EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

Wheat crisis

WHEN wheat prices fall, it hurts small farmers and benefits middlemen and millers. It isn’t their fault if small growers from Punjab, particularly from its impoverished, flood-hit southern parts, are worried about the crashing market. In many districts, prices have declined to Rs800 per 40kg, well below the official procurement price of Rs950, on a bumper harvest. The farmers’ cries for help have not moved the government into escalating procurement to prop up prices.

In fact, its slow drive is more to blame for a sliding market rather than the bumper output. A number of factors are contributing to the government’s slow procurement policy. The financial crunch facing the province as well as increasing storage costs have forced the scaling down of the procurement target to 3.5 million tons this year from over 5.7 million tons in 2009. At the start of this harvest, the province had a carryover stock of 2.4 million tons of wheat from the last two crops, which means it has a heavy financial burden in the form of loans obtained for commodity operations and interest. Moreover, multilateral lenders are strictly against official intervention in the wheat market and want the government to let market forces take their own course.

Can the government in a food-insecure country like Pakistan afford to leave its small farmers to the mercy of the vagaries of market forces? Not really. The results of such a policy can spell disaster for food security here. The support price primarily has two functions. First, it is an incentive for growers to increase their output to reduce the country’s reliance on food imports. Second, it is a promise that the government would protect them from losses if the private sector tried to take advantage of them in case of a surplus crop.

While the farmers have done their job — thrice in as many years since the support price was raised in 2008 — the government is backing out of its commitment to them. Athough, the financial crunch and costs of previous stocks may have restricted the government’s ability to procure “even the last unsold grain”, there is still ample room to protect the small, vulnerable farmers. The government will only have to change its procurement strategy and focus on small cultivators rather than big influential ones. Additionally, it must avoid placing controls on a free wheat export policy in future. The entry of exporters in the market — at least when the gap between domestic and international prices closes — should help the growers get a better price even with reduced official intervention.

Ayodhya revisited

LAST year, when a bench of the Allahabad High Court decided to partition the site where the demolished Babri Mosque once stood in the Indian town of Ayodhya, there was a feeling that perhaps the most divisive communal issue India has faced post-Partition had finally been put to rest. But this has not been the case. A two-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court stayed last September’s verdict on Monday; one of the judges noted that none of the litigants had asked for the three-way partition and the high court came up with the solution itself. The verdict, which split the disputed site between two Hindu groups and a Muslim organisation, was termed a “strange order”. Justice Aftab Alam said that “the high court has granted a new relief, which nobody has asked for it”. Politically, the Supreme Court’s decision to maintain the status quo has received a mixed reception in India. The BJP, which sprang to national prominence after the destruction of the 16th-century mosque, is ecstatic. Many of its leaders were believed to be instrumental in instigating the rampage by Hindu zealots, which resulted in the demolition and that was followed by a bout of bloody communal violence. Other parties have also welcomed it, for different reasons, while the ruling Congress has largely kept quiet.

When the high court delivered its judgment many saw the site’s partition as the only workable solution in a supposedly secular set-up. Yet there were questions as to how the verdict would be implemented and more importantly, if it was within the court’s jurisdiction to come up with solutions, or to deliver a judgment based on the facts. Judges must decide cases on the basis of solid evidence and must ensure that justice is done, not keeping the goal — however noble — of communal harmony in mind. Promoting harmony and bringing religious or ethnic communities together to overcome thorny issues is the task of politicians and civil society, not the courts. One feels this chapter is far from closed and various parties — specifically those allied with the Sangh Parivar — will continue to milk the Babri Mosque dispute for political gain.

Pre-nuptial screening

AS International Thalassemia Day was marked this weekend, Pakistan was reminded that unlike many other countries it has failed to bring the problem under control.

At a national round-table conference held in Karachi on Sunday, speakers noted that the exact number of thalassaemia major sufferers in the country remains uncalculated, though estimates suggest a figure of about 60,000. The number of people with thalassemia minor may well run into the millions. The latter form of thalassaemia is often not itself a problem, but the child of two people carrying the gene has a high probability of being a thalasaemia major sufferer. Speakers therefore called for the incorporation of a clause in the marriage certificate requiring that prospective couples undergo blood screening for thalassaemia.

This may prove a useful measure, and not just in terms of thalassemia. There is a general lack of awareness in Pakistan about genetically inherited disorders and while communicable and dangerous diseases such as HIV or blood-borne hepatitis have received much attention in the media, rarely do they figure in any couple’s decision to wed. Similarly, marriages between cousins are widespread, without a thought to the well-documented genetic mutations and handicaps that such unions can produce. A pre-nuptial blood test requirement would help men and women make a more informed choice about their potential spouse and any risks that their children might face. The point here is not to give the state power over citizens’ decisions about whom to marry — that must remain in the personal and private sphere. However, it is the state’s duty to help people gain access to information to which they have a right, such as whether their potential spouse has any genetic disorders or communicable disease. Without specific legislation, social codes would prohibit such a demand.