Pakistan: women’s quest for entitlement

By Pippa Virdee

The article was published on open Democracy.

The emancipation of women is often linked to the progress of a society in transformation from a feudal society to a modern state. The story of women in the country that became Pakistan can indeed be told in such terms: as part of a struggle for advancement with education at its centre, and linked at critical moments to wider goals of national emancipation and social reform. 

During the past thirty years, however, the quest for women’s rights in the context of such reform has been under increasing pressure from a trend toward state-sponsored Islamisation. This trend, which began under the authoritarian rule of Zia ul-Haq (who seized power in a military coup in 1977), is symbolised by the punitive flogging of a young woman in the newly Talibanised region of Swat. The fighting ground, it appears, is always women’s space.

Pippa Virdee is senior research fellow in south Asian history at De Montfort University. Her research interests include the history of the Punjab, Muslim women’s experience of partition, and the south Asian diaspora in Britain. She is the convenor of the Punjab Research Group

A pioneering moment

Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-98) – an educator and reformist politician – was at the forefront of advocating modern education for Muslims, including women. He promoted liberal interpretations and challenged traditional views on the institutions of purdah (literally “veil”) and polygamy. Although girls were gradually receiving an education under the British colonial power, most Muslim women remained largely untouched by these campaigns; it was only in 1895 that one of the first Muslim girls’ schools was founded (by Amina Tyabji), followed in 1906 by a girls’ school at Aligarh (opened by Nawab Sultan Jahan, who as begum of Bhopal was one of the few female rulers of a princely state in India).

The Aligarh girls’ school was the wellspring of the All-India Muslim Ladies’ Conference, established in 1914. Its prominent sponsors included Sultan Jahan and Shaikh Abdullah and his wife, Waheed Jahan Begum. The conference failed to achieve recognition and folded in 1931; yet such organisations played a crucial role in forging the connection between ameliorative social reform, women’s education, and nationalist policies.

When Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) assumed the helm of the Muslim League he envisaged the participation of women as important in advancing the goals of the party; thus he sought to push the boundaries of women’s emancipation. Jinnah was studying in London when the suffragettes were demanding the right to vote and he was genuinely interested and supportive of women’s rights.

This was reflected in his speech at the Islamia College for Women on 25 March 1940, when he asserted: 

“I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”

Almost exactly four years later, at a meeting of the Muslim University Union in Aligarh on 10 March 1944, he went further:

“We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.”

In part the latter declaration reflected a genuine desire by Jinnah to see women shed their veils and venture beyond the “four walls”; but he was also aware that realising the political ambitions of the Muslim League required mass participation (including by women). Muslim women until then had on the whole been in a condition of purdah which meant they were secluded from public life – yet here was a call for them to shed that and join the political struggle.

At the forefront of this movement were elite women such as Jinnah’s sister, Fatima Jinnah (1893-1967); Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan (1905-90), the wife of Pakistan’s first prime minister; Begum Shah Nawaz (1896-1979); Shaista Ikramullah (1915-2000), who struggled for the opportunity to get an education and went on to do a PhD at the University of London; and Abida Sultan (1913-2002), who was an ardent supporter of the Muslim League and belonged to Bhopal’s royal family. These figures served as early role-models for other women to “come out”.

A generation’s dreams

In 2008, I was fortunate enough to meet one of the few women still alive and able to recount the fervent days of Muslim League’s demand for a separate state. Fatima Sughra as a 14-year-old in 1947 was inspired by the message of the Muslim League and she convinced her father that she wanted to be involved in the movement along with the other women. She recalled that at a huge gathering in Lahore, hundreds of women had gathered around the Punjab secretariat building: 

“I along with my friends reached the assembly hall that day. I saw at that time a big crowd was shouting and chanting slogans: “Zindabad (long live) the Muslim League; Zindabad Quaid-i-Azam; ban kay rayga Pakistan (Pakistan will be created) …I think it was in February or March 1947…I remember the day I removed the Union Jack and replaced it with a Muslim League flag. Many Muslim women [who had never stepped out from their house before] came out from their houses and took over the streets of the city. This was all happening because the begums [the elite Muslim League Women leadership] went door-to-door and convinced the Muslim women to come out from their homes for the protests. I don’t know what sort of passion was inside me at time, I just jumped over the secretariat gate…”

Fatima Sughra was awarded a gold medal for her services to Pakistan, whose nationalist movement she has come to symbolise; the image of her hoisting the Muslim League flag are replayed every year during the independence-day celebrations. The inspiration is real: for after the creation of Pakistan, women did continue to extend the boundaries of their rights and were increasingly visible in public life.

Yet the dreams of this generation have hardly been fulfilled. In the post-1979 period especially – a watershed in the wider Islamic world as well as Pakistan – there was a dramatic change in attitudes towards women. Zia-ul-Haq (1924-88) after his coup d’état in 1977 pursued a policy of Islamisation that gathered pace throughout the 1980s.

The impact on women was particularly felt around the hudood ordinances which made it very difficult to distinguish between adultery (zina) and rape (zina-bil-jabr), and impossible for women to prove rape. This process undermined the position of women and created a climate of intimidation; even under the governments headed by Benazir Bhutto the ordinances remained in place (they were repealed only in 2006).

An unfulfilled promise

More recently, the influence of Islamist parties has in Pakistan grown further, with conservative elements often protesting against women as “soft targets”. In 2006, women were targeted on account of their participation in mixed-sex marathons in Gujranwala and Lahore; and “honour killings” have become a regular occurrence. But the real question is about how women reconcile their position in contemporary Pakistan.

Gulnar Tabassum, who works for Shirkat Gah (a private NGO based in Lahore) conveys a sense both of optimism and concern for the future. She describes with pride how, when Pervez Musharraf suspended the chief justice of the supreme court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry in 2007, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) was the first group to show solidarity with the incipient lawyers’ movement.

But Gulnar also reflects on the changes in women’s status in Pakistan which started during the Zia ul-Haq regime, and which have be to seen through the prism of wider political developments. She highlights too the significant changes in Punjabi society, historically a quite open and free rural society yet now exposed to extremist religious influences. Even in the more cosmopolitan urban areas, the same trend is apparent.

Gulnar Tabassum recalls an incident in Lahore’s chic middle-class shopping district Liberty Market, where an old man used a microphone vainly to harangue passing women to cover themselves. It is in fact more common nowadays to see women (even in the big cities) wearing a headscarf, yet the reasons for this vary and cannot be reduced to a straightforward act of faith; an expression of identity, a fashion statement, a reaction against the “western” ideal are some of the considerations that may underlie the choice. 

There has always been a clear difference between urban and rural areas, with educated women in the former being afforded greater opportunities. By contrast, women in rural areas often lack the education, the confidence,and the knowledge to challenge authority. Public institutions such as police-stations and courts are dominated by men; they inhibit women, especially if alone, from entering such male-dominated spaces.

When Fatima Sughra vaulted the secretariat building to hoist the flag of the Muslim League in 1947, she carved for herself a revered place in Pakistan’s history. The doors that were opened in that period for women to enter public space and social life are now for many of their daughters and granddaughters being threatened with closure. If women are truly to move beyond the confines of the “four walls” and make their contribution to the future of Pakistan, it is education – and the sense of belonging to and ownership of the country that it brings – that will enable them to do it.

 

How Can We Stop the Epidemic of Killing Women and Children By Returning Soldiers

By Ann Jones, Tomdispatch.com. Originally Posted on AlterNet

April 6, 2009.

No society that sends its men abroad for war can expect them to come home and be at peace, as returning Iraqi vets are proving in alarming numbers.

 

Wake up, America. The boys are coming home, and they’re not the boys who went away.

On New Year’s Day, the New York Times welcomed the advent of 2009 by reporting that, since returning from Iraq, nine members of the Fort Carson, Colorado, Fourth Brigade Combat team had been charged with homicide. Five of the murders they were responsible for took place in 2008 when, in addition, “charges of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault” at the base rose sharply. Some of the murder victims were chosen at random; four were fellow soldiers — all men. Three were wives or girlfriends.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. Men sent to Iraq or Afghanistan for two, three, or four tours of duty return to wives who find them “changed” and children they barely know. Tens of thousands return to inadequate, underfunded veterans’ services with appalling physical injuries, crippling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suck-it-up sergeants who hold to the belief that no good soldier seeks help. That, by the way, is a mighty convenient belief for the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, which have been notoriously slow to offer much of that help.

Recently Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas, a state with 15 major military bases, noted that as many as one in five U.S. veterans is expected to suffer from at least one “invisible wound” of war, if not a combination of them, “including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and mild traumatic brain injury.” Left untreated, such wounds can become very visible: witness, for example, the recent wave of suicides that have swept through the military, at least 128 in 2008, and 24 in January 2009 alone.

To judge by past wars, a lot of returning veterans will do themselves a lot of damage drinking and drugging. Many will wind up in prison for drug use or criminal offenses that might have been minor if the offenders hadn’t been carrying guns they learned to rely on in the service. And a shocking number of those veterans will bring the violence of war home to their wives and children.

That’s no accident. The U.S. military is a macho club, proud of its long tradition of misogyny, and not about to give it up. One decorated veteran of the first Gulf War, who credited the army with teaching him to repress his emotions, described his basic training as “long, exhausting marches” and “sound-offs [that] revolved around killing and mutilating the enemy or violent sex with women.” (The two themes easily merge.) That veteran was Timothy McVeigh, the unrepentant Oklahoma City bomber, who must have known that blowing up a government office building during business hours was sure to kill a whole lot of women.

Even in the best of times, the incidence of violence against women is much higher in the military than among civilians. After war, it’s naturally worse — as with those combat team members at Fort. In 2005, one of them, Pfc. Stephen Sherwood, returned from Iraq and fatally shot his wife, then himself. In September 2008, Pvt. John Needham, who received a medical discharge after a failed suicide attempt, beat his girlfriend to death. In October 2008, Spc. Robert H. Marko raped and murdered Judilianna Lawrence, a developmentally disabled teenager he met online. Carson

These murders of wives and girlfriends — crimes the Bureau of Justice Statistics labels “intimate homicides” — were hardly the first. In fact, the first veterans of George Bush’s wars returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from Afghanistan in 2002.

On June 11, 2002, Sgt. First Class Rigoberto Nieves fatally shot his wife Teresa and then himself in their bedroom. On June 29th, Sgt. William Wright strangled his wife Jennifer and buried her body in the woods. On July 9th, Sgt. Ramon Griffin stabbed his estranged wife Marilyn 50 times or more and set her house on fire. On July 19th, Sgt. First Class Brandon Floyd of Delta Force, the antiterrorism unit of the Special Forces, shot his wife Andrea and then killed himself. At least three of the murdered wives had been seeking separation or divorce.

When a New York Times reporter asked a master sergeant in the Special Forces to comment on these events, he responded: “S.F.’s [Special Forces members] don’t like to talk about emotional stuff. We are Type A people who just blow things like that off…”

The killings at Fort didn’t stop there. In February 2005, Army Special Forces trainee Richard Corcoran shot and wounded his estranged wife Michele and another soldier, then killed himself. He became the tenth fatality in a lengthening list of domestic violence deaths at Fort. Bragg Bragg

In February 2008, the Times reported finding “more than 150 cases of fatal domestic violence or [fatal] child abuse in the United States involving service members and new veterans” since the Afghan War began in October 2001. And it’s still going on.

The Pentagon: Conveniently Clueless

In April 2000, after three soldiers stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, murdered their wives and CBS TV’s “60 Minutes” broke a story on those deaths, the Pentagon established a task force on domestic violence. After three years of careful work, the task force reported its findings and recommendations to Congress on March 20, 2003, the day the United States invaded Iraq. Members of the House Armed Services Committee kept rushing from the hearing room, where testimony on the report was underway, to see how the brand new war was coming along.

What the task force discovered was that soldiers rarely faced any consequences for beating or raping their wives. (Girlfriends didn’t even count.) In fact, soldiers were regularly sheltered on military bases from civilian orders of protection and criminal arrest warrants. The military, in short, did a much better job of protecting servicemen from punishment than protecting their wives from harm.

Years later the military seems as much in denial as ever. It has, for instance, established “anger management” classes, long known to be useless when it comes to men who assault their wives. Batterers already manage their anger very well — and very selectively — to intimidate wives and girlfriends; rarely do they take it out on a senior officer or other figure of authority. It’s the punch line to an old joke: the angry man goes home to kick his dog, or more likely, his wife.

Anger may fire the shot, but misogyny determines the target. A sense of male superiority, and the habitual disrespect for women that goes with it, make many men feel entitled to control the lesser lives of women — and dogs. Even Hollywood gets the connection: in Paul Haggis’s stark film on the consequences of the Iraq War, In the Valley of Elah, a returned vet drowns the family dog in the bathtub — a rehearsal for drowning his wife.

The military does evaluate the mental health of soldiers. Three times it evaluated the mental health of Robert H. Marko (the Fort Carson infantryman who raped and murdered a girl), and each time declared him fit for combat, even though his record noted his belief that, on his twenty-first birthday, he would be transformed into the “Black Raptor,” half-man, half-dinosaur.

In February 2008, after the ninth homicide at Fort, the Army launched an inquiry there too. The general in charge said investigators were “looking for a trend, something that happened through [the murderers’] life cycle that might have contributed to this.” A former captain and Army prosecutor at Fort asked, “Where is this aggression coming from?… Was it something in Iraq?” Carson Carson

What Are We Fighting For?

Our women soldiers are a different story. The Department of Defense still contends that women serve only “in support of” U.S. operations, but in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “support” and “combat” often amount to the same thing. Between September 11, 2001, and mid-2008, 193,400 women were deployed “in support of” U.S. combat operations. In Iraq alone, 97 were killed and 585 wounded.

Like their male counterparts, thousands of women soldiers return from Afghanistan and Iraq afflicted with PTSD. Their “invisible wounds,” however, are invariably made more complex by the conditions under which they serve. Although they train with other women, they are often deployed only with men. In the field they are routinely harassed and raped by their fellow soldiers and by officers who can destroy their careers if they protest.

On March 17, 2009, the Pentagon reported 2,923 cases of sexual assault in the past year in the U.S. military, including a 25% increase in assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, assaults committed by men who serve under the same flag. What’s more, the Pentagon estimated that perhaps 80% of such rapes go unreported.

And then, when women come home as veterans, they, like their male counterparts, may be involved in domestic homicides. Unlike the men, however, they are usually not the killers, but the victims.

Shortly after Sgt. William Edwards and his wife, Sgt. Erin Edwards, returned to Fort Hood, Texas, in 2004 from separate missions in Iraq, he assaulted her. She moved off base, sent her two children to stay with her mother, brought charges against her husband, got an order of protection, and received assurances from her husband’s commanders that they would prevent him from leaving the base without an accompanying officer.

She even arranged for a transfer to a base in New York. However, on July 22, 2004, before she could leave the area, William Edwards skipped his anger management class, left the base by himself, drove to Erin Edwards’s house, and after a struggle, shot her in the head, then turned the gun on himself.

The police detective in charge of the investigation told reporters, “I believe that had he been confined to base and had that confinement been monitored, she would not be dead at his hands.” Base commanders excused themselves, saying they hadn’t known Erin Edwards was “afraid” of her husband. Even if true, since when is that a standard of military discipline? William Edwards had assaulted a fellow soldier. Normally, that would be some kind of crime — unless, of course, the victim was just a wife.

Back in North Carolina, near Fort Bragg and the nearby Marine base at Camp Lejeune, military men murdered four military women in nine months between December 2007 and September 2008. Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, eight months pregnant, went missing from Camp Lejeune in December 2007, not long before she was to testify that a fellow Marine, Cpl. Cesar Laurean, had raped her. In January, investigators found her burned body in a shallow grave in Laurean’s backyard. By then, he had fled to Mexico, his native country, and been apprehended there; but Mexico does not extradite citizens subject to capital punishment.

On June 21st, the decomposing body of Spc. Megan Touma, seven months pregnant, was found in a motel room near Fort Bragg. In July, Sgt. Edgar Patino, a married man and the father of Touma’s child, was arrested and charged with her murder.

On July 10th, Army 2nd Lt. Holly Wimunc, a nurse, failed to appear for work at Fort Bragg. Neighbors reported that her apartment was burning. Days later, her charred body was found near Camp Lejeune. She had been in the process of divorcing her estranged husband, Marine Cpl. John Wimunc, and had a restraining order against him. He and his friend Lance Cpl. Kyle Ryan Alden were charged with murder, arson, and felony conspiracy.

On September 30th, Army Sgt. Christina Smith was walking with her husband Sgt. Richard Smith in their Fayetteville neighborhood near Fort Bragg when an assailant plunged a knife into her neck. Richard Smith and Pfc. Mathew Kvapil, a hired hit man, were charged with murder and conspiracy.

Striking about these “intimate homicides” is their lack of intimacy. They tend to be planned and carried out with the kind of ruthless calculation that would go into any military plan of attack. Most were designed to eliminate an inconveniently pregnant lover and an unwelcome child, or to inflict the ultimate lesson on a woman about to make good her escape from a man’s control. In some of them, in good soldierly fashion, the man planning the killing was able to enlist the help of a buddy. On military websites you can read plenty of comments of comradely support for these homicidal men who so heroically “offed the bitches.”

Give Peace a Chance

The battered women’s movement once had a slogan: World peace begins at home. They thought peace could be learned by example in homes free of violence and then carried into the wider world. It was an idea first suggested in 1869 by the English political philosopher John Stuart Mill. He saw that “the subjection of women,” as he called it, engendered in the home the habits of tyranny and violence which afflicted England’s political life and corrupted its conduct abroad.

The idea seems almost quaint in competition with the brutal, dehumanizing effectiveness of two or three tours of duty in a pointless war and a little “mild” brain damage.

We had a respite for a while. For nearly a decade, starting in 1993, rates of domestic violence and wife murder went down by a few percentage points. Then in 2002, the vets started coming home.

No society that sends its men abroad to do violence can expect them to come home and be at peace. To let world peace begin at home, you have to stop making war. (Europe has largely done it.) Short of that, you have to take better care of your soldiers and the people they once knew how to love.

 

 

 

Long march for restoration of deposed judges begins

 

Geo Report: Updated at: 1133 PST, Thursday, March 12, 2009

Lawyers and political workers kicked off long march for the restoration of free judiciary arrests continues.

According to reports, leader of Jamaat-i-Islami Prof. Ghafoor Ahmad, Asadullah Bhutto, President Karachi Bar Muhammad Ali Abbasi, general secretary and dozens of poitical workers and lawyers have been arrested so far.

Earlier, large number of lawyers were gathered outside High Court from where long march was kicked off. A rally of lawyers left for Mazar-i-Quaid.

Lawyers had announced to stage sit-in at constitution avenue in Islamabad on March 16 which will lasts till the restoration of the judiciary to November 2 position.

Meanwhile, lawyers have been gathered in district court Quetta. President Supreme Court Bar Ali Ahmad Kurd is leading them.

Some reports of torture from police on participants of rally in Karachi have been received.

The workers of Sindh Taraaqi Pasand Party, Jamaat-i-Islami and Tahreek-i- Insaaf accused police of torture.

Police have sealed the high court and checking has been beefed up at entry and exit routes of Karachi.

 

 

 

Rahman in search of Rahmat

A. R. Rahman won two Oscars this year for his music in the film Slumdog Millionaire

 “Islam gives me peace” – In India’s film world, people change Muslim names to Hindu ones to get success but, “in my case it was just the opposite from Dileep Kumar to Allah Rakha Rahman — and I’m very proud of it.” A R Rahman says.

From a non-believer to a worshipper; from polytheist to monotheist; from Dileep Kumar to Allah Rakha Rahman, the famous music wizard has come a long way. This journey, he says, has completely changed his outlook toward life.
 
Rahman is well-known in India. He revolutionized Bollywood music, giving it a new direction. But in Mina, the man was spiritually charged, relaxing in his camp after Isha prayers, remarkably very far from the rhythm of success.
 
He said that in India’s film world, people change Muslim names to Hindu ones to get success but, “in my case it was just the opposite from Dileep Kumar to Allah Rakha Rahman — and I’m very proud of it.”

Rahman’s music is everywhere: in discotheques, in malls, at wedding parties, on satellite channels, in taxis.. He is a celebrity in his own right. His face adorns the cover of every album he cuts. Autograph hunters hound him wherever he goes. A couple of companies have tried to lure him into product endorsements, but he refused, preferring to distance himself from the glare and the sometimes self-indulgent afterglow of fame.
 
Such was his attitude when Arab News met him yesterday in Mina after a hunt of five hours that had started just after Maghreb prayers.
 
Once a practitioner of idolatry, Rahman now talks about Islam like a scholar. He winced as he spoke about the ignorance of some Muslims and the divisions among them on trivial issues.
 
Rahman, who has come to perform his second Haj with his mother, utilized every bit of his stay in Mina, Arafat and Madinah in prayer and remembrance of God to “cleanse the inner self.”
 
He said Islam is a religion of peace, love, coexistence, tolerance and modernity. But due to the behavior of a few of us, it’s labeled as an intolerant orthodoxy. He says that the image of Islam is being tarnished by a small group of people and that Muslims must come forward to present before the world the correct picture of their divine faith.
 
“The enormity of their ignorance of the Islamic history and its code of conduct is mind-boggling. We should be united in fighting these elements for the cause of Islam,” he said.
“Muslims should go to lengths to follow the basics, which say ‘be kind to your neighbors, keep smiling when you meet others, pray and do charity.’ We should serve humanity. We should not show hostility toward others, even to the followers of other faiths. This is what Islam stands for. We should present before the world a model through our behavior, nature and presentation.
 
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) never used his sword to spread Islam; rather he spread the religion through his virtues, behavior, tolerance and righteousness. And this is what is needed to change today’s distorted image of Islam.”

 
Talking about his Haj, Rahman said, “Allah made it very easy for us. And up until now, I have enjoyed every bit of my stay in the holy land and I pray to Allah to accept my pilgrimage.”
 
For him, the stoning ritual is a physical exercise that symbolizes internal struggle: “It means the defeat of temptation and killing the devil inside ourselves.”
 
“I would like to tell you that this year I got the most precious gift on my birthday, Jan. 6. Allah gave me the opportunity to confine myself inside the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah and pray all through the day. Nothing could match this experience and that too on my birthday; I am extremely delighted and thankful to Allah,” he said.
 
Rahman said that prayers release his tension and give him a sense of containment. He performs prayers despite heavy work pressure. “I am an artist, but despite tremendous work pressure I never skip prayers,” he said. “I am very punctual in offering the day’s all five prayers on time. This releases me from tension and gives me hope and confidence that the Lord is with me, that this is not the only world. It reminds me of the Day of Judgment.”
It was in the year 1989 that he and his family embraced Islam.
 
Talking about his reversion, Rahman said, “The whole process started with a sequence of dream. It was in 1988. I was in Malaysia and had a dream of an old man who was asking me to embrace Islam. For the first time, I did not take it seriously, but then I saw the same dream several times and I discussed it with my mother. She encouraged me to go ahead and to respond to the call of the Almighty. Also, in 1988, one of my sisters fell seriously ill and in spite of the family’s effort to cure her, her health deteriorated by the day. Then under the guidance of one Muslim religious leader we prayed to Allah, which did wonder for my sister and she made a miraculous comeback to life. Thus, began my journey from Dileep Kumar to A.R. Rahman.”
 
He said the decision to embrace Islam was a mutual one with his mother. Not one to normally discuss this aspect of his private life, after taking a pause, Rahman narrates succinctly, “My mother and I resolved to follow one faith … we wanted to cleanse ourselves of our sorrows.”
 
After initial doubts, his three sisters also embraced Islam. For them he has tried to be a role model, he said. However, his eldest sister was divorced later.
Rahman began learning piano at the age of four. But life was not all that hunky-dory for the young boy who lost his father at the age of nine.
 
The responsibility of supporting his mother Kasturi (now Kareema Begum) and three sisters soon fell on his young shoulders. He began his prosperous musical career at age eleven out of necessity.
 
Rahman is married to Saira. They have three children: two girls, 10 and seven, and a three-year-old son.
 
Rahman performed his first Haj in 2004. This time, he is accompanying his mother.
“I wanted to bring my wife also for Haj this year, but since my son is only three years old, she could not make it. God willing, I will come again — next time with my wife and children,” Rahman said.

 

Credits: A R Rahman exclusive Blog ~ Rahmaniac

Attack in Lahore – Qui Bono [who benefits]

By Azhar Aslam and Shaista Kazmi (Vision21)

Pakistan is in a classic ‘cry wolf’ situation. Now that the wolf has come one risks shouting about it at the peril of being called paranoid, liar, crazy or conspiracy theorist. But this unfortunate ‘wolf cry’ of the ‘foreign hand’ may have given a room to maneuver and protection to the external players and handlers. Fourteen ( or twelve) gunmen attacked Sri Lankan cricket team and their guards in a coordinated, well planned attack and got away (until now). But fool may be the one who thinks this was a senseless attack with the aim of terrorising ordinary Lahorites. So let us just look at the facts and let everyone draw their own conclusion. The attack has raised many questions which are pertinent and of utmost relevance and must be answered in a forensic manner.

Attackers: These observations are made on the basis of TV footage available.

Attackers were young (apparently 14 in number). They were heavily armed, had latest equipment for communication and had enormous firepower. They were wearing trousers and shirts and shalwar and shirts and traveled by rickshaws and car. They were not classic Taliban look-alike. They managed to transport all this heavy weaponry to Liberty. That must have required planning and human resource.

They must have had more accomplices who helped them escape. After they ran off there must have been transport waiting to ferry them away. So the routes and roads must have been well known. Some of the attackers were already positioned in the roundabout itself.

For escape there must have been at least seven rickshaws (unlikely), 3-4 cars or couple or mini vans or a mixture of these (to carry 14 people unless some of them walked to escape in the ensuing chaos). This means there were at least 3 to 8 other people involved. This brings a group total to about twenty.

Surely keeping a lid on this operation between twenty people must have been difficult. So it must have been very highly disciplined gang who has already committed such acts and whose members knew each other well. Or if for security these people were being told at the very last minute what to do, then that indicates a certain amount of professionalism that comes with lot of money and lot of previous training and expertise. So while attackers on Mumbai may have time on their side and planners could have chosen a complete novice and trained him at their leisure, this could not have been the case in Lahore attack, which could only involve pre-trained group of people, who in all likelihood have worked together before. Although possibility of two or three separate gangs being knitted together with specific tasks cannot be ruled out. We should expect this should make the tasks for investigators relatively easy. But where were the handlers?

Planning of the attacks: The planning for this attack must have started only after, when Srilanka decided to visit Pakistan. It may have been soon after, but not before. There must have been a decision made and approved, attackers chosen, trained, route analyzed, security arrangements analyzed for the weaknesses and some sort of simulation must have taken place. This again leads to the conclusion that these attacks and level of sophistication indicates previous expertise, not a new outfit, where equipment, training and manpower had to be present and in place before hand. The attackers (or at least those caught on the camera) clearly looked, ordinary regular guys. They must have been Punjabi speaking to make it easy to mingle in with the populace to get away.

The nature of the attack: The attack itself well coordinated, well planned, and systematically executed. The place of attack, a large well known junction in Lahore ( ironically called Liberty chowk) was clearly chosen to create maximum impact and to attract wide media attention. There was clear element of dramatization. Lahore is an iconic city called heart of Pakistan. The choice was calculated. Most importantly it was not suicide attack, and attackers successfully got away as they intended to. It is being claimed that food stuff they carried indicates that they may have wanted to kidnap the cricketers. That may be true. But it is unlikely that the purpose behind that would have been any other than creating more mayhem and chaos. The planners for the attack clearly knew that these attacks will be immediately seen in the background of Mumbai attacks and will have certain specific ramifications. The sophistication of the attack was like a commercial operation carried out in the field leveled by the ferocious insurgency by ‘Islamist’ militants. While the attackers may or may not have been Pakistanis, the puppeteers were definitely not.

Targets: The choice of Sri Lankan cricket team as target is most interesting. While the attack clearly has the international dimension that attackers wanted to have, it is not a classic jihadist anti-white, anti-western attack. Cricket as a sport cannot considered immoral ( by strictest of conservative standard), by any stretch of imagination and Pakistani cricket team is full of Tablighi players. This alone shall put Taliban at the bottom of the suspect list, if not rule them out completely. The sole purpose of attacking a visiting international team was to get international media attention to focus on terrorist activities in Pakistan. This they did very successfully.

Circumstances: There was clear lack of through security planning and somebody had become lax somewhere. Some claim that recent change of police chief may have contributed to this. This is unlikely. Although there was no route protection, and certainly not the level of security that had been promised to the visiting guests. This alone must put us to shame. The attackers carrying rocket launchers; hand grenade, Kalashnikovs and Mousers fought for about half an hour ( as reported) without even being recognized and chased. Despite of receiving the information of the attack in advance, apparently, it is shocking to see no pre-emptive measures for the incident. It clearly points towards the lack of or no coordination at all between the institutions responsible for taking care of the security.

SriLanka had agreed to visit after Indian team had refused to come following Mumbai attacks. Indians were annoyed with this Srilankan decision and had made it known to SriLankans. There is also a backdrop of growing and deep security relationship between Srilanka and Pakistan which has earned SriLanka Indian ire. One must not forget that Indian supported Tamils tigers been recently defeated at hands of Srilankan army (supported by Pakistan). Worst has been the Indian reaction. Instead of rising to the occasion as great power , the status Indians do not tire of claiming, to its shame Indian Foreign Minister Mr Mukerjee had this to say: ‘Until the infrastructures of terrorists are dismantled in Pakistan these incidents will continue to happen…… Pakistan must address terrorist organisations’. There was the usual narrow mindedness of Indian politicians with no sympathy for its neighbour.

Consequences: There is the up roar in the western media, led by usual rabid Murdoch ( AngloSaxon) pack, and it is being claimed ‘Pakistani state cannot handle itself; militancy is spreading; it needs external support, no one is safe in Pakistan, SriLanka’s decision was crazy etc etc’. That this same media never thought Britain was at risk when Irish terrorists were blowing up hotels where British Prime Minister was staying or Spain when Spanish trains were blown apart, or Israel is going to fall when Palsetinian suicide bombers attack the streets of Tel Aviv despite highest security does tell us a lot about its intentions and impartiality. There is a clear case building happening. One by one different pieces are being out in place to fit in the jigsaw. With the single and sole purpose: To isolate Pakistan internationally; establish it as an unstable and highly dangerous pariah state, and then deal with it accordingly.

Qui Bono: The prime and the first suspects in any crime is the one who benefits. So who benefits here? Any one who wants to portray Pakistan as an unstable country and wants to isolate it in the international community and degrade its standing. Anyone who wants to see and portray Pakistan as a weak country which has become a hub of international terrorism.

It is likely that many will blame Alqaida, Lashkar e Tayyibah or Taliban or such like because it is the easiest story to believe in the town. The attack has put Pakistan’s position in the sports world and the possibility of hosting an international event of 2011 cricket world cup in jeopardy. How the above mentioned, may benefit from this fact, is difficult to comprehend. But how certain powers and regional interests may do is obvious.

But before pointing fingers we must recognize and accept the fact that it is us who have given anyone a chance to do this shameful act. Our political and economic destabilization, the situation of insurgency and worsening condition of law and order has left us with hardly any options but to take the most inane nonsense on the chin. It is the internal weakness of our own system that has made the country vulnerable to the acts of terrorism. The militant image of Pakistan is a ready theatre for the international terrorist mafia. The fledgling democracy, conflicting coalitions, dispersed leadership, protesting judiciary and sinking economy are enough to allow assailers to attack Pakistan and its progressive image.

Will we wake up?

 

Will Sharifs deliver where Benazir failed?

By   azhar aslam and shaista kazmi

 

Serendipity is an interesting word in English language, not least so because its sub- continental in origin. It is defined as ‘the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable precious or agreeable things not sought for’.  About a year ago an opportunity was presented to the largest political party, PPP, when its unelected but unchallengeable leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. At a critical juncture, when fools amongst us thought the time had come for party to show maturity and sagacity, it did something that should stay as a blight of shame on it, by passing the chairmanship to a boy of 19 as hereditary mantle (except that there is no integrity, honour and conscience for these people to have shame).

 

Now Sharifs have been presented this opportunity. By being declared ‘disqualified’, they are now not eligible to be elected to an executive post, national or provincial. They are now ‘having to do politics’ from (a relatively strange and unusual) position, at least in Pakistan, of wise grand old men who lead but do not govern. Is this really bad for Pakistan or Muslim League? Are Sharifs able to see the blessing in disguise? True, one does politics to be able to govern, with the stated mission of serving people. But if you have been chief minister and prime minister and have been at it more than once, do you have to do it again? Do you have to do ‘Mugabe’? Can you not do ‘Mandela’?  

 

It seems God has handed a golden opportunity to Sharifs to show magnanimity and sagacity and leave a legacy, which will not only outlast them but can outlast any other Pakistani politician’s legacy. As things stand however, it seems they have taken the bait and reacted according to the lowly standards of Pakistani politics.  Two major parties of the country are now combating each other, paying no heed to the consequences.

 

Compared to the interest of the country, the moral, legal and political stance of both parties seems beside the point or irrelevant in the ‘large scheme of things’. Sharifs could have won an immediate moral and political victory and secured for themselves and their protégés a long term future by declaring to become grand old men of the party and run the affairs by (proxy) getting new leadership elected and approved.  They could have come out in open and declared that they did not covet the chief- or prime-minsterships and were willing to serve their country from the side lines.

 

Actions and reactions of Zardari and Sharifs following the Supreme Court’s decision has plunged the country into a political chaos.  This new confrontation has further kicked the fledgling and unstable democracy or little semblance of it, what we have. Fiercely provoked processions, angry mobs and rash political workers are setting private and public possessions on fire, ruining law and order situation and challenging the writ of the government or whatever is left of it. This perhaps may be seen as message for all the stake holders, that politicians in Pakistan are about to be fail, yet again.

 

In truth, the decision, on balance of probabilities may be a tad unfair. But then who said life was fair.  Accusing President Zardari for his cunning, insincere and hypocrite policies, both the brothers have decided to fight for their rights. And true the President’s sudden and impetuous decision of imposing governor rule in Punjab and approaching Q league to try to establish a PPP government in Punjab, provide enough proof of his dictatorial approach. But can Sharifs not see an opportunity in this adversity?  Will they lead the country back into the seesaw politics of 90s? Will they not realise that times have changed? Pakistan now faces bigger challenges and far more serious threats.

 

Certainly the priority issues are at the peril of being ignored once again. The current peace deal with Taliban in NWFP, economic and financial slow down, and external security threats, demand a very responsible leadership. There is an increased responsibility on the shoulders of all politicians, but there is a special onus on Zardari and Sharifs. Zardari has been very disappointing up to now. But Will Sharifs do the same?  Will they not turn the tables and raise their stature when they have a chance?

 

Sharifs can save the federation by refusing the politics of reaction. They can gain an upper hand by becoming De Facto leaders such as Deng Xiaoping. They can set right; the 60 years of wrongs done by politicians in this country with this masterly stroke and lead the atonement. As a reward they can be not only assured a high place in the history, in the process they will set themselves a class apart. But will they look onto the horizon of the history or will they be blinded by the short-termism of Pakistani politics? Will they deliver where Benazir failed?    

 

A Letter to Holbrooke

The chairperson of the Defense of Human Rights, Pakistan Mrs. Amina Masood Janjua has written the following letter to the Ambassador Holbrooke.

 

(The letter is originally published in The News)

Dear ambassador: I am writing to you on behalf of the aggrieved people of Pakistan who have suffered tremendously in the last eight years. They have deep wounds and scars upon their hearts, incurred by their country’s participation in America’s war on terror which has caused many grave human rights violations within Pakistan.

Since 9/11, violation of domestic and international law has been legitimized under the aegis of the US-led war on terror. As a consequence of this, even within Pakistan many people have been picked up and detained in secret detention camps and torture cells run by the intelligence agencies. These illegal detention facilities were monitored, controlled and financed by elements that are part of the US government. It is my humble appeal to you to take interest in this matter so that the fate of our loved ones who are rotting in these cells for years without end may change for the better.

Sir, Muslims also believe in the teachings of Prophet Moses just like you. Moses (PBUH) was a messenger of God for all of humanity. The phrase “Thou shall not kill” is well-known throughout the world as one of the Ten Commandments, which all Jewish people are required to believe in. Originating in the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, this phrase was originally given to Moses and the Israelite people by God as one of the great commandments and is found in the holy scriptures of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Seen as an admonition against murder, the sixth commandment is the foundation for the prohibition against suicide, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, war, and any other situation where one person might be inclined to take the life of another. Our religion, Islam is a peaceful non-violent religion, which builds on the teachings of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Noah, David, Solomon and others. The Holy Quran specifically states: “Whoever killed a human being should be looked upon as though he had killed all mankind. (5:32)”

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) avoided war at all costs and even helped create a 10-year peace treaty between the Muslims and non-Muslims, which was drafted and signed at Al Hudaibiya. While the treaty was being drafted, the people of Makkah indulged in a number of provocative acts. For instance, they set down a condition that if they could lay their hands on any Muslim they would make him a hostage, but if the Muslims succeeded in detaining any non-Muslim, they would have to set him free. The Prophet (PBUH) agreed to even this point. For the restoration of peace in the region, the Prophet accepted a number of such unjustifiable clauses as were added by the other side. In this way he set the example of peace and tolerance being linked with one another. If we desire peace, we must tolerate many unpleasant things from others. There is no other way to establish peace in society.

Ambassador Holbrooke, you are a seasoned diplomat and America’s special envoy for our region. Therefore it is necessary to convey to you the aspiration and expectations of the people of Pakistan. We love our country as much as Americans love their country. Respect for human rights and rule of law is as important for us as for Americans. We appreciate the three commendable orders that the new President Barack Obama has passed soon after taking oath of office. We urge you and your government to take the lead in also closing down these CIA/ISI detention camps within Pakistan. This will be extremely helpful in building a positive image of US in Pakistan as well as in gaining the trust and confidence of the citizens of both America and Pakistan.

The families, like myself, of the thousands of those who had disappeared will be intently looking towards the new US administration and towards your actions in this regard. I hope and pray that my husband will also be released from his incarceration of nearly four years – detention during which he has not been charged for any crime and his family has not been allowed any contact with him.

I will keep praying for the establishment of true brotherly relations between America and Pakistan. May God bless you and guide you.

 

 

Curbing the Myth of Overpopulation to Fight Poverty

By Nicholas Eberstadt

The article was published on February 7, 2009 in American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.</em>all,pubID.29350/pub_detail.asp

 

President Obama has ended the ban on federal funds imposed by the Bush Administration on groups that promote or perform abortions abroad and on the United Nations Population Fund. He must take this opportunity to put pressure on the UNFPA to concentrate on the health of women and babies–and to stop wasting money assaulting the poor with wrongheaded population-control schemes.

“Continued rapid population growth poses a bigger threat to poverty reduction in most countries than HIV/AIDS,” the UNFPA said in an hysterical statement on World Population Day, last July. This is plain wrong: it is not human numbers that cause poverty, but bad economic policies, laws and institutions.

 

The densely-populated Netherlands and Japan are prosperous but poor in resources, while much of impoverished Africa is thinly populated but rich in resources. The United States rose to affluence with one of the world’s highest long-term population growth rates, while now-prosperous Ireland had negative long-term rates. Clearly, neither human numbers nor natural resources are keys to the modern story of global wealth and poverty.

 

The UNFPA talks of “women’s empowerment and gender equality” and “universal access to reproductive health” but, despite this politically-correct discourse, it remains committed to its original purpose of reducing population growth: reproductive healthcare is “the most practicable option for slowing population growth,” it says, equating this with poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation.

 

These fallacies hark back to the 18th century economist Thomas Robert Malthus. Like many other pressure groups and NGOS, the UNFPA continues to commit elementary analytical errors: ignoring evidence staring us in the face.

The 20th century saw human numbers quadruple to more than six billion but food production widely outstripped population growth, average life expectancy doubled to well over 60 years, while global GDP per capita more than quintupled.

 

In the 1960s, alarmists such as Paul Ehrlich predicted imminent mass famine around the world. Indeed, in the last couple of years global food prices briefly shot up–maize, wheat and rice all doubled or tripled in a short time–but fell back again. In fact, the long-term trend in real grain prices over the past century has been heading steadily downward, at an average of seven to 10 percent per decade (depending on the product).To be sure, a horrifying number of people today still live in squalor, scourged by disease and hunger–but the correct name for this is poverty, not “overpopulation.” In countries where people cannot securely own property, cannot sell their produce freely and get scant protection in law, government is poverty’s handmaiden.

 

Population alarmists and their allies in the U.N. are deluding themselves when they claim government intervention can reduce fertility rates and “stabilize” population. Their mantra is that education, high literacy and cheap birth control lead to lower birth rates.

 

Health, literacy and voluntary contraception are meritorious objectives in their own right, irrespective of any influence on population growth. But it is misleading to claim they predictably reduce birth rates.

Take literacy. The adult literacy rate in 2006 was about a third higher in Malawi than Morocco (54 percent vs. 40 percent), yet fertility levels in Malawi were double. Family planning campaigns are similarly unpredictable: in 1974 Mexico started a vigorous campaign to cut population growth and got fertility levels down by 56 percent but Brazil’s fertility level fell by 54 percent with no campaign at all, in the same quarter century. These are not cherry-picked examples: there is simply no way of knowing in advance the impact of family-planning programs on birth rates.

 

It turns out that the single best international predictor of fertility levels is the number of children that women say they would like. The only proven way of curbing population growth is coercion, as in India briefly in the 1970s and in UNFPA-client China today. There is no other assured way of accomplishing immediate and dramatic birth reductions through population policy–period.

 

Many organizations, including the World Health Organization and UNICEF, already work to promote the health of women and children internationally. Plainly, many global health threats, from maternal and neonatal deaths to diarrhea, malaria and other infectious diseases, are creations of poverty. Only economic growth and freedom, not deceitful population programs from the UNFPA, can empower women and spare them poverty and premature death.

Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at AEI.

Rising number of UK working mothers causes social change

A study compiled for the Church of England-affiliated Children’s Society cites the fact that women are now less dependent on their husbands as a cause of family break-up and criticises the parents of young children for spending long hours at work and relying on childminders.

A report on the study published in the Sunday Telegraph describes an increase in the number of mothers going back to work when their babies are less than a year old as a ‘massive’ social change.

Its remarks on the causes of social breakdown are likely to attract controversy. “The context in which families live today in Britain is in many ways quite new, and this raises new challenges,” the report says.

“Compared with a century ago, two changes stand out: first, most women now work outside the home and have careers, as well as being mothers.

“Seventy per cent of mothers of nine-to-12-month-old babies now do some paid work, this compares with only 25 per cent 25 years ago – a massive change in the way of life.

“Meantime, the children are cared for by someone other than their parents.”

The second change, it says, is a sharp increase in marital break-up in recent decades.

“Women’s new economic independence contributes to this rise,” the report says.

“It has made women much less dependent on their male partner, as has the advent of the welfare state.

“As a result of increased break-up, a third of 16-year-olds in Britain now live apart from their biological father.”

The report, compiled by academics Lord Layard and Professor Judy Dunn, also claims that the quality of friendship among young people has declined as the so-called ‘Facebook generation’ spends more time in front of a screen than outside playing.

Among eye-catching recommendations contained in the report, A Good Childhood, is a call for new civil birth ceremonies for non-religious families, held at registration offices along the lines of weddings.

It recommends curbs on advertising targeting children under the age of 12 and the option for parents to take up to three years off work to care for their children without losing their jobs.

Credits: Dawn

Education in Pakistan ‘in a shambles’

Foreign Correspondent, Islamabad:  Wilkinson

The article was published in The Nation, an English Newspaper in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Young students gather to pray and sing the national anthem in the assembly at the TCF Primary School in Karachi. Photo by Asim Hafeez / The National

There are tens of thousands of schools across Pakistan where there are no students, no teachers and in many cases, no buildings, yet thousands of dollars are spent each year on their “upkeep”.

The ghost schools, as they are more commonly known, have become an emblematic symptom of Pakistan’s failing education system, suffering from a lack of commitment by successive governments.

The lack of determination to tackle Pakistan’s vast education deficit comes as pro-Taliban militants are taking their fight to the schools of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where they have bombed girls schools, and are using them as fertile grounds for recruitment.

A five-year plan by Gen Pervez Musharraf, the former military officer and president, to reform the curricula of Pakistan’s madrassas, or religious seminaries, and bring them under state control, ended “in shambles”, according to a report by the International Crisis Group, a research and policy think tank.

But many are of the view that although the madrassas, which offer free education, pose a threat to Pakistan, it is the rundown state of secular education that is the real danger.

“Madrassas are a problem but a much smaller problem than mainstream education because of the sheer numbers involved,” said Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist from Quaid i Azam University in Islamabad.

The education system, left to atrophy for 30 years, is crippled by every possible ill: crumbling classrooms, poor teaching materials, untrained and truant teachers and endemic corruption.

Pakistan has more than 150,000 public education institutions serving more than 21 million students and a huge private sector that serves another 12 million.

Yet, according to a Unesco report, the government only spends 2.4 per cent of its GDP on education against the Unesco-recommended norm of a minimum of four per cent. Some 3,500 schools do not have a building; of those that do, 4,000 are classed as “dangerous”; 29,000 schools have no electricity; 14,000 have no drinking water; 22,000 do not have a toilet; 4,000 consist of a single classroom; and fewer than 100 secondary schools have science labs.

Officially, 53 per cent of Pakistanis are literate. Others say the figure is nearer 30 per cent. Literacy, often defined as no more than the ability to write one’s name, is as low as three per cent among women in some rural areas.

The exact figure of ghost schools is unknown but Gen Musharraf estimated there were 30,000 in 2006.

“There is an allocation of money for which can be found no evidence of buildings, teachers or schools,” said Abdul Hameed Nayyar, a respected academic and educationalist..

“It shows the order of corruption in the country and particularly in the educational bureaucracy,” he said.

Pakistan is among the top 12 recipients of funding for educational aid but little of it trickles down to teachers and pupils.

A Unesco report last year found that Pakistan has the lowest Gender Parity Index in the region, that is, there are more boys than girls in schools compared with any other country, including Afghanistan. Only 22 per cent of girls, compared to 47 per cent boys, complete primary schooling.

But some seeds of hope have been sewed, mostly by non-governmental groups who are setting up primary schools such as one in Machar, or mosquito, colony, one of Karachi’s 500 slum communities. The slum is built on a vast rubbish tip that now constitutes “reclaimed land” in the port city. The school, built and run by the Pakistani educational charity, The Citizens Foundation (TCF), is an oasis of cleanliness and efficiency amid the neighborhood’s squalor.

During a recent visit to the school, rows of neat khaki-uniformed school children scribbled furiously at their desks.

Many of Machar’s 180 schoolchildren have been raised in abject poverty, in families where child labour and malnourishment are the norm.

Set up in 1995 by six businessmen, TCF runs 530 school units in 63 areas in Pakistan, all of which are in slum or rural areas. It teaches 65,000 children, has trained and employs 3,500 teachers and raises its 530 million rupee (Dh24.7m) annual operational cost through corporate and private donations.

Its director, Ahsan Saleem, said that he and his five fellow founding members were “nauseated” by the large number of children begging in the street.

They set up the foundation after a dinner party conversation about the lamentable state of Pakistan.

The foundation’s mantra is “to do education on a war footing”. Its target is to build 1,000 schools by 2010 that would educate 350,000-400,000 pupils.

The founding members continue to foot the bill for 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the expense of building a school, which on average costs seven million rupees each.
Expatriate Pakistanis in the UAE pay for the annual running costs of about 40 TCF schools.

But there is a constant battle to provide the basics. “Many of our children at Machar are involved in peeling shrimps or do some odd job to help supplement the family’s income. They get up at 5am to work,” said Tasnim Jaffer, a senior volunteer working with TCF.

“There is no homework as most of our children are working children,” she added.
The children, aged from four to early teens, earn 10 rupees for cleaning a basket of 200-300 shrimps and can make up to 50 rupees per day.

TCF schoolchildren pay between 10 rupees to 175 rupees each month for primary education and between 20 rupees and 250 rupees for secondary education, depending on their family’s income.

In some exceptional cases, such as for orphans, they pay no fee. But the foundation charges a token amount to foster commitment among pupils. Even young shrimp peelers pay for their own schooling.

The fees pay for teaching, uniforms, books and a weekly dietary supplement of biscuits and milk.

The TCF education starts with a solid grounding in all the core subjects but also makes sure that personal hygiene is ingrained in a child.

“Our emphasis is not on rote learning but on an entire upbringing. You cannot imagine the pressure put on us from parents to take their children.

“What we are doing is opening their minds to a better standard of living,” Mrs. Jaffer said..

TCF students, who have the benefit of fully equipped science laboratories, have won scholarships to further education and several are now studying engineering and medicine at university.