Tuesday 14 December
Teaching done, just a report to write. Taking an early morning stroll, I talk to Anees, supervising a new bungalow being built at the back of PILER. He’s the building contractor who built PILER ten years ago. I sing the praises of this wonderful building. For some reason I cannot fathom, he asks me what kind of cake I like. ‘Coffee’ I reply.
6.00pm, Jamil drops me at the Jang Building where I wait for Riaz. We walk across the road into Faiz Ghangro’s office, two smallish rooms, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, ever inch packed with traditionally bound law reports, his desk piled high with briefs. A trade unionist in the cement industry in the 1970s, a communist in and out of prison, Faiz is now a labour lawyer, chain smoking as he explains why he’s cheerful: the judiciary have changed, really changed. Since the lawyers’ movement of 2008/2009, justice has been cleaned up, 15-20% of the judges have been ‘retired’, and cases that were stalled for years, even decades, are now being settled. The judges and the court staff have had their pay doubled, they at work beyond 5pm, not leaving at 2pm. Faiz has just won a case for a woman against her employer, KLM. Even more amazing, she’s already been paid her full compensation, 45 lakh rupees, over £30,000 with no one taking a ‘commission’. Faiz proudly shows me a photocopy of the cheque. The MQM, who have dominated the city for more than twenty years , and have 600 or more ‘placemen’, unqualified lawyers, who block vote for MQM in elections to the Sindh Bar Council have lost control by a margin of several hundred votes for the posts of president and general secretary.
The law is still inadequate. A lawful strike can only take place after arbitration which can take months and months. And even when a case is won, implementation can take forever.
Now a drive across the city to Fazl, a professor of politics, in his forties, a Marxist, a Pashtun from Quetta. Picking his words with care, he’s scornful of leftist rhetoric which gives ‘socialism’ as the answer to every problem. He explains the history of Pashtun nationalism (and the differences with Baloch nationalism) and the hopes of the national intelligentsia as they see the potential of the mineral wealth of the region, hoping to emulate the model of the Gulf States, a good life for all citizens (with migrants excluded from the welfare system or political rights.) I suggest that far more probable is the Congo model, small enclaves controlled by foreign capital which extract the wealth leaving nothing for local people. Fazl agrees, pointing out this is already happening, for example, with the Sui gas field in Balochistan, which supplies all the cities of Pakistan but does nothing for the local inhabitants
Then Fazl explains that his daughter very much wants to meet us. Her trophies for winning debating contests are on the wall and as she speaks clearly and forcefully, it’s not hard to see why. She’s doing a BSc in microbiology and wants to go on to a PhD in clinical virology. Unless, that is she passes the civil service exams. Her father chuckles at this point, the two careers could hardly be more different. She wants to talk politics and we vigorously discuss the causes of terrorism, continuing with hardly a break when the power is cut and various torches are found. I carefully explain that I don’t think Pakistan should exist and she’s somewhat shocked while her father laughs.
Nearing midnight, we refuse the offer of supper – we’ve been offered generous bowls of pistachio and almonds – and depart, stopping briefly to eat some spit roasted chicken at a Baloch roadside restaurant, rather more than we can eat at this time of night. As we get up to leave, a young girl who has been watching us walks to our table and puts the remaining chicken onto the naan. The waiter moves to shoo her and stops as he sees me watching. She smiles and departs.
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