Mind _ The iceberg

PROFESSOR SHOUKAT LOHAR.

When ordinary people think of psychopaths, they have in mind the idea of addicted criminals and serial killers who spend the bulk of their lives in prison, but psychologists know that psychopaths include people around the world. As rich people live life but are morally bankrupt because they are indifferent. Many of these people are seemingly successful engineer ‘doctor’ businessmen ‘religious and political leaders. Some become the president and director of international companies and some even become the president and minister of the country.

Does the question arise as to what is the character of a person who has been out of sight for a long time? The aggressive and cruel, unruly, and unethical motivations of such people create many emotional and social problems for their families and societies. Unfortunately, such men do not feel any shame, nor do they feel any guilt or guilt. They continue to present the details of all their immoral and violent activities.

Although the terms PSYCHOPATHS, SOCIOPATHS, ANTISOCIAL are modern products, such individuals are mentioned in historical books. The Gospel is written

‘There are lies and myths on his tongue. He keeps threatening people. He hides near the settlements and waits for the innocent as the lion lurks in his prey, dragging the helpless and helpless people into his garbage. He crushes them. Helpless people kneel down in front of its power ‘

‘His hand will be on the neck of all human beings and all human hands will be on his neck’

THEOPHRASTUS, a disciple of Aristotle, gave such a person the name of UNSCRUPULOUS MAN and said, ‘He asks people for a loan but does not payback. He reminds one of his services by buying meat from a butcher so that he can give him more meat and if he does not give up, he laughs and takes a couple of bones and herbs. ‘

Nineteenth-century psychologist Philip Pinal wrote that such people think logically, but actions are very irrational and irresponsible. The actions of such people are patient but they are not mentally ill.

Twenty-first-century experts tell us that such people suffer from PERSONALITY DISORDER and are not victims of SCHIZOPHRENIA, so their diagnosis is difficult in many respects. That is why some experts call the personality of a personality the name of MORAL INSANITY.

The most popular book about psychopaths is Harvey Kleckley’s The MASK of SANITY, published in 1941. This book is a milestone in understanding such mysterious personalities. Cleckley wrote the stories of people who own psychopathic personalities in this book and prove that such people not only stand in the ranks of criminals but also be successful businessmen and political leaders. Such people are often not recognized because they do not fall under the law. Cleverly believed that such people are wearing a normal life form or form of MASK. That’s why he named his book THE MASK OF SANITY.

In 1980, Robert Hear, another psychologist, created a questionnaire based on Kleckley’s book, helping psychologists identify police officers’ people in prisons and courts. HARE told us that what happens in the personality of psychopaths causes the following symptoms in their personality.

1. Superficial attraction of personality

2. Pride and arrogance

3. Bored quickly in the absence of fun

4. Over-lying

5. Tricky and clever

6. Feeling shame and lack of guilt

7. The surface pin of happiness and sorrow

8. We lack empathy and empathy

9 Living with others

10. Get out of touch soon

11. Disobedience from an early age

12. Living a life of irresponsibility

13 Not accepting the consequences of your actions

Since psychopaths are conscientious, they neither respect religion nor the law, but because they are very intelligent, they avoid law and order by their cleverness and deceit. Their personality is so attractive that many people cannot say “no” to them and they continue to exploit their personality. Psychopaths continue to fight for their ends in legitimate and unlawful ways.

In countries in the world where psychology education is becoming more and more common, more and more people are starting to identify such individuals so that they do not fall into their trap. Not only do these people create psychological and social problems for themselves, but they also worry about their families and societies.

Psychologists hope that as psychology education becomes commonplace, the misery of such people will be exposed, and people will be able to avoid such people.

If we look at global politics, we have to understand how many global religious, socioeconomic, and political leaders are women who are psychopaths and are a threat to world peace. It doesn’t make sense for them to exploit the poorer countries and kill countless innocent lives to satisfy their ego. Such people are conscientious and do not respect any religious ‘legal or moral tradition’. Such people are a threat to the future of peace and humanity.

Shoukat Lohar

Assistant professor in English at Mehran University of engineering and technology Jamshoro.

03023368590

The Education System of Pakistan: Research Based Analysis.

Introduction

The economics of education in Pakistan has had its fair share of golden days, but they have been over for too long. During the 1950s and 1960s, our ministry of education had economists thick on the ground across our major capital cities. Research by Blaug in 1979 noted that all the economic indicators then pointed to rapid expansion and development of educational systems at all levels between 1950s and 1960s. The streets of Karachi and Lahore during those days can be looked back with nostalgia but are now filled with unemployed university graduates. The concept of “quality education” in our country is now but a myth for most, but a privilege that only the elite can enjoy. There exists a deep dissatisfaction within our education system with the quality of education that it provides, the curriculum it embeds, the examination system it upholds and the standards of teacher training it enforces.

Faizan Makhdoom

Education: Masters of Teaching, Victoria University, Melbourne Current Occupation: Secondary School Instructional Leader at Minaret College Melbourne, Australia

Regardless of sweeping promises made by past governments in a bid to improve our country’s education system (Khalid & Khan, 2006), it has been 60 years now whilst Pakistan’s education system has been consistently dilapidating (Ali, Hakim, & Abdullah, 2017). Instead, our education has further induced with corruption, lacks a quality curriculum that can allow our graduates to compete internationally and lacks qualified teachers with skilled training (Iqbal, 2010; Malik & Hassan, 2015). However, it is important to note that the lack of resources for a third world country such as ours does not justify our deteriorating education system. As a matter of fact, foreign aid makes up 76% of the educational expenditure by the government, and yet Pakistan is ranked amongst the worst 15 countries with regards to their quality of education (Ali et al., 2017; Cohen, 2004). It would make more sense to use the money for the purpose of improving school facilities and infrastructure of existing schools or for improving the national curriculum and programs to train our teachers. However, instead the funds are rather exhausted to finance new projects and institutions which would, of course, require setting up of new committees and bureaucrats needing to be paid to administer these schemes that never succeed to fulfil the purpose they are intended for. This has further explained the clear difference between the spending that is intended against the actual spending on the education sector by another study by Ahsan (2005) and Ali et al (2017).

Causes

It is only rational to say that we were not dealt with an unfortunate hand since the inception of our country in 1947. We had multiple opportunities to grow and prosper in every aspect of our economy. There can be a number of causes that have led to the demise of our educational system.

Literacy rates and Poverty

Every year, the literacy rate of Pakistan is rising at a slow rate of 1% per year. This has further created a vicious cycle resulting from comparatively higher illiteracy among women. This also holds account to the fact that there are fewer educated girls in our country, fewer teachers that are females and lack of coeducational institutes, which evidently lead to a higher-female literacy according to another study by Rabia, Rab, & Shahzadi in 2016. Parent’s education is also known to be a factor where it shows that illiterate parents are less likely to encourage their children to gain education (Ahmad et al., 2014; Sawada & Lokshin, 1999). Many children are also trapped in illiteracy and poverty in cases where their respective head of the household is illiterate, which keeps them our of school, joining the masses of youth that are uneducated and unemployed, further increasing poverty and crime as a result. Well-known research by Richter in 2018, used a system dynamics model to highlight the relationship between these factors. She pointed from the context of Pakistan that if the head of a particular household or more females within were literate, there would be a higher possibility that the children of the same house would be educated, leading to decreasing poverty and increasing female literacy.

Dropout rates

Pakistan has a dropout rate of 50% where the students have left school before reaching grade 5. Poor school facilities, quality of teachers, and the national curriculum have been strong reasons for the schools’ inability to retain their students (Zarif, Haider, Ahmed, & Bano, 2014). There has been a strong consistent pattern where it is found that the textbooks are full of ideological and religious rhetoric and their exams are more based on the ability of the students to memorize and repeat instead of testing their logical and conceptual skills (Ahmad et al., 2014; Barber, 2010; Khalid & Khan, 2006). According to Richter’s (2018) research there is a similar loop seen where if the overall literacy rates are improved, it would help develop a quality curriculum standard to be taught, resulting with lower students dropping out.

Cultural barriers to education

Pakistan is also behind other countries in gender equality and the excess it provides to education. Given that our country’s economy heavily relies on agricultural sector drive by small family businesses, it enforces that a child going to school will not be able to work the land. This becomes detrimental for the family’s ability to survive amid no welfare support provided by the government (Ahmad et al., 2013; Sathar & Lloyd, 1994)

Government Instability & Corruption

A transient government has impacted Pakistan dramatically specially in the decade from 1988, to the time when we had a return of military rule in 1999, with consistent changes in elected governments and administrations. These governments were more focused on maintaining their precarious positions instead of investing towards social development of the country. According to the United Nations Development Program, Pakistan only spends 2.5% of the GDP on education as compared to military spending at over 34% of the GDP, which mainly focuses on the upkeep of the army (Stengos & Aurangzeb, 2008). This lack of priority towards educational development in Pakistan only instigates a venomous cycle of deprivation to the country’s economy and further exacerbates the instability of the government. Furthermore, given that our country ranks 127^th out of 170 by the international organization for transparency in their Corruption Perception Index in 2013, this further deteriorates the confidence that foreign investors would have for Pakistan, resulting in lower revenue, lower wages offered to civil servants, and thus leading to a vicious cycle of corruption in the chain.

So where can we go from here?

With all the research that has been published place so far, it is only discernible to say that our country’s educational system is extremely unstable, unreliable, and unacceptable. No aspect of our education system deserves any applause. More importantly, the significantly increasing youth unemployment that contributes to the popularity of fundamentalist Islamic ideas within our country goes against the image that Pakistan itself is trying to showcase internationally as well (Soomro & Tanveer, 2017; Stengos & Aurangzeb, 2008).

To succeed, Pakistan will need to shift the way our government thinks, its beliefs, and its policies so that the importance of education is not only publicized but also reflected on state and federal policies. We need to spend on upskilling our teachers and upgrading our national curriculum by working with other countries. This could start by encouraging teacher exchanges and collaboration with international education experts to analyse our national curriculum and provide recommendations for its reformation to international standards. This would allow us to have our qualifications recognized globally with potential of having teachers from neighbouring countries such as India to teach here as well. However, these proposed solutions would first require a reigning into the rampant corruption by holding into account the utilisation of foreign funds received for Pakistan’s education sector. This has allowed our corrupt government officials and bureaucrats to siphon off most of the funds received through aid before they are utilised for the intended purpose of educational development. Therefore, there needs to be more control, supervision, inspection, and audit on how these funds are spent by establishing and independent committee including Pakistani officials and external representatives. This would allow us to make sure the funds are use appropriately and can in the future avoid us from lying on them heavily once we have a sustainable educational sector in place.

REFERENCES

Ahmad, I., Rauf, M., Rashid, A., Rehman, S., & Salam, M. (2013). Analysis of the problems of primary education system in Pakistan: Critical review of literature. Academic Research International, 4(2), 324.

Ahmed (2014) Pakistan’s Ranking In Corruption Index Improves’. DAWN2014

Ahsan, M. (2005). Politicization of bilateral aid and educational development in Pakistan. Educational Studies, 31(3), 235–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055690500237538

Ali, A., Hakim, R. A., & Abdullah, H. (2017). Relationship between Government spending on education and economic growth of Pakistan. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 5(2).

Barber SM (2010) Education reform in Pakistan: This time it’s going to be different. Pakistan Education Task Force

Blaug, M. (1979). Economics of education in developing countries: Current trends and new priorities. Third World Quarterly, 1(1), 73-83.

Cohen SP (2004) The idea of Pakistan. Brookings Institution Press

Iqbal HM (2010) Education in Pakistan: Developmental milestones.

Khalid, S. M., & Khan, M. F. (2006). Pakistan: The state of education. The Muslim World, 96(2), 305–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478‐1913.2006.00130.x

Malik, M. A., & Hassan, R. (2015). An analysis of parallel education systems in Pakistan, and the challenges they pose in education research. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 2(10). https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.210.1562

Rabia M, Rab M, Shahzadi M (2016) Female education in Pakistan. The Impact of socioeconomic factors. Anchor academic publishing

Richter, S. (2019). A system dynamics study of Pakistan’s education system: Consequences for governance. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 85(1), e12065.

Sathar, Z. A., & Lloyd, C. B. (1994). Who gets primary schooling in Pakistan: Inequalities among and within families. The Pakistan Development Review, 33, 103–134. https://doi.org/10.30541/v33i2pp.103‐134

Sawada Y, Lokshin M (1999) Household schooling decisions in rural Pakistan. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (2541)

Soomro, M. H., & Tanveer, S. H. (2017). Ethics and education in Pakistan: Principles, policies and practice. In Children and sustainable development (pp. 385–396). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978‐3‐319‐47130‐3_29

Stengos, T., & Aurangzeb, A. (2008). An empirical investigation of the relationship between education and growth in Pakistan. International Economic Journal, 22(3), 345–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/10168730802294677

Zarif, T., Haider, K., Ahmed, A., & Bano, F. (2014a). Probing reasons of high student dropout rate in grade 5‐6 at public schools of District Thatta, Sindh‐Pakistan. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 3, 1.

Zarif, T., Haider, K., Ahmed, A., & Bano, F. (2014b). Probing reasons of high student dropout rate in grade 5‐6 at public schools of district Thatta, Sindh‐Pakistan. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 3(1), 158–169.

Understanding the Philosophical Concept of Bildung

Hans Gadamer was not desirous to study humanity as it is, neither was he interested to apply on it empirical methods which have adapted from the physical sciences. It was his great desire to discover what humanity could be. For Gadamer, Bildung is the properly human way of developing one’s natural talents and capacities. The term has some fragrance and flavor of the late 18^th and 19^th centuries. This had played a pivotal and significant role through German-speaking Europe. We also see that within the Bildung is the root word Bild, form, image and more peculiarly picture.

Naveed H. Sandeelo

The very concept of Bildung quite vividly points towards the profound intellectual change which happened in the German poet and writer Goethe’s century which seems contemporary to us as compare to baroque era which appears to us too remote. The concepts we are well acquainted and which are being used in the creative arts and intellectual world such as art, history, experience, the creative, symbol, style, external world, expression contain treasure of history. The role of Bildung is essential in human sciences. According to Gadamer our preceding investigation renders us the historical background of the word. It originated in medieval mysticism, it continued in baroque’s mysticism, and it got its religious spirituality in Klopstock’s Messiah, where it influenced over the whole period. Herder gives its basic definition as rising up of humanity through culture. In the 19^th century, we find the cult Bildung preserved the profound dimension. Now this word has adapted its new structure which is intimately associated with the idea of culture and shapes essentially the peculiarly human way of elevating one’s natural capacities and talents. Thus we can say without any hesitation that Bildung cultivates person’s innate capabilities in proper way and moving progressively towards universal consciousness. We see in Kant that he did not use the word Bildung regarding this sense. And he spoke of cultivating a capacity or natural talent. But contrary to Kant, this was used by Hegel where he made use of the idea of duties to oneself and already spoke of educating and cultivating oneself and Bildung. Except Hegel, another thinker is Wilhelm Von Humbolt who already differentiated between Kulture and Bildung. In this connection he said that when we say Bildung in our language, we intent to say something higher and profoundly inward.

While looking profoundly at the very concept of Hans Gadamer’s Bildung, we find that he does not use Bildung in the sense of culture which means to develop only one’s talents and capacities. Instead of this he used Bildung in the sense of ancient mystical tradition in which man seems to carry in his soul the image of God, after whom he is fashioned, and which man must cultivate in himself. In the Latin language the word formatio is equivalent for Bildung, thus we have some other words such as form and formation. Bildung like prevalent use of German word formation further explains the concept of the becoming process rather than the process itself. What actually result comes of Bildung, its transition is clear and here manner of technical construction is not used. It develops an inner process of cultivation and formation and thus it permanently remain in a condition of continual Bildung. Therefore, in this connection, we may say further Bildung is not something like a technique to be learned or mastered, nor does it is striving towards any king of goal; it is a continual way of being in the world. It has no end other than itself. It is not happen accidently but in this regard this word of Bildung seems to equate with the Greek word physis. As nature has no goal outside itself, Bildung’s nature is same like that nature. It must be noted clearly that Bildung cannot be called a goal, as mentioned above, neither it be sought in any sense. As we already know well that it has no goals outside itself, its (Bildung’s) concept transcends the simple cultivation or formation of given talents, the root cause of development of its concept. As we see the means of cultivation of talent is not apart from the something given, therefore practicing and cultivating are considered just means to an end. Our observation tells us that apparently everything which is gained is absorbed but in Bildung this is not observed neither that lose its function nor through which one is formed and fully becomes one’s own. Thus in acquainted Bildung not anything disappears but everything can be found preserved. In this sense we strongly accept and reach to this point that Bildung is a genuine and real historical idea. Due to this historical character it is essential to consider its significance for understanding in the human sciences.

While looking at the linguistic history of Bildung we find that the word makes us acquaintance with the circle of historical ideas. These were first introduced to us by German philosopher Frederick Hegel in the domain of first philosophy. In real sense he worked out astutely what Bildung is. In this way he saw that philosophy, we may include, the human sciences, Geisteswissenschaften has the condition of its existence in Bildung. Geist or spirit has significant linkage with the very idea of Bildung. The rational and intellectual side of man’s nature requires him to break with what is immediate and the natural. He is characterized for this action to restrain oneself with the immediate. This is the demand of Bildung to overcome one’s desires or pleasures. One only can be able to cultivate universal awareness when he will gain freedom from the object of desire. Man is what he develops within himself this is rational demand and the intellectual requirement. By nature, in this sphere he is not that what he must be, for this he is needed Bildung. Hegel believed that Bildung’s formal nature depended on its university. In the concept of rising to the universal, as Hegel believes, one is not merely limited to the theoretical Bildung. This should not also be taken opposite to a practical. It covers the essential character of human rationality as a whole. One has to contribute something in his life in the way of practice. Being a universal intellectual being it is human Bildung’s universal nature to constitute itself. One should over come to his particularity and should not abandon to it. If he does so he is not constituted. For Hegel such type of person is deprived in the strength of distraction. He is confined enough within himself and do not seek to turn his gaze towards universal. Then what is real task of someone? For elevating towards the universal, Bildung is a task for him. For the sake of the universal Bildung requires particularity must be sacrificed. But peculiarly sacrificing means one has to struggle for controlling one’s desire and get salvation from its object and make completely free from its objectivity. We find this in Hegel’s unique philosophical work “Phenomenology of spirit” where he worked out scholarly the genesis of a really a free self-consciousness “in-and-for-itself” here he also shows us the work’s essence is to form the thing instead of consume it. As an independent consciousness working consciousness again finds itself. The activity is restrained desire. Being selflessly active and related with a universal working consciousness elevates and invigorates itself above the immediacy of its existence towards universality. In Hegelian concept by forming thing it also forms itself. This process is mostly seen in the case of original poets and genuine philosophers. They struggle, for forming their being, to incorporate the ingredients of their soul and perchance the all the veils of prevailing knowledge. While acquiring a capacity and skill he gains the sense of himself. Someone become capable to fully recognize the meaning of his existence. Hence all the elements are seen, which are required for making up practical Bildung, contained in the self-awareness of working consciousness. The practical Bildung demands us to remain aloof from the immediate world of desires and pleasures, personal interests and personal needs and demands us for rising towards universality. This is the gist of Bildung here. In the explanation of practical Bildung by Hegel we can recognize the historical spirit’s basic character which means to reunite to perceive oneself in another being. Now question arises what is the essential function of theoretical Bildung? The answer is that it actually exceeds foremost man’s immediate experiences and knowledge. Thus individual person who upraise himself from his natural being to the domain of spirituality he finds in custom, language and institutions of his natives among which he learns to speak, makes his own self. Now I turn to another distinguished thinker Helmholtz who is also important and interesting in this regard. When he gives his description regarding the work of human sciences and what he calls artistic feeling and tact, actually he presupposes the element of Bildung, where the human mind has an unbound movability. Helmholtz speaks about the readiness and connects the flow of most variegate of experience into the memory of the philologist and historian. The concept of memory using by him is not enough for explaining here. In this regard we cannot rightly understand the nature of memory if it is just taken as simply a common capacity or talent. The very nature of forgetting and recalling are connected with the historical contribution of man and these are part and parcel of his Bildung and history. For example, one can keep something in memory and cannot keep other, one desires to keep one thing in the memory and delete another. We can say that is also nearly related to remembering and keeping in mind. As Frederick Nietzsche indicated and called it a condition of the mind. Through the process of forgetting mind can be able to fully refresh it and can develop a capability to look everything in the world with new eyes.

Helmholtz speaks about the tact, actually it is not merely exactly alike the phenomenon of manners and customs. The role of the tact in the human sciences is merely unconsciousness and a feeling but it is way of cognizance and of being. What Helmholtz calls tact actually includes Bildung and is a function of both aesthetic and historical Bildung. If any person becomes capable to depend on one’s tact in work regarding human sciences one must first have a sense for the historical and the aesthetics. A person of an aesthetic sense is able to differentiate what is ugly and beautiful, lower and higher quality. A person who has developed within himself historical sense is aware enough what is possible for an age, what is not. We can see the otherness of the past with respect to the present. What makes the human sciences into sciences can be understood are easily from the tradition of concept of Bildung rather than from the modern idea of scientific method. The modern concept of science is insufficient for this humanistic study. Thus we see in fact the human sciences of 19^th century drew their own life from the survival of the humanistic idea of Bildung. We must turn to the humanistic tradition which resists to the modern science’s claims and gains its new importance and significance in the contemporary world. We can say its importance is also more than mathematics.

Conclusion

After whole intellectual debate of Hans Gadamer about the concept of Bildung and its essential importance in human life, becoming conceptual rich, we reach this conclusion that:

The human sciences into sciences can be understood more easily from the tradition of the concept of Bildung rather than from the modern of scientific method.
We became clear about the guiding concepts of Bildung in the culture’s sense; including the concept of self-formation, education and cultivation.
We learned a lot from Hegel’s ideas about the universal nature of human Bildung, also the concept of difference between theoretical and practical Bildung. In Wilhelm von Humboldt we were introduced the new aspects of tact, memory, aesthetic and historical Bildung.
In Herder we saw human cultivation where we learned this concept that more than any person he transcended the perfectionism of the enlightenment with his new ideal of cultivating the human (Bildung zum Menschen). Thus he prepared the basis for the growth of historical sciences in the 19^th

Bibliography

Gadamer, H.-G. (2008). Philosophical Hermeneutics. London: University of California Press.

Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and Method. London: Continuum.

Grondin, J. (1994). Introduction to philosophical Hermeneutics. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Freirean praxis embodied in the complex and controversial notion of Conscientization

Prior to addressing this serious issue, I’d like to provide a brief overview of Paulo Freire’s philosophical evolution in Liberation Pedagogy. As a part of a literary movement in Brazil, Paulo Preire (1921-1997) created his liberation pedagogy concept while working with underprivileged, illiterate peasants and urban poor in his home country. Reading and writing were not enough for Freire; he wanted people to become aware of the circumstances of their existence, particularly those that exploited them and disenfranchised them, via literature.

Naveed. H. Sandeelo

As Freire explained in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Liberation Pedagogy is an educational philosophy aimed at empowering individuals to fight and overcome oppression. “Conscientizacao” (conscientization, critical awareness) is a key aim of Freire’s philosophy. Post-Marxist critical theory was the foundation of Brazilian pedagogue, educator theorist and social activist Freire’s popular education and social idea. In his 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he popularized the term. At a time when literacy was required for voting and dictators controlled several South American nations, Freire was teaching the impoverished and uneducated sections of Brazilian society to read. The term originally comes from Frantz Fanon’s 1952 book Black Skins, White Masks, which coined the French term conscienciser. Students must study their own life experiences and the collective history of their racial, ethnic, linguistic, economic, and social groups in conversation with their instructors in order to increase their awareness. A deliberate examination of the objective circumstances in which they live is required, as well as the identification of conditions and people that restrict their ability to define themselves. Freire asserted that the school curriculum and teaching could either indoctrinate students into conforming to an official version of knowledge or push them to build a critical consciousness that enables them to participate in self-liberation. False consciousness is created, for example, by an official history that praises the accomplishments of white Euro-American males and diminishes the contributions of women, African-Americans, Latinos(Hispanics), and other minorities educating a person’s value in terms of money and power and seeing learning as a ticket to succeed in an exploitative economic system cannot be genuinely humanizing.

They must not be neutral or uncommitted in their social, political, and economic views, according to Freire’s teachings. To the contrary, he wants teachers to acquire a critical awareness of the actual power dynamics in schools and the circumstances that impact their pupils; instructors need to be aware that their students’ lives are plagued and blighted by poverty, inadequate access to health care and recreational services as well as drug addiction and gang violence. For example, Teachers who are aware of the harsh realities of their school environments are better able to fight oppressive circumstances and empower their pupils. Real learning, according to Feire, occurs when instructors and students participate in an open and ongoing dialogue. The author takes aim at pupils’ erroneous views of reality as a result of incorrect teaching. He attacks instructors that lead to false, rather than critical consciousness in their perceptions of truth. To give you an example, consider “teacher talk.” It is implied by teacher talk that instructors can transfer information to pupils by telling them what is true: Students passively remember what the instructor says. It’s a kind of educational “banking” where each piece of knowledge is deposited to be paid out later, typically for examination, according to Freire.

Then, we find in Freire’s work that, from day one, the idea of an all-mechanical literacy program was ruled out. When it came to teaching adults to read, he compared it to the issue of waking their awareness. While teaching reading he wanted to create a project in which he would try to go from naiveté to a critical approach. As an introduction to the democratization of culture, this literacy program would be designed with men as its Subjects rather than patient recipients, and it would be an act of creation that could inspire other creative acts, encouraging students to develop the impatience and vivacity that characterizes search and invention in their lives. Man’s duty is not just to exist in the universe, he believed. Through acts of invention and recreation, man creates cultural reality and enriches the world he did not create. Man’s relationship to reality, represented as Subject to an Object, he believed, led to knowledge, which man might communicate via language.

No matter if they are literate or not, guys engage in this relationship. Personhood alone is adequate to comprehend reality’s facts and know anything even if it’s only an opinion. There is no such thing as absolute ignorance or absolute wisdom, and neither is there any absolute knowledge. Human beings however, do not comprehend these facts in their purest state. As they get an understanding of a phenomena or a problem, they also gain an understanding of its causes. In other words, the more folks comprehend genuine causation, the more critical their knowledge of reality becomes. According to Freire, critical consciousness refers to “objects and facts” as they exist empirically, in their causal and contextual relationships….. Naïve consciousness considers itself superior to facts, in charge of the facts and therefore free to interpret them as it pleases. This is not the case. In contrast, critical consciousness integrates with reality, whereas naive consciousness superimposes itself on reality, and fanatical consciousness adapts to reality because of its pathologically blindness. The reflective, critical nature of Freirean praxis is completely represented in the complicated and contentious concept of his conscientization, we may conclude.

Freire’s new pedagogical model was introduced to us, but we also learned a lot from his conversation, which presented us with a completely different approach while defining its educational philosophy in fresh aspects. Freire is regarded as a true educational reformer and pioneer by current critical theorists, as well. When teaching and learning became more than a means of transferring knowledge, it became an opportunity to complete one’s own identity and purpose within a world that needs to be more fair, compassionate and just.

Forced Conversions & Early Age Marriages

The minorities in Pakistan have always been treated equally and provided freedom of speech. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, equated in 1973, places great emphasis on the Rights of Minorities. Article 36 – states, ‘The State shall safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of minorities, including their due representation in the Federal and Provincial service.’ Separate reserved seats are allocated to minorities in provincial and national assemblies, and in order to accommodate their representation in the Public Service Commission Examinations, a separate quota framework is implemented. Besides the civil and political representation, Pakistan’s ideology and its national flag also reflect an equitable share and importance of minorities in the composition of the nation, which will mark 74 years of its existence on August 14, 2021. The founder of Pakistan, Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah also made it clear that the state will have no concern with the religion of the citizens of Pakistan. The minorities in Pakistan mainly encompass Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs. History also proves the fact that the most dominating ethnicity is of Hindus.

Rahul Bansari

Graduate from Prestigious University of London(LLB)
Working in a Top-notch Notch Law firm dealing in Contractual and Civil Matters. Also worked in International Organisations to Assisting them with Policymaking.

People belonging to one of the oldest civilizations are argued to be the most loyal individuals of our society, and the past has shreds of evidence to accompany the claim. At the time of partition in 1947, innumerable Hindu families remained in Sindh and Balochistan for their unquestionable endearment for the country. Pakistan is home to the world’s fourth-largest Hindu population. Hinduism, followed by 4% of a population of 200 million, constitutes the second largest religion in Pakistan after Islam. Unfortunately, Till the late ’90s, there were no proper laws available to safeguard the rights of minorities and the need was felt when several incidents related to forced marriages, child marriages, and forced conversion took place, which led to insecurity amongst the community. According to the Patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, “It is the responsibility of the state to provide all sorts of protection to the country’s minority groups including Hindus from all sorts of atrocities meted out to them, and ensuring they enjoy the same rights as any other person in the country.”

Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching. No-one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.” According to the estimates provided by The Aurat Foundation and the Movement for Solidarity and Peace (MSP), over 1000 women and girls from religious minorities are abducted, forcibly converted, and then married off to their abductors every year. Former vice-chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Amarnath Motal, notes that 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted every month in Pakistan. Moreover, the volunteer group, responsible for equality and liberty, also estimates that between 20 to 25 Hindu girls are forcibly converted every month.

Pakistan has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, of which Article 16 confirms the right of every woman to enter into marriage ‘only with their free and full consent.’ Pakistan has ratified the Child Rights Convention, of which Article 14 (1) states, “State parties need to respect the right of children to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.”

It has been produced in the report provided by the University of Birmingham, which goes on to state that several members of Parliament (MPs) have worked within Pakistan to support action on forced conversion legislations. Raja Zafarul Haq (PML-N), Leader of the Senate, stated in November 2016, that there were no problems in the Sindh Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill passed by the Sindh Assembly, and the bill was greatly needed. The issued bill is said to be alongwith the teachings of Islam which is against the compelusion to convert anyone. Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke out against forcibly converting non-Muslims by force on October 22, 2017. Babar Nawaz Khan, chairman of the Standing Committee on Human Rights, supported Mr. Lal Chand is his attempts to get the National Assembly to adopt the Protection of Minorities Act, 2016. Similarly, Hina Pervaiz Butt has recently proposed an identical law before the Punjab Assembly. Further, Azra Fazal Pechucho, sister of former President Asif Ali Zardari, raised the issue in the National Assembly, calling for legislation to tackle the abduction and forced conversions of Hindus. Another important Pakistani politician who engaged in the matter would be Sherry Rehman, a well-known personality for her human rights work has shown a commitment to liberal values and women empowerment. She founded and headed the think tank Jinnah Institute, which promotes progressivism.

In addition to the support provided by several MPs and the Constitution of Pakistan, the need was still felt to propose legislation to cater to the problems faced by the minorities. The attempts were made to enact the Child Marriage Restraint Act, Sindh Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill, and Hindus Marriage Act, but both the bills failed to resolve issues because of undue political pressure and domination. The Hindus Marriage Act was brought to life; a landmark piece of legislation which mainly covers the matters related to Hindu marriages that seem to have produced some positive results. Prior to this Act, there was no proper registration for marriages, which led to injustices with women. Therefore, due to the lack of marriage evidence, they could not get legal status in the property and were also forced to marry within Hindus with age less than 18. However, on a broader aspect, this landmark legislation did not restrict the marriages happening with a non-Hindu. All in all, it did not provide any solution to forced conversions or early child marriages.

Moreover, the Child Marriage Restraint Act enacted in 2013, published in the official gazette in June 2014, enhanced the prohibitory age of a female to 18 years from the existing 16 years. Also, it increased the punishment for contracting a child marriage to a maximum of three years of rigorous imprisonment along with fine. The given law has made the offense, cognizable, non-compoundable, and non-bailable; and it is also noteworthy that the featured piece of legislation was not specified to any religion and applied to all citizens living in Pakistan. Children’s rights were one subject that the prior law caters to. While some religion law undermines the Child Marriage Restraint Act. Though according to Sherry Rehman, several Muslim countries, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Oman, and even UAE, have declared 18 an age to marry. UNICEF reported that early child marriages violate Article 2 of the UNHCR code of conduct, and it affects both girls and boys, but it affects girls disproportionately, especially in South Asia.

Furthermore, the prominent piece of legislation which was solely drafted to address the problems of forced conversions – was Sindh Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities), Bill. The bill was unanimously passed by Sindh Assembly in November 2016. HRCP and Hindu American Foundation argued that this law was well designed and tackled many of the issues related to forced marriages as it attempts to mandate specific instruments of implementation as well as laying legal guidelines. Unfortunately, this bill never reached its conclusions and remains a mystery.

Sino-US Rivalry: Pakistan’s predicament-1

The Foreign policy options for Pakistan in the coming decade need to be viewed within the perspective of the intensifying Sino-US competition and confrontation. The US-led Western states, after humiliation in Afghanistan, have already launched an insidious campaign to hold Pakistan responsible for the swift advances of the Taliban. This is a dangerous narrative and could cost the country heavily. The venomous propaganda systematically carried out by the adversarial forces owes a great deal to Pakistan’s partnership with China in the BRI than the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

Muhammad Alam Brohi

Born 1952. Was member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan for over 30 years. Retired after serving as Ambassador for 7 years.

The Sino-US contestation would be intense spawning confrontation and probably conflict. The Foreign policy options for small states of greater Asia would shrink in the coming decades. The chessboard of realignment, neutrality and appeasement by states commensurate with their national interests was laid by the President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy which was given an impetus by China’s dizzying economic development, the strident expansion of trade and investment in many continents after joining the WTO and, within two decades, its emergence as the second largest economy of the world, even surpassing the US in purchasing power parity. Pakistan being the host of the flagship project of BRI figures prominently in the game.

The Obama administration signed Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreements with Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and recognized India as “Major Defence Partner” in June 2015. This entitled India for strategic as well as technological handshake with the USA in the region and elsewhere. For the first time since the Second World War, Japan was allowed to enhance its military capability for self defence. President Obama visited Vietnam in that year and allowed it defence imports of over $6billion. He also hosted the ASEAN Summit in February 2016.

The USA goaded major countries of the region to join hands together in close defence cooperation to strengthen their military capabilities. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have since been cooperating with each other within over $1.5billion USA sponsored “Asia Maritime Security Initiative”. While conducting missile attack warning exercises with Japan, South Korea separately, the US has held a series of naval exercises with quad states. These are all China-specific strategic realignments.

The then Secretary of Defence, Ash Carter hosted 10 ASEAN Defence Ministers in September 2016 assuring them that the US would play equally important roles from sea, air and underwater with its robust military presence more geographically distributed, operationally resilient and politically sustainable. He disclosed the US had committed 60% of its home porting naval and overseas air assets to the region including F-22 and F-35 Stealth Jets, marine patrol aircrafts, submarines, undersea drones and long range bombers. Through the Rim of Pacific (RIMPAC) Initiative launched in 2016, the USA has since been conducting multilateral military exercises. The last military exercise in the region had brought together as many as 26 countries. Now, the NATO warships have been moved close to South China Sea.

The trade dispute that was used by President Donald Trump as the main weapon of his anti-China armoury has been lingering on with no apparent urgency on US side to address it. The Biden’s Democratic administration would concentrate on exploiting the weaknesses of China with regard to Taiwan and South China Sea Islands and alleged human rights violations in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. The US would, in all probability, fuel insurgency of East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang and create stalemate in the conflict in Afghanistan to undermine BRI and CPEC particularly after its initiative of B3W enunciated in the recent G7 Summit failed to gain traction.

All these economic, diplomatic and military rebalances in the South East Asia and Asia Pacific reaffirm one obvious fact that the coming decades would witness an intense rivalry between China and the USA in the greater Asia. The USA perception about China’s threat to its world domination would compel the American leaders to intensify and further speed up their China-specific political and strategic moves. These competitions and confrontation would be the dominant themes of international affairs in the decades to come, posing great challenges to the current USA-dominated international order, and developing nations dependent on foreign economic assistance.

The Western world perceives international order to be under threat from the economic and strategic strength and influence of China; the turmoil in the Middle East and the aggressive posturing of Russia in Europe. Particularly, the undeclared alliance between China and Russia to give effect to multi-polarity in the global power politics has further exacerbated the US concerns for world leadership. This alliance has been marked by cordial cooperation between the two major powers within the SCO, and understanding each other’s stances in the Middle East and Afghanistan. While China is careful in overstepping on the Russian political and strategic interests in Central Asia, it has been steadily augmenting its economic clout in the region.

Given its policy of restraint in international affairs with a view to strengthening the economic gains that it has acquired over the past three decades, China will continue to avoid any military conflict with the US unless rendered inevitable by its uncompromising stance on Taiwan and South China Sea Islands. China will rather like overcoming the wide military and technological gap with the USA within the coming decades. The Chinese leaders are well conscious that their country is an emerging power while the US has started decaying. The time is on their side.

The likelihood of strategic confrontation between the US as the dominant power and China as the rising state with the potential power to displace the former in Southeast Asia and Pacific, if not in the world, in the coming decades is too strong to be ignored in the fast changing geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic dynamics in the world particularly when both the powers have already embarked on strategic moves to countervail each other in almost all the regions. The South Asian region being in close proximity of the South West and Central Asia will be one of the significant battle fields for the colliding powers.

(To be concluded)

Why are Women Vulnerable?

“The world has enough women who lived a masked insecurity. It needs more women who live a brave vulnerability“

Ann Voskamp.

When women progress, all society benefits and any society that suppresses women has no future. But their life, health, and well-being remain at risk in the world. After the succession of different waves of feminism in European countries in the late 19th century, many countries claim that they have given women rights to their female citizens. However, in reality, these rights were only prescribed in written form. These notions of feminism, empowerment, gender equality made women more prone to violence and abuse at the hands of their counterparts. Let’s compare ancient times with the modern world. We realize that women’s sufferings, abuse, and exploitations are still the same as in the Chinese or Greek era. They have just evolved into a more innovative manner. The literal meaning of vulnerability is a condition or state of lacking strength. A woman’s vulnerability becomes all greater when it comes to facing societal discrimination, where she is considered a symbol of weakness. To be vulnerable is to be brave but showing weakness is another form of trapping the enemy in his complacency. Many women have been taking these risks to rule the world.

Nadira Dayo

Nadira.dayo@bnbwu.edu.pk
Lecturer (Education) The Begum Nusrat Bhutto Women University Sukkur, 65170, Sindh, Pakistan

Ms. Nadira Dayo is currently working as a Lecturer at The Begum Nusrat Bhutto Women University, Sukkur. She has completed her MPhil (Education) degree from Sukkur IBA University. Her major research areas are teacher education, educational leadership, and mathematics and science education. She has more than five years of experience of facilitating teachers and students from various social and cultural backgrounds. With constructive and effective teaching methods, strong leadership, research, and communication skills, she has stimulated a conducive learning environment for students, managed schools, conducted training, presented research papers, and completed a large-scale assessment project.

When you say vulnerable women, you mean those whose parents were unhappy with their births, especially their fathers. In Pakistan, the male gender is preferred over the female. Through the early stages of life, she grows in a vulnerable environment. The person who is supposed to be the first male love of your life turns to be the person these vulnerable women search everywhere. No one can envision the pain of a girl who has to beg her father for acceptance and a relationship. Does ignoring a girl will not cause hurt? When they grow up, such girls become psychologically morbid and are more prone to depression, have self-esteem issues, and struggle to build and maintain relationships. Most importantly, they start looking for love in another person, which ultimately puts them in dangerous situations. Being vulnerable after going through such a situation should not be surprising.

As of 2019, the female literacy rate in Pakistan was 49%. The possible reasons for this low female literacy rate are lack of support by family members, early marriages, and the fear of females being aware of their rights and refusing to obey the authorities. The illiterate women become vulnerable in the men-centric society. However, education empowers women by learning to overcome challenges, alter their traditional roles, change lives, and respond intelligently to new situations. How cannot we expect a woman to become vulnerable who experience disadvantages and is provided limited or no education?

In Pakistani society, girls are considered an economic burden because if parents spend on them, then unlike sons, they will benefit another family. Hence, giving daughters dowry is the only concern that parents have when girls are born. Due to the lack of education of females, they are not given their entitled rights like the right to divorce, right to work, and so on; even if a woman gets a chance to work, she has to face gender discrimination in form of biased pay scales. Most of the women spent their whole life behind closed doors as a slave or unpaid servant. They also do not progress and feel inferior because of being undermined and fed by another person. Consequently, the dependency of uneducated women on another man makes them vulnerable.

The health needs of the women are inadequately addressed. Compared to the life expectancy rate of men being 55, the women’s is 54 years because of poor nutrition, maternity, and more work. Above all, unmarried girls are restricted from accessing health care. How many women can talk about the health issues, mainly reproductive and sexual, before marriage? Probably very few because it is a stigma to discuss such problems before marriage. Because of this, many women do not have access to health facilities; resultantly, they develop the disease, which becomes incurable when diagnosed late. Being vulnerable because of lack of access to health facilities is justified.

The other prominent causes which make women vulnerable are gender violence and harassment. When the dignity of any woman is violated, then how can she feel secure? Being chased, gazed and catcalled makes women think they are being objectified and considered a piece of meat only. No woman is deserved to be nervous and frightened when she is draped to go out and pass by men on the way. Therefore, like men, women have the right to be treated with respect and dignity when going out.

Cases of harassment at workstations, schools, colleges, and universities are increasing in Pakistan. The educational institutions where gender equality should prevail have discrimination against women. The verge of moral collapse is that not only students-students but teacher-students and teacher-teacher are also involved in the same. Harassment by educators or in educational institutions is particularly devastating because of the nature of the student-teacher relationship and the trust society gives educators. If not vulnerable, what else should women feel in such an environment?

There is a significant gender divide when it comes to forgiveness. Men are always forgiven when they make mistakes, but women are taught to practice perfectionism and don’t commit mistakes. In the relationship context, it is always expected from a woman to forgive the infidelity and addiction of her partner. But, if any woman asks for separation because of her partner’s unforgivable mistakes, she is regarded as a “bad woman” because few errors can be forgiven but can never be forgotten. We keep the “one-size fits all” rule for women and ignore that everyone is different; some women may forgive and live together after mistakes, while some women forgive but decide to part ways. The expectation from women as the forgiver and a perfect person makes them vulnerable.

Having no law on domestic violence in Pakistan makes women vulnerable. Honor killing is one of the deadliest domestic violence in Pakistan committed by her family members. Domestic violence has severe concerns on the overall well-being of women. Couples supporting and loving each other in public is considered a shame; whereas, a husband beating, ridiculing, or harassing a wife is considered their private matter. Women are always instructed to remain meek, keep the peace, and avoid confrontation. A divorced daughter is considered a disgrace while no one sees the pain she has gone through; no one understands the difficulties she had to face to get rid of that toxic relationship. In Pakistan, women live in a victim mind state, and their lives are no lesser than a nightmare. Just because they exist, it does not mean they live.

Most women may not know their rights or usage, while others may fear retaliation or be threatened. Today, what makes a woman vulnerable is lacking power and lack of access to justice. A woman who speaks up and seeks justice is often deprived of her right to justice. She then becomes an exclusive example for other oppressed girls and women that it’s better to remain silent than to be outspoken and still denied to get justice. The cycle of exploitation is egging on the patriarchal notions. To override a woman’s autonomy is to consider her as a mere object rather than a living body. This patriarchy gives rise to male chauvinism, which keeps women at a lower standard than men. These fixed beliefs refused to accept or see women as total, separate human beings. People believe these notions keep women unaware of their rights. They are denied access to education and political participation. Some are trapped in conflicts where rape is perpetrated as a weapon of war. Around the world, deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth are needlessly high, and women are prevented from making deeply personal choices in their private lives.

Lastly, certain other societal behaviors made women vulnerable, including being underrepresented in politics and other main work areas. i.e., having male workers in a police station or district council often makes them prone to face victim-blaming. So they decide to remain silent even if they are right. Across the world, women are sexually assaulted, harassed, and face domestic violence. They get objectified every day and forced to suffer alone because of the dilemma attached to their existence. Shutting them behind four walls, keeping them away from their divine rights, neglecting their health care, maintaining imbalanced power relationships, discriminating salary packages, and expecting them to be submissive are some of the reasons women are vulnerable.

“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it” – Roseanne Barr

The world is a very dark place sometimes. It’s not all roses and rainbows, and ignoring the bad stuff won’t make anything better. Keep doing what you’re doing. Women need to stand up for themselves because no one else is going to do. Men of our society stay away from confident, empowered, well-informed, and self-assured women because they can see through them. Men are afraid of strong women because they find it hard to manipulate and deceive. Strong women reveal their weaknesses and insecurities that they try to bury by being coercive with them. Therefore, women need to stop being desperate, easily compromise, insecure, timid, and settle less for what they deserve. Vulnerable women open up themselves quickly and let other people become aware of which string they need to pull.

Finally, unlike others, it will not be justified to put all responsibilities on women. Parents need to accept daughters as a blessing of God and no lesser than their sons if treated in the same way. They need to let their daughters become confident, self-assured, and independent. They need to shape their daughters into strong women with awareness, knowledge, information, and foresight. Women’s rights activists and organizations need to actively promote respect and defend vulnerable women on the right platforms. Early and forced marriages keep women deprived of their right to education and employment; therefore, society should be sensitized about the long-term effects of such matters. Men should be educated to prevent gender inequality, sexual harassment, and violence, and examples should be set in form of punishment for such sick-minded men. Justice delayed is justice denied; thus, the justice system needs to be strengthened to grant justice to women on time without making them feel unheard and helpless. In the context of marital relations, domestic work should be shared, due respect and dignity should be given to the partner and all family members. Not only this, but there is a need for proper domestic violence law, which needs to be adequately implemented. To finish, employment opportunities with equal pay and a protective environment should be established for women.

Water scarcity & Sugarcane Production: Effects on the economy

Water! A blessing from nature and the basic need of life. When it comes to agriculture, it is the necessity for growth and development of agriculture sector in Pakistan. Pakistan ranks at 5th position throughout the world and 3rd among the developing countries when it comes to size of its irrigated area. Its 1:4 ratio of non-irrigated to irrigated agricultural area is ranked highest in the world. Moreover, in terms of water resources management system, canal area is 16.2 million hectare out of total cultivated area of 20.6 million hectare. Despite the extent of canal system, it supplies only 70% of the total water requirements of sugarcane.

Engr Asma Laghari

Graduated in environmental engineering from uspcasw, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro

In Pakistan, water is costly input affecting sugar yields. It has been estimated that to produce one ton of cane, the requirement of water is 200-250 tons. Agriculture, being the dominant sector in Pakistan contributes 21.4% to GDP, employees 45% of the country’s labor force. Due to technological inventions various tools and techniques have been devised to overcome the issues related to agriculture, though many problems remain unresolved. In addition, Sugarcane crop possess an important position in national economy contributing 1.9% to GDP in order to drive the large sugar industry. It is an important cash crop of Pakistan and ranks at the 5th in its acreage and production and approximately 5th position in sugar production in the world. In Pakistan, sugarcane is widely planted in Sindh and Punjab contributing about 90% of the production. Moreover, it provides raw material to nearly 85 sugar industries throughout Pakistan. Sugarcane crop has great significance for the economy of the country in general and of Sindh province in particular as most of the people rely on crops as source of their income. The excess supply and demand of sugar was cyclic in nature and from the inputs the irrigation water is a scarce which is declining day by day.

Additionally, there are two planting seasons for sugarcane crop in Sindh, one is in autumn, (1 September to 15 October) and other one is in spring (15-February to end of March). However, the farmers prefer autumn season for planting in Sindh as it has diverse advantages over spring and it has also been experimentally proved at Sugarcane Section, Agriculture Research Institute, Tando Jam that autumn planting produces 35-40% higher yield. The sufficient amount of water
is another great advantage over spring season, while in Punjab the farmers prefer spring season due to season temperature. At sugarcane field ARI, Tando Jam with Dr. Nihal-ud-din Marri (Head of Sugarcane Section) and Wajid Ali Hisbani (Assistant Agriculture Research Officer) at Agriculture Research institute, Tando Jam, mentioned that in hot seasons we provide water to sugarcane crop every 8th day, while in cold season every 15th day, but due to climate change, and arid soil, we have to water the crop every 4th day in starting days from tube-wells. Further, they also talked about saline water; another issue for all crops is also one of the major reasons behind less productivity of sugarcane throughout Pakistan. Annually, 20 million tons of sugarcane is being harvested from which 70% of it is being converted into sugar. If we look at the data of sugarcane area, its production and yield in Sindh for last 3 years (2013-14), (2014-15) and (2015-16) the production was 18.362, 16.614 and 17.984 million tons and the yield was 624.24, 530.15 and 581.75 acre respectively which significantly depicts decline of productivity.

In an interview with Dr. Marri, Sugarcane Specialist said that, 12 to 14 months are needed for sugarcane to remain in ground as it is deep rooted crop and 66 acre of water is needed for its production. Further he mentioned an alarming fact of sugarcane production in Sindh that, about 5 million tons of sugarcane is produced annually, out of which 3.5 million tons is being exported to other countries. Along with his colleague Wajid Ali, talked about the critical situation of water shortage and its impacts on sugarcane production that if the authorities will not take notice about it, soon we will be deprived of this blessing. Additionally, when we visited the field of ARI, Tando Jam, they were providing water through tube-wells to the fields. They also mentioned that if water scarcity continues, there will be no sugarcane crop in future, which in turn will affect the economy of Pakistan. It was surprising to hear from them, that consumption of sugar and wheat is almost same i.e 22 Kg/Capita. Limited sugar supply and the steady increase in prices have affected household sugar consumption while overall consumption remained same due to growing demand by the food industry (soft & fruit drinks, dairy & traditional sweets). Consumers such as bakeries, candy makers and local sweets account for about 60% of total sugar demand.

As far as the water shortage is concerned, the water table is decreasing due to negligible amount of rainfall, especially in Sindh which resulted into declining of groundwater; meanwhile, the yield of sugarcane crop tends to decrease. Unfortunately, the farmers who were completely relying on sugarcane crop have to consider an alternative approach or substitute for their income. Recently, due to water shortage, the farmers of Sindh had to cut their sugarcane crop and utilized it as grass because once they have planted it, there was no solution of it, said Dr. Marri and Wajid Ali Hisbani (Sugarcane section, ARI, Tando Jam). As, most of the people in Pakistan rely on their farming as their source of income, it was really heartbreaking to even imagine them cutting the sugarcane crop and using it as a grass due to water shortage and inefficient water resources management system.

In addition, if we look at the data, for 2009-2010, sugarcane has been sown in the area of 943,000 hectares; the production was 8.4% lower than last year. Its production for year 2009-10 is estimated at 49.4 million tons, against 50.5 million tons last year. This indicates a decline of 1.3% over the production of last year. Main factors contributed in less production was maximum area under wheat crop during 2008-2009 which restricted the acres for sugarcane, shortage of canal water and realization of low price in last season also discouraged the farmers to grow more sugarcane crop. The decrease in sugarcane area and lower production during the last few years are due to the scarcity of irrigation water, significant increase in minimum support prices competing crops (wheat and rice), inadequate water resources, and higher inputs cost. Moreover the internal dispute between Pakistan’s sugarcane growers and processors also plagued the industry, for instance, delaying the crushing season, buying sugarcane at less than the support price, and withholding payments hurt the farmer’s profitability. On the other hand, sugar processors complain that farmers grow unapproved varieties which produce low sucrose content resulting in lower sugar production and recovery rates. Despite the industry’s troubles, the tighter sugar supplies have led to higher sugar prices and benefited sugar growers. It is predicted that, this trend continues to grow.

To assist sugar processors in the economy the ministry of food and agriculture and the ministry of industries and production are in consultation with Pakistan Sugar mills association (PSMA) to find strategies of making sugar operations run more efficiently. Sugarcane prices have been on rise since May 2008 and the prices are expected to increase about Rs.60 in coming years. As far as the future is concerned, the retail prices will heavily depend upon timely imports & prices in international market. In terms of production policies, the federal government does not set the prices; instead it authorizes provincial governments to set the sugarcane prices with consultation of both sugar industry and farmer organizations. Due to increasing population at annual rate of 2.05%, and by the year 2020 the country’s population will be 212.1 million which means that the yield must increase by at least 150 tons/ha of sugarcane. The water availability of sugarcane crop is almost static over past few years. Water supply continues to decline in sugarcane growing
areas. There is high need to maintain the production of sugarcane by efficiently managing water resources. Soon, water will be the limiting factor, reducing the growth affecting the yield.

Moreover, Dr. Marri and Wajid Ali of Agriculture Research Institute, Tando Jam, gave some valuable suggestions that as we are already suffering from water scarcity, we must think of another crop which needs low quantity of water, and like other developed countries; the agriculture departments and various research institutes of Pakistan must come up with good strategies to resolve problems of sugarcane crop, water availability and reliability as sugarcane industry is playing a vital role in improving the agriculture sector and enhancing the economy of Pakistan. It is predicted that in the year of 2025 there will be scarcity of water in Pakistan and as sugarcane production is highly dependent on water, in the future there will be no sugar industry, and when there are no sugar industries we have to import it and unfortunately we are not able to do that either because we are already in debt of 24211 PKR Billion in June of 2018 and we are not in position of another debt.