russia axis against an India–US axis in the region speaks of the diplomatic impact of Russia’s revised perspectives.” The diplomat also stated, “The belief in some Russian quarters that Pakistan can be a participant in major SCO or BRICS infrastructure and other projects within the framework of the India–Russia strategic relationship is unlikely to find a positive echo in Indian thinking, given India’s seven decades of experience with Pakistan’s endemic hostility. Russia’s evolving optic on Pakistan is creating a gap in the hitherto strong geopolitical understandings between India and Russia in our region.” Without a doubt, this is evidence of India first holding Russia to the same hypocritical standards that Pant wrongly claims that Moscow’s doing in his latest article. In fact, it’ll now be seen that he himself expressed very similar views a few years ago despite suddenly seeming to have forgotten all about that in his piece. Writing almost half a year after his country’s former Ambassador to Russia set the tone by publicly criticising Moscow’s desire to pursue balanced relations in South Asia, Pant published a piece in March 2018 titled “Russia and India: Difficult times ahead” where he wrote, “For India, what should be concerning is Russia’s increasing tilt towards Pakistan as it seeks to curry favour with China. Moscow had historically supported New Delhi at the United Nations Security Council by repeatedly vetoing resolutions on the Kashmir issue. Today, however, there is a change in how Moscow views its regional priorities in South Asia. In a significant development, the joint declaration issued at the end of the first-ever six-nation Speaker’s Conference in Islamabad held in December end supported Pakistani line on Kashmir. This declaration signed by Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia  and Turkey underscored that for ensuring global and regional peace and stability, the issue of Jammu and Kashmir needs peaceful resolution by Pakistan and India in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.” He scandalously concluded by warning that, “Russia’s growing collusion with China and Pakistan will continue to test the Indo-Russian partnership in the coming years.” Almost exactly a year after Sibal’s scathing comments, Pant published another article titled “Russia and India have to ride out some choppy waters”, in which he repeated his earlier concerns stemming from the six-nation Speaker’s Conference almost word-for-word and then also shared his view that, “New Delhi has long maintained that it needs a close relationship with Moscow so that the Beijing-Moscow relationship could be dented. But India’s Russia outreach seems to have had a rather insignificant impact so far on the Russia-China dynamic. Russia is also reaching out to Pakistan despite Indian reservations and is changing its tune on the Afghanistan issue. It is now a strong votary of negotiating with the Taliban and has given short shrift to Indian reservations in this regard.” This makes it incredibly ironic that he’s now changing his tune by making a false comparison between Russia’s cordial relations with China and Pakistan and India’s much more consequential de-facto alliance with America and then daring to imply that Russia’s the one that’s behaving hypocritically after all he wrote. Having exposed the hypocrisy behind one of Pant’s main points in his latest article, attention should also be drawn to the fact that he unquestionably parrots Western information warfare narratives against Russia. The expert wrote, “Moscow’s relationship with Beijing is critical to give Russia a sense of being some kind of a global power even as it is finding that it can’t even manage its own backyard. The recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh saw Turkey gaining a foothold in South Caucasus when an Armenian army, trained and armed by Russia, faced defeat by an Azerbaijani army, trained and armed by the Turks. China is gaining a profile in areas such as Central Asia where Russian dominance is eroding. But such is the need for Chinese support that Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that a military alliance between Moscow and Beijing cannot be ruled out. And what better way to show Russian commitment than to challenge the idea of the Indo-Pacific even more loudly than the Chinese themselves.” Over the summer I published a piece about “Constructive Criticisms Of Russian Grand Strategy, And In Particular Towards Belarus” which highlighted some of Russia’s struggles in its “Near Abroad”. They veritably exist, but it’s a gross exaggeration to say that Russia “can’t even manage its own backyard”. What’s more, I enumerated the 36 articles that I published during the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh War by name and date in my review of that conflict titled “The End Of The Nagorno-Karabakh War: Retrospection, Clarification, And Forecast”, which includes my prescient piece predicting Russia’s ultimate support for Azerbaijan titled “Five Ways That An Azerbaijani Military Victory Over Armenia Would Advance Russian Interests”. My much more accurate observations debunk Pant’s provocative innuendo of that conflict being a Russian-Turkish proxy war. On the topic of Russian-Chinese relations, he’s jumping on the Western Mainstream Media bandwagon by fantasising about an intense rivalry between them in Central Asia. If anything, I argued at length in my September analysis asking “Is Russia ‘Abandoning’ Or ‘Recalibrating’ Its ‘Balancing’ Act Between China & India?” that Moscow was moving much closer to New Delhi at Beijing’s perceived strategic expense up until Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month ended up being a game-changer in their relations by serving as a rude but nevertheless long-overdue wake-up call about the devious game that India’s playing to divide the two. A declassified 1963 Chinese Foreign Ministry report published by the Wilson Centre’s Digital Archives about “The Soviet Union’s Stance on the Sino-Indian Boundary Question and Soviet-Indian Relations” compellingly proves in hindsight that Moscow’s support of New Delhi against Beijing was a key reason behind the infamous Sino-Soviet split. Keenly cognisant of this fact, Russia and China want to avoid a similar split over India in the New Cold War, hence Moscow’s sensitive “balancing” act between Beijing/Islamabad and New Delhi. This unfortunately isn’t appreciated by India, however, which seems to aspire to turn Russia into its “junior partner” by trading its fearmongered dependence on Beijing with actual strategic dependence on New Delhi, one which dangerously risks provoking another Russian-Chinese split like was just explained if Moscow continues to side too closely with New Delhi in ways that are perceived by Beijing as being against its core interests. Nothing that Russia does with China and Pakistan has the same consequence for India as that country’s de-facto alliance with America does for its two neighbours and Russia’s broader interests in Eurasian stability. The false equivalence that Pant has consistently presented, likely taking cues from Sibal, is intended to mislead everyone by wrongly making it seem like Russia is responsible for provoking growing distrust with India when it’s really the latter that’s been entirely to blame this whole time as was explained. By falsely claiming that Russia is “challenging the idea of the Indo-Pacific even more loudly than the Chinese themselves”, Pant disrespectfully implied that President Putin is sacrificing Russia’s interests to become a Chinese puppet. It must have already been extremely unpleasant for Russian strategists to read Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month, yet now they see that the essence of his arguments are shared by none other than one of the leading Indian experts on their country, Harsh V. Pant. Not only that, but Pant attempts to gaslight everyone by making it seem like Russia’s to blame for the recent crisis of trust between these two decades-long strategic partners even though he himself actively participated in India’s efforts to pressure Russia into making a false zero-sum choice between New Delhi on one hand and Beijing and Islamabad on the other. This hypocritical stance is bad enough, but he added insult to injury by ridiculously claiming that Russia “can’t even manage its own backyard”, yet is supposedly so desperate for Chinese support that it’s “challenging the idea of the Indo-Pacific even more loudly than the Chinese themselves.” India’s unofficial response to Russia through Pant might therefore exacerbate growing distrust, though Moscow will likely do all it can to mitigate the consequences.

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Why is Russia participating in the AMAN-2021 naval drills?

The Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet announced on Thursday that it plans to participate in next year’s multinational AMAN-2021 naval drills to be hosted by Pakistan. These biennial exercises aim to improve joint coordination in maritime rescue missions and combating piracy, among other issues of common concern. It’s extremely symbolic that Russia agreed to participate since its fleet said that it’ll be the first time since the “Bold Monarch-2011” exercises off of the Spanish coast that its naval forces will join NATO’s. Other than Pakistan, Russia, and the US, nearly 30 other countries’ navies will take part in next year’s drills too. Moscow is sending several important signals by agreeing to participate, the most obvious of which is that relations with Islamabad are rapidly improving to the point where it feels comfortable attending its exercises alongside NATO forces. This speaks to Russia’s changing perceptions of Pakistan from a partisan Old Cold War-era player to a neutral “balancing” force in global affairs. It also represents an important milestone in their on-going rapprochement, which was initially driven by shared anti-terrorist concerns stemming from ISIS’ arrival in Afghanistan but has since evolved to a comprehensive partnership with long-term strategic intentions. Extrapolating from this observation, my insight from almost two years ago that Pakistan is the global pivot state seems to now be tacitly shared by the Russian leadership. The South Asian country’s hosting of the BRI’s flagship project of CPEC enables it to function as the Zipper of Eurasia, after which it could serve as the Convergence of Civilisations across the Eastern Hemisphere through my related CPEC+ proposals for more closely integrating Afro-Asia via northern (N-CPEC+), western (W-CPEC+), and southern (S-CPEC+) branch corridors. Russia naturally appreciates Pakistan’s growing global geostrategic significance and doesn’t want to be left out. Moscow’s “military diplomacy” – which is the use of military means to advance political goals – explains its participation in next year’s naval exercises. Russian political observer Dmitry Bokarev, in his latest article for Journal NEO (which is the official journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies), quoted Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Danila Ganich’s speech at the opening of this year’s Druzhba (“Friendship”) joint anti-terrorist drills where he praised the Pakistan Army as “the core of Pakistani statehood and society.” This suggests that the Russian-Pakistani rapprochement is being driven by “military diplomacy”. With that in mind, the larger geopolitical context of their rapprochement needs to be discussed. As I asked in September, “Is Russia ‘Abandoning’ Or ‘Recalibrating’ Its ‘Balancing’ Act Between China & India?”, which raised questions about the inadvertent impact that the “The Indian-Russian Relations Renaissance” might have on Russian-Chinese relations. Following the unexpected publication of influential BJP official Subramanian Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article in November, I then warned that “Extreme Pro-US BJP Ideologues Mustn’t Be Allowed To Sabotage Russian-Indian Relations”. In the aftermath of that political scandal which enormously damaged the goodwill and trust which previously characterised the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership (especially over the past year since they began their “renaissance”), it makes sense that Russia would seek to recalibrate its “balancing” act even further by more openly embracing Pakistan. This is exactly what I encouraged Russia to do in the academic article that I jointly co-authored over the summer about “Pakistan’s Role In Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership”, which was republished by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), one of the country’s top think tanks. Proof of that policy being practiced in the current context can be seen by the fact that Russia and Pakistan finally reached an agreement on their long-discussed pipeline plans two weeks after the Swamy scandal. Discussions clearly predated that scandal by many years, but it’s symbolic that the timing happened to coincide with the diplomatic aftermath of that incident. It’s also more than curious that Russia is now more confidently practicing its “military diplomacy” with Pakistan by agreeing to join next year’s AMAN-2021 drills, during which time it’ll participate alongside some of its NATO rivals. Interestingly, it had hitherto been India which professed to practice a policy of so-called “multi-alignment”, yet instead of that South Asian state being the scene where the Russian and NATO navies will participate in multilateral exercises, it ends up being the global pivot state of Pakistan. At the risk of reading too much between the lines and “speculating”, it certainly seems to be the case that Russia is nowadays more sure of Pakistan’s actual geostrategic neutrality than India’s unconvincing claim to the same, especially since Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov sharply criticised the influence of India’s American ally over New Delhi recently. All things considered, next year’s AMAN-2021 will be a milestone in Russian-Pakistani relations, and it wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for Moscow’s political maturity in turning the page on its complicated history of relations with Islamabad and courageously deciding to chart a new chapter of cooperation together in the emerging Multipolar World Order. From the Russian perspective, the improvement of relations with Pakistan allows Moscow to perfect its sensitive “balancing” act in Eurasia – especially between newfound rivals China and India – whereas relations with Russia allow Islamabad to reaffirm its geostrategic neutrality. Both countries have increasingly come to realise that they need one another. President Vladimir Putin’s vision of a Greater Eurasian Partnership is incomplete without Pakistan’s participation – the same as it's impossible to synergise the Eurasian Union with the BRI like he earlier proposed without a rapprochement in relations considering that Pakistan hosts the BRI’s flagship project of CPEC – just like Pakistan’s CPEC+ vision of becoming the global pivot state can’t happen without N-CPEC+ connecting it to Russia. Since both of their militaries influence foreign policy, it makes sense why “military diplomacy” is driving their rapprochement, hence AMAN-2021.

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The bourgeois has left!

At some point young people decided that holding on to a vague sort of feminist/socialist position on social media in lieu of having a conscience (or a personality) was a nice strategy to go about living their otherwise bourgeois super-privileged lives. The fact that these progressive ideas are adhered to only loosely in real life becomes abundantly clear when you consider how these ideas always ever remain theoretical (and fragmentary to boot) and never quite enter the world of practical reality.  A Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) supporter, say what you will, puts his money where his mouth is. Or, if you wish to be shamed by a more progressive example: Manzoor Pashteen’s supporters are equally ready to confront reality head on in order to change it, putting even life on the line to do so. The bourgeois leftist lobby is extremely vocal online, but it can collectively be described only as noise, at best. They have their moments in the spotlight when even they will take to the streets, but those are singular annual events or follow the wake of a particularly noteworthy tragedy.  Rape is a daily occurrence in our country. And it is ignored just as readily by a bourgeois feminist as anybody else. The only instance in recent memory when it was taken up as a cause was when somebody from their own social class became a victim during the recent, terrible motorway incident. Upperclass feminists rolled out in droves when they saw one of their own harmed, and that too only when they recognised that now the threat had become immediate. So long as it keeps happening to working class or lower income class women, you won’t hear a peep from our social justice brigade, much less a protest. In any case, the passion, the rage, the revolutionary fervour lasted five days. And then, nothing. Progressively labelled instagram accounts are now selling merchandise though! Place your orders for your very own feminist hoodie! But when these so-called progressives do show up to decry any awful event, their slogans mean nothing to the masses and ring hollow even among sympathetic ears. And this takes us back to the idea that there’s something inherently flawed with relying on elitist bourgeois women and men (really the white people of Pakistan) for an education in progressive politics.  They offer you catch phrases, slogans, quotable quotes, shareable cliches, and labels. Labels that you can toss around to categorise and compartmentalise, censor and condemn. Overused words like ‘problematic’, ‘mansplaining’, and phrases like ‘emotional labour’, ‘internalised misogyny’ and the holy grail of pseudo analysis, the singular all consuming signifier: Patriarchy. Anything and everything even slightly disconcerting is, and always must have been, Patriarchy. Anything and everything with the slightest hint at being wholesome and life affirming is attributed to a vague feminine power with associated laudatory phrases. Essentialising women as some sort of fairy godmothers is ahistorical and frankly stupid.  Why? Because a binary of women versus men is created in pretty much the same way all populist leaders tend to point to a particular group of really very varied individuals who may or may not have anything to do with the problem at hand and scream: enemy!  For Trump the enemy was the ubiquitous Immigrant. For Modi it was the Muslim. In Pakistan the enemy is the non-Muslim, or even the Muslim when it’s the Shia or the Ahmedi, or the Pashtoon or the Baloch, OK so really everybody. But for the desi feminist, it is this vague, nebulous constant called Men, ignoring completely the undeniable reality that this category is just as meaningless as any other. Or, when they’re trying really hard to seem nuanced: Patriarchy. But in practice it always comes down to the same. And this is all done to amass a wealth of online followers, retweets, reposts, and thus gain the illusion of being relevant in an increasingly alienating noisy social media oriented lifestyle. In all these cases, the problem can never be solved. Instead, these linguistic categories are used to create the illusion of control and order. You have something vague to go on and on about to psychologically satisfy yourself. It is at best cathartic. Class takes a backseat to gender. And once that happens, then it’s a toss up between gender, orientation, cis-trans and as many categories of Who Wants to be the Biggest Victim. These phrases and labels such as they are, must have meant something at some point, but are now used exclusively to shut down conversation, to stem debate and to censor those who do not agree with anything and everything you say.  This can be seen when questions are raised by those who are avowedly sympathetic to the feminist objective. Coming from a man, criticism is to be ignored, primarily because a man does not possess the correct set of genitals and outward appearance to claim experiential knowledge. This line of reasoning has its merits and demerits. But things take on an absurd colour when women who do possess the necessary accoutrement and experience are labelled as suffering from “internalised misogyny” when their critique begins to target feminist discourse, such as it is, online. What a convenient way to shut down opposition and critique. If it harms any cause it harms the progressive and liberal cause. Conservatives never really bought into your nonsense in the first place. They’re immune. And frankly, there’s very little difference in tendency between what the overuse of these words and phrases achieves and what TLP’s followers wish to achieve every time they use the word Toheen, or Namoos in a phrase meant to disarm and discredit. Just as when the state labels somebody as a foreign agent or a yahoodi sympathiser.  TLP silences people with the threat of death.  Liberals silence people with the threat of being cancelled online. The severity of the latter compared to the former may seem ridiculous, perhaps no more than say virtual bullying, but seeing as how so much of bourgeois life (from social to academic to business) is spent online, this can have dire consequences.  Consider the aunty who teaches at an elite Lahori university and will often be the first to tweet when there’s a point to be scored on the socialist-feminist front, but maintains a deathly silence when her parent institution raises its students’ fee by a staggering 40% during Lockdown 1.0 and she continues maintaining her vow of silence when the institution starts firing low income employees during the same period! Her silence is paid for.  If Pakistan’s leftists are bourgeois to the max, which they undoubtedly are, Lahore has produced some of the worst most hypocritical, and frankly, most liberal of the lot. The way these soundbites and slogans are used to fire the imagination of young people, especially students, only to use their strength of numbers to establish the reputation of the purveyor of these soundbites and slogans as a cult leader is frankly damning evidence that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  Not only are you creating a large mass of semi literate cultists, you’re pretty much following the model of the extreme right wing conservative. The only difference is in language and vocabulary.  Only the most destitute and decadent of minds would try to fix your use of language while the world starves or lies helpless without shelter, unable to breathe air that has achieved a state far beyond all acceptable levels of toxicity. This is another hallmark of the liberalised left: Their focus is on inserting asterisks in the word rape. To achieve what?! To signal how sensitive they are to our feelings. What a way to infantilise everybody who has a functioning brain. Just say the word you mean, you clown!  The truth is, the enemy is not the Mexican, the Muslim (or the various sects thereof), the enemy is not the fact that you said a naughty word, nor the neighbour across the border. The enemy is the capitalist mode of production. Whether you’re white, brown, black, gay, trans, or frankly a cow in a factory farm, you are all one, united in the fight against Capital. And you have less than seven years left to figure this out or the world will end.  But, all we have are these self-promoting cult leaders and influencers drowning out reason and debate. What worries me is not that these people are fame-whores. What worries me is that they’re willing to squander a position of influence that could have been better served to move the discussion back to the critique of Capital.  The liberation of woman is impossible, without the liberation of humankind. It’s not going to happen. The fact that some of the most vile MNC’s on earth project an outwardly feminist, queer, trans friendly face should be sufficient evidence that this is so.

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Why PDM’s resignation gamble could backfire

Political temperatures are high, and with the opposition parties’ anticipated announcement of resignations from the National Assembly, one can safely assume that there will be no respite. Following the fundamentals of politics, the opposition, under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), is desperately endeavouring to gain traction by promising their supporters a swift victory which is not yet in sight, and for which a coordinated and calculated political struggle is essential. However, it is apparent from the PDM press conference held on December 8th that the president of the PDM, Maulana Fazalur Rehman, has succeeded in convincing key opposition parties to tender their resignations from the National Assembly. As per the announcements made in the aforementioned press conference, opposition members, whose parties are a member of the PDM alliance, shall submit their resignations to their respective party leaders by December 31, 2020. It is imperative to note that under Article 64 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a member may “by writing under his hand addressed to the Speaker… resign his seat, and thereupon his seat shall become vacant”. At this juncture, two questions arise: (1) what will be the impact on PDM if a number of its members refuse to tender their resignations (2) what benefit could PDM potentially achieve if all the concerned opposition members follow suit and resign? The first question is that of a political nature, whereas the latter requires legal analysis. It would not be wrong to assume that PDM will receive a devastating blow if around 20-30% of its members fail to submit their resignations. Not only will their narrative suffer but the pressure they are desperately attempting to mount on the incumbent government, with some degree of success, would also lose force. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government will instantly claim a moral victory, and its army of spokespersons, with the help of a very effective media cell, would mount a vicious attack against the opposition, without the fear of any repercussions. The likelihood of events being played out in a manner is entirely possible considering what happened during the no-confidence motion brought against the Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan recently. If what has been narrated above does happen, the political uncertainty and upheaval that would follow must be understood and appreciated by the concerned quarters. PDM would be left with no other alternative but to commence a nationwide agitation movement in order to save face. All the red lines will be crossed by PDM’s leaders and no institution could possibly be expected to escape unscathed. As the Vice President of PML-N, Maryam Nawaz, has indicated, members who failed to tender their resignation could possibly expect their houses surrounded by angry party loyalists. The PTI government’s admitted failure to keep the inflation in check coupled with the sugar and flour crises could theoretically be exploited by the opposition parties. The “Vote ko izat do” slogan could gain more popularity. As a strategic move, PDM may instigate riots in order to exert more pressure on the establishment. It will dedicate all its resources and political capital to ensure that its long march attracts a large number of crowds, with its final destination being D-Chock, Islamabad. And if the PTI government blunders into ordering the police force or other security agencies at its disposal to adopt confrontational and aggressive tactics to curtail PDM activists, as a consequence of which a precious life is lost, then the situation could become perilous. This will not be a good position for PTI to be in, nor will the country benefit from such political uncertainty. Pakistan’s struggling economy, which is already on life support, might not be able to sustain or accommodate such a political cataclysm. Not to mention that our ongoing fight against Covid-19 will suffer greatly, causing our health sector to capitulate under pressure. The democratic powers must not forget that the “doctrine of necessity”, from which almost all the parties have benefited, is hanging over their heads like a sword. It is up to them to ensure that democracy prevails and if they fail in doing so, they will not be worthy of forgiveness. Considering that better sense prevails and the opposition members are allowed to tender their resignations, without any external intervention whatsoever, PTI would be in a much better position. As per Article 58 of our Constitution, the President can dissolve the Parliament if so “advised by the Prime Minister” or where a no-confidence vote has been passed against the Prime Minister and “no other member of the National Assembly commands the confidence of the majority of the member of the National Assembly…”. If PTI plays its cards right and does not allow PDM to mount unsustainable pressure, there exists no reason which would compel Prime Minister Imran Khan to issue such advice to the president. Moreover, if all PDM members do resign from their seats, such a situation will not, rather, does not, give rise to a constitutional crisis. As per Article 55 of our Constitution, the National Assembly shall only become defunct if during the sitting of the Assembly it is brought to the attention of the person presiding that less than “one-fourth” of the total members are in attendance. At present there are 332 seats in the National Assembly, which means if 83 members are present, the National Assembly will function as normal. Legally speaking, assuming that all members of PDM resign, along with, for argument’s sake, 30% or 40% of PTI members, it still would not have any effect on the legal standing of the prime minister or the PTI government. Moreover, for the sake of better understanding PTI’s legal position, if it is assumed that only 50 members of PTI are left in the National Assembly, whereas all other members of the National Assembly have resigned, it still would not matter as long as none of the remaining 50 members bring the quorum issue to the attention of the person presiding over the session. In light of the above, a conclusion can be derived that PDM will not benefit a great deal from tendering resignations and, perhaps, has attached undue weightage to this strategy. At most, there will be some political consequences and questions may be raised with reference to the PTI government’s legitimacy to rule over the people of Pakistan. At best, if PDM follows through with the resignation strategy, the alliance of the parties under the banner of PDM would be strengthened and they will have no other option but to work together and for a common goal which in turn will make PDM more determined to send off the current government. On the contrary, PTI could potentially stall the resignation process as was done by the former Speaker, Mr Ayaz Sadiq, by requiring all the members to attend the Speaker’s office in order to verify their resignations. It seems that PTI is trying to test the waters and believes that PDM will not resign. If it does, they may be able to buy time and selectively accommodate and neutralise the threat. In the end, no matter what route the opposition or the government takes, they will need to sit together and address their differences. Problems can only be solved through a consultative process which, unfortunately, no party is willing to pursue at this stage. The political vacuum continues to grow, allowing non-democratic forces to further strengthen their grip over the system. The only issue that all our political parties are concerned with is free and fair elections, which by no means is any less important than other issues. However, the said issue, like all other issues, can only be resolved through political will and with the purest of intentions, something which has been lacking among our political elite for decades.

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