What is my duty in life?
Thursday 30 August 2018
Wednesday 29 August 2018
Why footwork is overrated when keeping wicket
Deep Dasgupta in Cricinfo
I was recently asked for my opinion of Rishabh Pant's wicketkeeping. One of the things I spoke about then, apart from his good glovework, was how little he moved - which is the correct approach for English conditions. In general - and don't be shocked when I say this - footwork in keeping is overrated.
Don't get me wrong. Footwork is essential and an important facet of wicketkeeping, but the question is: how much and when should you move your feet? Since childhood I've been told about the importance of footwork and how good keepers never dive but rather just glide to the ball. "The less you dive, the better you are," I was told. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Like batting, with keeping too, it's your hands that will do the job. What footwork does is get you in good positions to catch or play the ball.
The problem with moving too much comes to light when the ball deviates from the predicted path - for example, when it takes an edge or if it changes direction after pitching, as it does when spin bowling is involved. If the keeper is on the move when the ball changes its predicted path, by the time he stabilises himself and reacts, it's often too late.
There are two critical phases when the keeper has to be stable - when the ball is pitching and when it is passing the bat. These are the two times when the ball is most likely to deviate. It is important to stay still, with a strong, stable base, at these times, to give yourself the best chance of reacting to likely changes.
Jos Buttler being dropped by Pant at Trent Bridge is an example of the keeper being on the move when the ball was edged. By the time Pant could stabilise and move, it was too late. (It was a tough chance, though.) If you take these two phases out, there isn't much time to move anyway, be it before the ball pitches or after it passes the bat.
The big argument for footwork is that it lets you cover a lot of ground. But how much ground does a keeper really need to cover for a seamer? On the off side, one would expect the keeper to reach till the first slip, and on the leg side a little bit more. First slip is about half a body length, so roughly one shuffling step away, or a dive. On the leg side, it's a step, then a dive - or another shuffling step or thereabouts. That is all the footwork the keeper needs. And that's all he will need, if he moves after the ball has passed the bat .![]()
Wriddhiman Saha's half-squat allows him remain stable and keep his eye on the ball Getty Images
Two of the best examples of not moving too much I can think of are MS Dhoni and Wriddhiman Saha. Against seamers, Saha doesn't squat fully. He stays still in a half-squat till the ball passes the bat. It is the same with Dhoni - his movements are minimal and his hand-eye coordination is among the best that I've seen. His keeping looks unorthodox but his basics are extremely good and solid: he stays still for as long as possible, keeps watching the ball till the last moment, and backs his hands to do the rest. At times, he and Saha catch the ball like outfielders, with one knee on the ground (or "long-barrier", in cricket parlance).
Another argument in favour of the keeper moving is the concept of catching the ball inside the body - that is, catching it between the body and the line of the stumps - promoted by a lot of coaches and pundits. This originated, if my memory serves me right, in Australia.
The carry and pace of Australian pitches means the keeper has substantially more time, because he is further back from the stumps, to take an extra step on either side. It's not the same on low and slow pitches, like you get in the subcontinent. The reason I'm not a big fan of catching the ball inside the body is that theoretically it sounds good but it isn't practical on most pitches. I must add, though, that I do encourage catching on either side of the body - just to make sure the hands have enough room to move.
Catching depends a lot on eye-hand coordination. The eyes are like cameras - the more you move, the more blurry the picture. For me, the best way to capture a moving ball is to stay still. The hands will catch what the eyes can see.
Though wicketkeeping is an important aspect of the game - and a tough one - unfortunately it does not get the attention that batting, bowling and fielding in general do. As long as the keeper is catching them, it's fine, but if it goes wrong, "his basics are wrong", as someone said to the media about me once. Sounds funny now but trust me, it wasn't at the time! Due to this lack of airtime in the public discourse for wicketkeeping, discussion of it remains somewhat caught in a quagmire of age-old clichés and half-baked knowledge. I would like to see more people getting involved in the conversation and delving deeper into the thankless job called wicketkeeping.
I was recently asked for my opinion of Rishabh Pant's wicketkeeping. One of the things I spoke about then, apart from his good glovework, was how little he moved - which is the correct approach for English conditions. In general - and don't be shocked when I say this - footwork in keeping is overrated.
Don't get me wrong. Footwork is essential and an important facet of wicketkeeping, but the question is: how much and when should you move your feet? Since childhood I've been told about the importance of footwork and how good keepers never dive but rather just glide to the ball. "The less you dive, the better you are," I was told. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Like batting, with keeping too, it's your hands that will do the job. What footwork does is get you in good positions to catch or play the ball.
The problem with moving too much comes to light when the ball deviates from the predicted path - for example, when it takes an edge or if it changes direction after pitching, as it does when spin bowling is involved. If the keeper is on the move when the ball changes its predicted path, by the time he stabilises himself and reacts, it's often too late.
There are two critical phases when the keeper has to be stable - when the ball is pitching and when it is passing the bat. These are the two times when the ball is most likely to deviate. It is important to stay still, with a strong, stable base, at these times, to give yourself the best chance of reacting to likely changes.
Jos Buttler being dropped by Pant at Trent Bridge is an example of the keeper being on the move when the ball was edged. By the time Pant could stabilise and move, it was too late. (It was a tough chance, though.) If you take these two phases out, there isn't much time to move anyway, be it before the ball pitches or after it passes the bat.
The big argument for footwork is that it lets you cover a lot of ground. But how much ground does a keeper really need to cover for a seamer? On the off side, one would expect the keeper to reach till the first slip, and on the leg side a little bit more. First slip is about half a body length, so roughly one shuffling step away, or a dive. On the leg side, it's a step, then a dive - or another shuffling step or thereabouts. That is all the footwork the keeper needs. And that's all he will need, if he moves after the ball has passed the bat .
Two of the best examples of not moving too much I can think of are MS Dhoni and Wriddhiman Saha. Against seamers, Saha doesn't squat fully. He stays still in a half-squat till the ball passes the bat. It is the same with Dhoni - his movements are minimal and his hand-eye coordination is among the best that I've seen. His keeping looks unorthodox but his basics are extremely good and solid: he stays still for as long as possible, keeps watching the ball till the last moment, and backs his hands to do the rest. At times, he and Saha catch the ball like outfielders, with one knee on the ground (or "long-barrier", in cricket parlance).
Another argument in favour of the keeper moving is the concept of catching the ball inside the body - that is, catching it between the body and the line of the stumps - promoted by a lot of coaches and pundits. This originated, if my memory serves me right, in Australia.
The carry and pace of Australian pitches means the keeper has substantially more time, because he is further back from the stumps, to take an extra step on either side. It's not the same on low and slow pitches, like you get in the subcontinent. The reason I'm not a big fan of catching the ball inside the body is that theoretically it sounds good but it isn't practical on most pitches. I must add, though, that I do encourage catching on either side of the body - just to make sure the hands have enough room to move.
Catching depends a lot on eye-hand coordination. The eyes are like cameras - the more you move, the more blurry the picture. For me, the best way to capture a moving ball is to stay still. The hands will catch what the eyes can see.
Though wicketkeeping is an important aspect of the game - and a tough one - unfortunately it does not get the attention that batting, bowling and fielding in general do. As long as the keeper is catching them, it's fine, but if it goes wrong, "his basics are wrong", as someone said to the media about me once. Sounds funny now but trust me, it wasn't at the time! Due to this lack of airtime in the public discourse for wicketkeeping, discussion of it remains somewhat caught in a quagmire of age-old clichés and half-baked knowledge. I would like to see more people getting involved in the conversation and delving deeper into the thankless job called wicketkeeping.
Thursday 9 August 2018
Sunday 5 August 2018
Creating Routines for Self Improvement - Part 4 from Thinking in Bets
Extracts from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
In 2004 Phil Ivey destroyed a start studded table in a poker
tournament. After his win, during dinner, Ivey deconstructed every potential
playing error he thought he might have made on the way to victory, asking
others’ for their opinion about each strategic decision. A more run of the mill
player might have spent the time talking about how great they played, relishing
the victory. Not Ivey. For him, the opportunity to learn from his mistakes was
much more important than treating the dinner as a self-satisfying celebration.
Ivey, clearly has different habits than most players and most
people in any endeavor in how he fields his results. Habits operate in a
neurological loop consisting of three parts: the cue, the routine and the
reward. In cricket the cue might be a won game, the routine taking credit for
it and the reward is a boost to our ego. To change a habit you must keep the
old cue, and deliver the old reward but insert a new routine.
What we do: When
we have a good outcome, it cues the routine of crediting the result to our
awesome decision-making, delivering the reward of a positive update to our
self-narrative. A bad outcome cues the routine of off-loading responsibility
for the result, delivering the reward of avoiding a negative self-narrative
update. With the same cues, we flip the routine for the outcomes of our peers,
but the reward is the same – feeling good about ourselves.
The good news is that we can work to change this habit of
mind by substituting what makes us feel good. The golden rule of habit change
says we don’t have to give up the reward of a positive update to our narrative,
nor should we.
We can work to get the reward of feeling good about ourselves
from being a good credit-giver, a good mistake-admitter, a good finder of
mistakes in good outcomes, a good learner and a good decision maker. Instead of
feeling bad when we have to admit a mistake, what if the bad feeling came from
the thought that we might be missing a learning opportunity just to avoid
blame? Or that we might be basking in the credit of a good result instead of recognizing,
like Ivey, where we could have done better? If we put in the work to practice
this routine, we can field more of our outcomes in an open minded, more
objective way, motivated by accuracy and truth-seeking to drive learning. The
habit of mind will change, and our decision making will better align with our
long term goals.
When we look at the people performing at the highest level
of their chosen field, we find they have developed habits around accurate
self-critique.
Changing the routine is hard and takes work.
The empty rituals of daily lives
Tabish Khair in The Hindu
Just as religious rituals move the practitioner away from the immensity of faith, secular rituals move citizens’ attention away from real issues
Serious religious thinkers have tended to distinguish between ritual and religion. Some, of course, have distinguished between spirituality and religion too, mostly because they have associated religion with rituals.
Now, rituals have their uses, as long as we employ them in the full awareness that they are arbitrary and man-made. This applies to secular matters as well as religious ones: I like my ritual of a morning cup of coffee with a biscuit or two, but I do not assume that this is god-ordained or that my day will not commence unless I have my cup of coffee. So, I am not talking of rituals of this sort. I am talking of rituals that are made ‘essential’ to either religion or secular life.
The matter with religion is clear enough. The reason why religious but nonconforming thinkers, like Kabir, railed against rituals was that they perceived how rituals are used, in the name of religion, to control, influence and exploit people. They also felt that rituals are worldly matters and have nothing to do with the divine. The priestly classes insist on rituals, as if god would care about the colour of your dress, the posture of your prayer, the number of your beads, etc. Rituals proliferate in religions because they allow the priestly classes to control and exploit ordinary believers. Instead of being used as an option, the coffee cup ritual becomes a necessity imposed on the ordinary believer, often at great cost.
Rituals in secular life
This much is clear enough about religion, and explains why so many religious thinkers — apart from the accredited priestly classes, whether mullahs or pandits — tended to criticise rituals or blind observance of rituals. But how, you might be asking, do rituals work in the secular sphere? Because such rituals are not confined to religion. They also exist in secular life, and are used by various ‘priestly classes’ to mislead, control and exploit ordinary people. I suspect that basically religious people, conditioned to associate belief with rituals, are likely to be misled by rituals in secular life too.
A ritual in secular life is like a ritual in religion: it is demanding, obsessive, unavoidable, essential. It is the one thing that you ‘need’ to do in order to have a good life (in this world or the next, or both). Or so the priestly classes claim. Because when you really look at this ‘essential’ ritual, it falls apart. It is not necessary; you can do without it. You can understand the world in other ways, live your life differently. But no, the priestly classes claim, you have to practice this ritual — or you will suffer and probably be damned for all eternity!
Rituals of prosperity
Think of the rituals that we are surrounded by in ordinary secular life. Think, for instance, of all those economic figures trotted out by national economists in all countries to show that the nation is progressing. GNP. Average national income. The rising value of shares in the stock market. These are rituals of prosperity, because if you really look into them, they mean nothing. Or they mean nothing because they have been turned from actual, though limited, indicators into sweeping rituals: empty practices.
A rise in GNP, the average national income, or the share market can indicate some types of prosperity, but these are not enough — and they are misleading when trotted out in ritualistic fashion by politicians. In each case, there is a good chance that some people might be gaining and many more losing. Take the situation of Amazon: the company is thriving, but, at least in the U.S., it is reputed to offer its workers a very meagre wage package and unsatisfactory working conditions. To think that the profits being made by Amazon is percolating down to its workers is to make a mistake. But that is the mistake we make when we simply note the net value of Amazon or the rise in its shares. Such figures play the role of empty rituals.
With countries, the matter is even more complex, as the prosperity of a country depends on factors other than financial ones. Hence, politicians who give us general figures and averages, whether correct or not, are indulging in empty rituals.
Of course, figures are not the only rituals practiced by politicians in power, the apex of the secular priestly classes. For instance, it is a ritual to construct a highway without making a sustained effort to improve the existing highways, to create a super-city without a sustained effort to improve the urban infrastructure in existing cities, to raise the statue of a great leader and ignore the best aspects of his example.
These acts and decisions are rituals because they are empty and misleading. Just as a ritual in religion moves the practitioner away from the endless immensity of faith to a delusive shortcut, a ritual in secular life moves citizens’ attention away from all the real issues and offers a soupçon of misleading satisfaction. I fear that we Indians might or might not be a spiritual people, but we do have a certain tendency to indulge — and let others indulge — in empty rituals in religious as well as secular life.
Serious religious thinkers have tended to distinguish between ritual and religion. Some, of course, have distinguished between spirituality and religion too, mostly because they have associated religion with rituals.
Now, rituals have their uses, as long as we employ them in the full awareness that they are arbitrary and man-made. This applies to secular matters as well as religious ones: I like my ritual of a morning cup of coffee with a biscuit or two, but I do not assume that this is god-ordained or that my day will not commence unless I have my cup of coffee. So, I am not talking of rituals of this sort. I am talking of rituals that are made ‘essential’ to either religion or secular life.
The matter with religion is clear enough. The reason why religious but nonconforming thinkers, like Kabir, railed against rituals was that they perceived how rituals are used, in the name of religion, to control, influence and exploit people. They also felt that rituals are worldly matters and have nothing to do with the divine. The priestly classes insist on rituals, as if god would care about the colour of your dress, the posture of your prayer, the number of your beads, etc. Rituals proliferate in religions because they allow the priestly classes to control and exploit ordinary believers. Instead of being used as an option, the coffee cup ritual becomes a necessity imposed on the ordinary believer, often at great cost.
Rituals in secular life
This much is clear enough about religion, and explains why so many religious thinkers — apart from the accredited priestly classes, whether mullahs or pandits — tended to criticise rituals or blind observance of rituals. But how, you might be asking, do rituals work in the secular sphere? Because such rituals are not confined to religion. They also exist in secular life, and are used by various ‘priestly classes’ to mislead, control and exploit ordinary people. I suspect that basically religious people, conditioned to associate belief with rituals, are likely to be misled by rituals in secular life too.
A ritual in secular life is like a ritual in religion: it is demanding, obsessive, unavoidable, essential. It is the one thing that you ‘need’ to do in order to have a good life (in this world or the next, or both). Or so the priestly classes claim. Because when you really look at this ‘essential’ ritual, it falls apart. It is not necessary; you can do without it. You can understand the world in other ways, live your life differently. But no, the priestly classes claim, you have to practice this ritual — or you will suffer and probably be damned for all eternity!
Rituals of prosperity
Think of the rituals that we are surrounded by in ordinary secular life. Think, for instance, of all those economic figures trotted out by national economists in all countries to show that the nation is progressing. GNP. Average national income. The rising value of shares in the stock market. These are rituals of prosperity, because if you really look into them, they mean nothing. Or they mean nothing because they have been turned from actual, though limited, indicators into sweeping rituals: empty practices.
A rise in GNP, the average national income, or the share market can indicate some types of prosperity, but these are not enough — and they are misleading when trotted out in ritualistic fashion by politicians. In each case, there is a good chance that some people might be gaining and many more losing. Take the situation of Amazon: the company is thriving, but, at least in the U.S., it is reputed to offer its workers a very meagre wage package and unsatisfactory working conditions. To think that the profits being made by Amazon is percolating down to its workers is to make a mistake. But that is the mistake we make when we simply note the net value of Amazon or the rise in its shares. Such figures play the role of empty rituals.
With countries, the matter is even more complex, as the prosperity of a country depends on factors other than financial ones. Hence, politicians who give us general figures and averages, whether correct or not, are indulging in empty rituals.
Of course, figures are not the only rituals practiced by politicians in power, the apex of the secular priestly classes. For instance, it is a ritual to construct a highway without making a sustained effort to improve the existing highways, to create a super-city without a sustained effort to improve the urban infrastructure in existing cities, to raise the statue of a great leader and ignore the best aspects of his example.
These acts and decisions are rituals because they are empty and misleading. Just as a ritual in religion moves the practitioner away from the endless immensity of faith to a delusive shortcut, a ritual in secular life moves citizens’ attention away from all the real issues and offers a soupçon of misleading satisfaction. I fear that we Indians might or might not be a spiritual people, but we do have a certain tendency to indulge — and let others indulge — in empty rituals in religious as well as secular life.
Friday 3 August 2018
Good Luck Imran!
Najam Sethi in The Friday Times
The Miltablishment, Judiciary, ECP and Media – “pillars of the state” – are entitled to pat one another on the back for successfully putting Imran Khan in office. Their task became doubly difficult after Nawaz Sharif defied expectations to return to the country and court arrest, triggering sympathy votes in Punjab that threatened to derail their carefully laid plans.
The opposition parties are rightly crying foul. They have demanded the resignation of the CEC and his associates for facilitating the theft of the general elections. The ECP’s explanation about the mysterious breakdown of the RTS system – denied by NADRA which put the system in place and monitored it — and the extraordinary delays in announcing the results hasn’t washed. Nor is it easy to stomach the fact that in many constituencies the lead of the winner is less than the number of rejected votes. The sharp rebuke from the ECP confirms a decidedly partisan sentiment in its ranks.
Clearly, those who thought that unprecedented pre-poll rigging would suffice to get “suitable results” were wrong. A last-minute intervention was necessitated in the dead of night on Election Day when the numbers seemed to be going awry. But that’s not the end of the story.
The “Independents” are now being corralled and branded. Small fry like the GDA, PMLQ, MQM, BAP, TLYRA, etc are being offered “sweetners” while the PPP is being whipped into submission. Asif Zardari, Feryal Talpur,Owais Tappi, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and a clutch of other Zardari cronies and PPP leaders have been read out the Riot Act by NAB and FIA: Cooperate or Else.
Still, it’s going to be a long haul for Imran Khan and Associates. The bare victories in Islamabad and Lahore will be buffeted every day for the next five years. Indeed, the project of putting Imran Khan in office will have to be updated by a project to keep him in office. Amidst this, the core objective of “Tabdeeli” will be very difficult to achieve.
For starters, Imran Khan will need help in assembling his teams in KPK, Punjab and Islamabad so that the core objective is kept firmly in mind. The refusal to appoint Pervez Khattak as CM of KPK suggests that the Miltablishment will retain veto power over critical appointments. The buzzwords in these quarters are “Neat, Clean and Obedient”. But a contradiction between means and ends is already palpable. The PTI has been stuffed with dirty “lotas” and traditional, status quo “electables” to bring Imran into office and keep him there by a carrot-and-stick policy. But “Tabdeeli” requires motivated ideologues to sacrifice self-interest and support hard decisions. The current intraparty spat over the CMships of KPK and Balochistan, or the resistance faced by Not-so-Neat-And-Clean Aleem Khan, or the visible power struggle between Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen for the coveted CMship of Punjab, is just the tip of the iceberg. The notion of public service or duty – central to the requirement of “Tabdeeli” — is alien to these folks.
The celebratory fireworks on the day Imran Khan is sworn in as Prime Minister will be followed by a different display of fire power. The Miltablishment, which has been tarred in the public imagination by its blunt political intrusions of late, may withdraw behind the curtain and let the “elected” government take responsibility for its actions. That would give the media and judiciary scope to redress their failing credibility by taking the government to task. Indeed, neither pillar of the state can afford to be pro-government for its own sake – the media for its commercial interests and the judiciary for its independence from the executive. This is bound to put several spanners in the works.
As if this isn’t enough, the job of putting the economy on track will provoke howls of protest from the very classes that have voted for Imran Khan. Currency depreciation will fuel inflation. Reduction in budgetary deficits will curtail public expenditures, consumer demand and employment. Plugging the balance of payments gap by curtailing imports and capital transfers will restrict commercial activity (SBP has already banned imports on open account save for essential raw materials). Increasing tax rates will be unpopular. Provincial bureaucracies and politicians will fight tooth and nail over any attempt to reverse the last NFC Award that flushed them with money, no less than any attempt to devolve power and funds to local governments, which are the preferred nurseries of the Miltablishment for nurturing “neat and clean and obedient” politicians.
The Miltablishment will also expect Imran Khan to exploit his “star” status to manage foreign policy productively. But it would be naïve to expect the two key players that impinge on us, India and the US, to overnight repose trust in him so long as he remains a proxy. The problem is that if Khan tries to cut loose from his key benefactor in pursuit of his own vision, he will feel the heat just like Nawaz Sharif did.
Good luck to Imran Khan!
The Miltablishment, Judiciary, ECP and Media – “pillars of the state” – are entitled to pat one another on the back for successfully putting Imran Khan in office. Their task became doubly difficult after Nawaz Sharif defied expectations to return to the country and court arrest, triggering sympathy votes in Punjab that threatened to derail their carefully laid plans.
The opposition parties are rightly crying foul. They have demanded the resignation of the CEC and his associates for facilitating the theft of the general elections. The ECP’s explanation about the mysterious breakdown of the RTS system – denied by NADRA which put the system in place and monitored it — and the extraordinary delays in announcing the results hasn’t washed. Nor is it easy to stomach the fact that in many constituencies the lead of the winner is less than the number of rejected votes. The sharp rebuke from the ECP confirms a decidedly partisan sentiment in its ranks.
Clearly, those who thought that unprecedented pre-poll rigging would suffice to get “suitable results” were wrong. A last-minute intervention was necessitated in the dead of night on Election Day when the numbers seemed to be going awry. But that’s not the end of the story.
The “Independents” are now being corralled and branded. Small fry like the GDA, PMLQ, MQM, BAP, TLYRA, etc are being offered “sweetners” while the PPP is being whipped into submission. Asif Zardari, Feryal Talpur,Owais Tappi, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and a clutch of other Zardari cronies and PPP leaders have been read out the Riot Act by NAB and FIA: Cooperate or Else.
Still, it’s going to be a long haul for Imran Khan and Associates. The bare victories in Islamabad and Lahore will be buffeted every day for the next five years. Indeed, the project of putting Imran Khan in office will have to be updated by a project to keep him in office. Amidst this, the core objective of “Tabdeeli” will be very difficult to achieve.
For starters, Imran Khan will need help in assembling his teams in KPK, Punjab and Islamabad so that the core objective is kept firmly in mind. The refusal to appoint Pervez Khattak as CM of KPK suggests that the Miltablishment will retain veto power over critical appointments. The buzzwords in these quarters are “Neat, Clean and Obedient”. But a contradiction between means and ends is already palpable. The PTI has been stuffed with dirty “lotas” and traditional, status quo “electables” to bring Imran into office and keep him there by a carrot-and-stick policy. But “Tabdeeli” requires motivated ideologues to sacrifice self-interest and support hard decisions. The current intraparty spat over the CMships of KPK and Balochistan, or the resistance faced by Not-so-Neat-And-Clean Aleem Khan, or the visible power struggle between Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen for the coveted CMship of Punjab, is just the tip of the iceberg. The notion of public service or duty – central to the requirement of “Tabdeeli” — is alien to these folks.
The celebratory fireworks on the day Imran Khan is sworn in as Prime Minister will be followed by a different display of fire power. The Miltablishment, which has been tarred in the public imagination by its blunt political intrusions of late, may withdraw behind the curtain and let the “elected” government take responsibility for its actions. That would give the media and judiciary scope to redress their failing credibility by taking the government to task. Indeed, neither pillar of the state can afford to be pro-government for its own sake – the media for its commercial interests and the judiciary for its independence from the executive. This is bound to put several spanners in the works.
As if this isn’t enough, the job of putting the economy on track will provoke howls of protest from the very classes that have voted for Imran Khan. Currency depreciation will fuel inflation. Reduction in budgetary deficits will curtail public expenditures, consumer demand and employment. Plugging the balance of payments gap by curtailing imports and capital transfers will restrict commercial activity (SBP has already banned imports on open account save for essential raw materials). Increasing tax rates will be unpopular. Provincial bureaucracies and politicians will fight tooth and nail over any attempt to reverse the last NFC Award that flushed them with money, no less than any attempt to devolve power and funds to local governments, which are the preferred nurseries of the Miltablishment for nurturing “neat and clean and obedient” politicians.
The Miltablishment will also expect Imran Khan to exploit his “star” status to manage foreign policy productively. But it would be naïve to expect the two key players that impinge on us, India and the US, to overnight repose trust in him so long as he remains a proxy. The problem is that if Khan tries to cut loose from his key benefactor in pursuit of his own vision, he will feel the heat just like Nawaz Sharif did.
Good luck to Imran Khan!
The Pakistan election was fair
S Y Quraishi in The Indian Express
The general election in Pakistan is being described as a milestone in the democratic history of the country. This is only the second transition from one full-term civilian government to another, and the first under the new Election Law, 2018. I got a great opportunity to observe the event from a ringside seat as a member of the Commonwealth Election Observers Group. The 15-member group headed by Abdulsalami Abubakar, former head of state of Nigeria, spent 12 days to observe events leading up to the election, the polling and counting day and the declaration of the results over three days.
The group met delegations from the leading political parties, civil society and the media to understand the pre-electoral environment, which was reported to point to a not-too-fair election. We were told of massive pre-poll “rigging”. Mainly, three things were cited: Forcing of certain party leaders to return their tickets, muzzling of the media, and misuse of the army and judiciary in favour of a particular party. It is difficult to understand how the changing loyalties of political leaders can be described as rigging — such political engineering is common in the Subcontinent where turncoats and horse trading are household terms. Some media representatives said that after a lot of subtle and overt intimidation, many have decided on self censorship as a wiser option. The hold of the army on institutions like the judiciary, the National Accountability Bureau, the media, etc was a common refrain. We were told naming the army was taboo, full of risks. Therefore, alternative expressions or euphemisms had been evolved, like “establishment”, “powers that be”, “khalai makhlooq” (people from outer space), “angels” and even “agriculture department”.
People who questioned the impartiality of the military and judiciary cited the timing of court cases against certain political leaders and candidates. Media were allegedly prevented from fully covering certain issues like the rights of the minorities and the role of state institutions. For the poll-day arrangements, questions were focused on the large-scale deployment of the army. Concerns were raised about the order to deploy soldiers inside the polling stations. We, therefore, decided to focus special attention on these concerns.
We observed that candidates from across parties and independents were able to campaign freely and peacefully. Maybe we arrived too late, by which time the games were already played. The overall security situation was tense, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan, where terrorist attacks in the preceding weeks claimed more than 170 lives, including of three candidates. However, the parties were able to organise their rallies freely as per Election Rules 2017. A lot of negative and abusive campaigning was initially reported but after the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) stern action under the model code, most people fell in line.
We found the electoral system quite robust, with a substantially reformed legal framework consisting of the Constitution of Pakistan, the Elections Act, 2017 and Election Rules, 2017, which has led to a greater autonomy of the ECP, including financial autonomy, power to make rules and punish for contempt, and to deregister or delist an existing political party. Officials deputed for election duties have now been brought under the ECP’s disciplinary control.
Some legal reforms for enhancing women voters’ participation are noteworthy. The ECP can declare an election null and void if less than 10 per cent women have voted in a constituency. This had a salutary effect in those frontier regions where women were traditionally not allowed to vote. Each party has to nominate a minimum of 5 per cent women candidates for the general seats in the National Assembly. This is in addition to 70 seats in the National Assembly (272 members) which are filled by nomination by the political parties according to the number of seats won. (Incidentally, 10 seats are reserved for minorities). Special campaigns by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), political parties and civil society helped increase their enrolment as voters. Separate polling stations for women, run entirely by women, also encouraged turnout.
Polling day passed off peacefully much to everyone’s relief. There was a 53 per cent turnout, significantly higher than the 48 per cent in 2013.
Unlike India, the counting in Pakistan is done at the polling station itself immediately after polling closes. There were several questions raised about the counting. Some parties alleged that the polling agents were not allowed to observe the counting from close up. Some complained that their agents were thrown out of the stations. There were allegations that Form 45 (result sheet) was neither given to polling agents nor pasted on the wall of the PS. The ECP denied the first allegation clarifying that only those agents who were in excess of one per party were asked to leave. It, however, admitted to several instances of the second allegation and promised to take action. The ECP also admitted the failure of the Result Transmission System because it had not been pilot tested adequately. The foreign minister, whom we met, attributed this, in a lighter vein, to the failure of the British technology on which the app was based.
The conduct of the proscribed militant-dominated religious organisations was watched with interest, a phenomenon of special concern to India. We noted that the ECP, in accordance with the law, did not allow the registration of such entities and individuals to contest elections. However, its mechanism for filtering candidates linked to such organisations was weak which led to three candidates managing to slip through scrutiny. They were, however, delisted on the eve of the election after a hue and cry of the media and civil society. It is remarkable that religious parties with extremist connections were totally routed both in national and provincial assemblies. Tehreek-e-Labbaik managed to get only two seats in Karachi whereas the Allah-o-Akbar party drew a blank.
The elections were closely observed by a huge force of volunteers of civil society led by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) and Trust for Democracy Education and Accountability, besides international observers from the EU, Commonwealth and several diplomats. FAFEN deployed 19,683 citizen observers (including 5,846 women) at more than 65,000 polling stations (almost 80 per cent of the total). Most observers were satisfied with arrangements and conduct of elections. The Commonwealth group commended the ECP for a laudable job in the short time it had to implement its mandate for holding transparent elections on schedule. It regarded the General Election 2018 as an important milestone in strengthening democracy in Pakistan.
Quraishi is former chief election commissioner of India
The general election in Pakistan is being described as a milestone in the democratic history of the country. This is only the second transition from one full-term civilian government to another, and the first under the new Election Law, 2018. I got a great opportunity to observe the event from a ringside seat as a member of the Commonwealth Election Observers Group. The 15-member group headed by Abdulsalami Abubakar, former head of state of Nigeria, spent 12 days to observe events leading up to the election, the polling and counting day and the declaration of the results over three days.
The group met delegations from the leading political parties, civil society and the media to understand the pre-electoral environment, which was reported to point to a not-too-fair election. We were told of massive pre-poll “rigging”. Mainly, three things were cited: Forcing of certain party leaders to return their tickets, muzzling of the media, and misuse of the army and judiciary in favour of a particular party. It is difficult to understand how the changing loyalties of political leaders can be described as rigging — such political engineering is common in the Subcontinent where turncoats and horse trading are household terms. Some media representatives said that after a lot of subtle and overt intimidation, many have decided on self censorship as a wiser option. The hold of the army on institutions like the judiciary, the National Accountability Bureau, the media, etc was a common refrain. We were told naming the army was taboo, full of risks. Therefore, alternative expressions or euphemisms had been evolved, like “establishment”, “powers that be”, “khalai makhlooq” (people from outer space), “angels” and even “agriculture department”.
People who questioned the impartiality of the military and judiciary cited the timing of court cases against certain political leaders and candidates. Media were allegedly prevented from fully covering certain issues like the rights of the minorities and the role of state institutions. For the poll-day arrangements, questions were focused on the large-scale deployment of the army. Concerns were raised about the order to deploy soldiers inside the polling stations. We, therefore, decided to focus special attention on these concerns.
We observed that candidates from across parties and independents were able to campaign freely and peacefully. Maybe we arrived too late, by which time the games were already played. The overall security situation was tense, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan, where terrorist attacks in the preceding weeks claimed more than 170 lives, including of three candidates. However, the parties were able to organise their rallies freely as per Election Rules 2017. A lot of negative and abusive campaigning was initially reported but after the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) stern action under the model code, most people fell in line.
We found the electoral system quite robust, with a substantially reformed legal framework consisting of the Constitution of Pakistan, the Elections Act, 2017 and Election Rules, 2017, which has led to a greater autonomy of the ECP, including financial autonomy, power to make rules and punish for contempt, and to deregister or delist an existing political party. Officials deputed for election duties have now been brought under the ECP’s disciplinary control.
Some legal reforms for enhancing women voters’ participation are noteworthy. The ECP can declare an election null and void if less than 10 per cent women have voted in a constituency. This had a salutary effect in those frontier regions where women were traditionally not allowed to vote. Each party has to nominate a minimum of 5 per cent women candidates for the general seats in the National Assembly. This is in addition to 70 seats in the National Assembly (272 members) which are filled by nomination by the political parties according to the number of seats won. (Incidentally, 10 seats are reserved for minorities). Special campaigns by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), political parties and civil society helped increase their enrolment as voters. Separate polling stations for women, run entirely by women, also encouraged turnout.
Polling day passed off peacefully much to everyone’s relief. There was a 53 per cent turnout, significantly higher than the 48 per cent in 2013.
Unlike India, the counting in Pakistan is done at the polling station itself immediately after polling closes. There were several questions raised about the counting. Some parties alleged that the polling agents were not allowed to observe the counting from close up. Some complained that their agents were thrown out of the stations. There were allegations that Form 45 (result sheet) was neither given to polling agents nor pasted on the wall of the PS. The ECP denied the first allegation clarifying that only those agents who were in excess of one per party were asked to leave. It, however, admitted to several instances of the second allegation and promised to take action. The ECP also admitted the failure of the Result Transmission System because it had not been pilot tested adequately. The foreign minister, whom we met, attributed this, in a lighter vein, to the failure of the British technology on which the app was based.
The conduct of the proscribed militant-dominated religious organisations was watched with interest, a phenomenon of special concern to India. We noted that the ECP, in accordance with the law, did not allow the registration of such entities and individuals to contest elections. However, its mechanism for filtering candidates linked to such organisations was weak which led to three candidates managing to slip through scrutiny. They were, however, delisted on the eve of the election after a hue and cry of the media and civil society. It is remarkable that religious parties with extremist connections were totally routed both in national and provincial assemblies. Tehreek-e-Labbaik managed to get only two seats in Karachi whereas the Allah-o-Akbar party drew a blank.
The elections were closely observed by a huge force of volunteers of civil society led by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) and Trust for Democracy Education and Accountability, besides international observers from the EU, Commonwealth and several diplomats. FAFEN deployed 19,683 citizen observers (including 5,846 women) at more than 65,000 polling stations (almost 80 per cent of the total). Most observers were satisfied with arrangements and conduct of elections. The Commonwealth group commended the ECP for a laudable job in the short time it had to implement its mandate for holding transparent elections on schedule. It regarded the General Election 2018 as an important milestone in strengthening democracy in Pakistan.
Quraishi is former chief election commissioner of India
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