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Coolies on Contract

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2016

“…Every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labour spent on it is dishonest.”

— Leo Tolstoy

BRONZED-FACED, wearing faded red shirts with a number stitched in white, soaked in sweat, coolies old and young sit astride a pavement under the scorching sun, waiting for passengers to arrive at the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station. A few balance loads of luggage on their red turbans as they walk briskly towards the platform. A precarious livelihood, you might say. Indeed it is, and worse: coolies have to pay a 30pc commission to their contractor from their meagre daily earnings, plus a monthly fee of Rs750 — sans any workplace facilities.

Yet the contractor is not satisfied: he wants his cut raised to 40pc. Sounds outrageous?

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Collective Struggle of Lady Health Workers

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2016

ONE of the many contradictions of our society is between its loud avowal of its love of the ‘family’ institution and its devaluation of woman, the pivotal figure in the family. Not only do we look down on women inside the family, we give two hoots about women who commit themselves to door-to-door healthcare services for the women and children of the family. No wonder the issues being faced by lady health workers — job security, timely payment of wages and supplies of kits and medicines —remain to be addressed fully by the state.

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Justice and Impunity

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2016

IT was an early March morning in 2009 and I was cruising along one of the primary roads in the central business district area of Dhaka city where many of the ready-made garments (RGM) factories are housed in old buildings.

Young girls in droves, dressed in shalwar-kameez, were emerging from the side lanes, stepping down from the buses, crossing the road, chatting on the footpath, bending over street vendors’ wares now and then and heading towards their factories for the morning shift.

I was in Dhaka to get a sense of what makes Bangladeshi RGM women workers organise for their rights. I climbed a narrow staircase of a building where many girls had gone. The factory was on the first floor. From the small landing I looked through the iron grille padlocked from outside: women bending over sewing machines in rows. A surly young man guarded the door: “outsiders are not allowed”, he told me.

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Misrule of Law

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2016

THE rule of law is considered to be grounded in four principles: universal accountability, the protection of fundamental rights (including security of persons), fair and due process, and the impartiality of those who deliver justice. Ideally, the rule of law seeks a just and peaceful social order in which the “…law would govern the lives of society members in a way that is not arbitrary, and not oppressive”.

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Dark Underbelly

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2016

‘Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder.’ — Plato

AS the democratic process unfolds in Pakistan, one wonders what kind of a hybrid would emerge in times to come. Don’t get me wrong: no sane person would argue against the supremacy of democracy. But yesterday’s turn of events — the state shooting down the peaceful protesters at the Karachi airport — indicates this hybrid democracy could be worse than martial law. The dark underbelly of our democracy is marred with bloodied repression of workers’ rights, the military calling the shots, co-optation by the political elite, and a parliament that passed the draconian PPA 2014 and 21st Amendment without batting an eyelid.

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Workplace Safety

Published in Dawn on January 12, 2016

‘Let the sky fall, when it crumbles, we will stand tall and face it all together.’ — Skyfall, Adele

Natural disasters aside, white-collar workers can’t even imagine the sky falling down on us, literally, while we are at work. Neither can they imagine what happens in that flicker of a second, and thereafter, to the body and soul of the workers on whom the roof crumbles as they toil for a pittance, or to the families when their dear ones die or are injured. ‘Standing tall and facing it all together’ seemingly is not in our collective ethos. Hence, incidents of factory collapse hardly make a ripple in the power corridor or in society’s consciousness.

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The Storyteller: On Elena Ferrante

Published in Dawn’s Books and Authors in November 2015

“I’m a storyteller. I’ve always been more interested in storytelling than in writing,” the Italian writer with the pen name Elena Ferrante said in one of her rare interviews conducted via written correspondence. No wonder that Ferrante’s writing is a phenomenon that has taken the world of literati and readers alike by storm. Termed as modern classics, her novels have attracted a huge readership. Originally written in Italian, the series has been translated into English by Ann Goldstein. Her much-awaited The Story of the Lost Child, the last book of the Neapolitan series, came out recently.

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Winds of Change

WHILE debate on the contradictions of capitalism, its ruthlessness and vulgarity, gains momentum on the margins of global discourse, capitalism glides smoothly along on the back of its modus operandi: the global supply chains. Termed as the foundation of 21st-century trade, global supply chains account for 80pc of global trade, benefitting Western populations through the availability of cheaper products manufactured by the low-wage, abundant labour of developing countries.

Pakistan is one of the low-cost production centres in Asia. In this country, Sialkot is a hub of several industrial clusters producing surgical instruments purchased by the healthcare industry in the West through global supply chains. According to a 2012 report by the Trade and Development Authority of Pakistan, 2,300 units in Sialkot, employing 150,000 workers, produce 150 million surgical instruments every year. Sialkot manufacturers sell to suppliers at a very small margin of profit; the suppliers then sell to the end users at much higher rates. For example, according to an estimate quoted in the 2010 report of the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a pair of surgical scissors costs $1 to produce, is exported from Pakistan to Germany at a price of $1.25 and, probably, sold to a hospital for about $80.

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Youth Challenge

The stars above us, govern our conditions.— Shakespeare

Azam Khan, an 18-year-old, works in a boutique in Karachi for 10 hours as an errand boy and earns Rs12,000 a month. Shy and soft-spoken, he thinks it is the stars that determine one’s life path. “What can I aspire to? I have no education. Jo naseeb mein hai [whatever destiny has in store]…” he mumbles. He comes from Shangla, one of the most deprived districts in Pakistan. He is the lad who irritates the policymakers and the politicians because he has no story to tell — no story of hope, no story of reaching out for the stars, no story of ‘youth creativity and energy’, the phrase our policy documents on youth bulge and youth dividend are full of.

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Census and Labour Data

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2015

A robust national statistical system is pivotal for development, equitable growth and planning as it facilitates evidence-based policies and, judicious and timely decision-making to achieve goals set by the country.

The system comprises official bodies that gather information and statistics through surveys and censuses on diverse aspects such as the economy and labour, demography and sociology, trade and business, politics and culture, housing, health and education, etc.

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