DAWN Editorials - 5th february2025

[faheemustad]

Kashmir question

ALMOST eight decades since Pakistan and India became sovereign states, the Kashmir issue remains unresolved, bedevilling ties between the neighbours, with the people of the disputed region unable to exercise their right to self-determination.

Moreover, since the events of August 2019, India has tightened its grip over the occupied territory, removing the limited rights the held region had under the Indian constitution. Though the hard-line BJP government may think the Kashmir dispute is a thing of the past, the fact is that the territory remains internationally disputed, and no amount of constitutional tinkering and attempts to alter occupied Kashmir’s demography by New Delhi can change this reality.

The BJP government may like the world to think that it has transformed held Kashmir into a proverbial heaven on earth, but the dark reality of the Indian occupation cannot be hidden.

While Pakistan has long been raising the Kashmir issue at international forums, neutral observers, too, have pointed out the Indian state’s excesses in the disputed region.


For example, Human Rights Watch has said that journalists in IHK remain vulnerable to state violence, including physical assault and the threat of “fabricated criminal cases”. It adds that “hundreds of Kashmiris”, including journalists and human rights activists, remained in detention.

On the other hand, Amnesty International has also criticised India’s “arbitrary detentions” and “stringent anti-terror laws” in IHK. It also says that repression in the region has escalated since Article 370 was scrapped in 2019. These descriptions are a mere glimpse of the ugly reality of the occupied region.

The fact is that the only principled and peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute remains the plebiscite the UN Security Council called for in 1949, after India had taken the Kashmir case to the world body.

Over the decades, no Indian government has taken any serious steps to implement the UN’s resolution, with the result that the Kashmir dispute has become a source of permanent discord in the subcontinent.

However, until there is a long-term solution in light of the aforementioned resolution, an alternative option for peace in Kashmir and the entire subcontinent would be the implementation of the four-point plan hammered out during the Musharraf era.


That scheme envisaged a ‘soft’ LoC, with free movement of people and goods across Kashmir, and eventual demilitarisation.

If both sides, particularly India, are serious about peace, reviving this formula could be the starting point for fresh negotiations. The important thing is to continue the dialogue process, on bilateral disputes as well as the Kashmir issue, and move beyond rigid positions.

On Kashmir Solidarity Day today, Pakistan should reaffirm its support for the people of Kashmir. It should also keep the door open for India in case it decides to resolve the Kashmir question through dialogue.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2025


Letters from jail

OVER the past week, former prime minister Imran Khan has directly addressed his concerns to both the chief justice of Pakistan and the army chief. Disappointingly, he refuses to extend the same regard to the chiefs of his rival parties. Why is that so? Only he can answer. Perhaps it is ego; perhaps it is something else. But while there may be good reasons for why the PTI wishes to keep a distance from the PPP and the PML-N, it seems a little unnecessary that this distance be measurable in light-years instead of ideology and policy divergences. After all, all three parties are representative of the people of Pakistan. How many, respectively, is indeed a debatable topic, but no one can deny that each party has a stake in the country’s politics. This alone qualifies each of them to be regarded and treated by each other as legitimate stakeholders in a shared future. It is true that none of them has acted fairly towards their rivals, and all of them harbour legitimate grievances towards each other. But politics is “the art of the next best”, not settling vendettas.

That said, the concerns raised by the incarcerated PTI chief are indeed valid, but they are decidedly not new. Each of the three parties has suffered at the hands of an errant judiciary and an overreaching establishment. They have more in common with each other than they would care to admit. Though each of the three has repeatedly cast the other two as the biggest villains in the country, the truth is that all three face bigger problems that each of them individually has failed to adequately contend with. The answer has been clear all along to those who wish to see civilian rule strengthened in Pakistan: the PTI, PML-N and PPP must work together and with each other even as they build their individual political identities. It may make for a gripping political soap opera, but their feuding has not benefited the common citizen in any conceivable way. Indeed, the damage it has caused is shocking in scope. The PTI chief, as well as the leaders of the PML-N and the PPP, must acknowledge that they share common problems. There will be better outcomes if they start to talk to each other and resolve them together.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2025


Agriculture tax

WITH Sindh and Balochistan finally approving changes to their agriculture income tax laws to harmonise their AIT rates with the federal personal and corporate income tax regime, the country has met another IMF funding programme goal. Even though the provinces, barring Punjab, breached the deadlines set by the IMF for the passage of the required changes in their AIT laws, the amended versions should help reinforce Pakistan’s case during the first biannual performance review of the programme, due later this month or early March. The provinces had committed with the lender to make the required legislative changes in their respective farm tax laws before the start of 2025 to increase their own tax collection efforts.

The harmonisation of the provincial agriculture tax laws with the federal income tax laws is not only crucial for broadening the tax base, it is also important for plugging a big loophole that facilitates tax evasion due to a low slab rate. While it is senseless to expect the changes in the provincial AIT regimes to significantly increase revenues immediately, the measure should make the national tax system a bit more equitable. Therefore, criticism of the centre for ‘imposing’ the new AIT rates on Sindh’s people by the province’s chief minister and other PPP legislators was misplaced. What the recent economic and financial crisis has underlined is that the state, which has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios of less than 10pc in the world, has no option but to collect taxes from every segment of the economy. Nor can it shift the tax burden of one segment onto another to meet its increasing revenue needs for building infrastructure and improving public services. That said, the passage of the amendments to the law was the easier part. It will more difficult to revamp the collection system. For that, the provinces must build the capacity of their revenue officials and digitise their land records.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2025