Articles by Babar Ali

Babar Ali The dissolution of the national assembly and of the Benazir government and the formation of a 'caretaker' government with politicians who had at one time or other associated with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has but one purpose: to break up the PPP once and for all.

Women's Question Revisited Babar Ali SINCE the publication of my article on the women's question in Pakistan "Elitist View of Women's Struggle in Pakistan" (EPW, May 14, 1988) I have been subjected to substantial criticism over the stand that I had taken in the article. Hamza Alavi ('Pakistan: Women in a Changing Society' EPW, June 25, 1988) has argued that I may have read Marx but certainly have not understood him as 1 have not been able to read the society and the social changes that are taking place around me. Alavi's piece is a fair exposition of the nature of changes in Pakistani society and how they affect women, but his appologia for the Women's Action Forum (WAF) seems propagandist and severely ill-judged. Kumari Jayawardena ('So Comrade What Happened to the Democratic Struggle?' EPW, October 8,1988) on the other hand, has raised some very important and fundamental political issues regarding the role and attitude of socialists towards democracy and towards feminism. In addition, I have been confronted by many women activist friends and have had to defend or explain what has been called the Babar Ali position on women, a 'position' which almost without exception has been criticised. The purpose of this article is to discuss and analyse the issues and the politics regarding the women's question in Pakistan today under democracy, with a woman as prime minister, itself, a significant event.

Benazir Bhutto gives the impression of having been bowled over by the receptions she has got in China, Turkey and the US. But foreign tours rarely help avoid dealing with the real problems at home. As if to drive home the point, the day Benazir left on her US trip, the opposition parties got their act together and formed a Combined Opposition Parties group against the government.

medical science and its application, agronomy and political economy of health and underdevelopment. By tracing the evolution of anti-malaria policy in the province during the inter-war period, this paper provided certain insights into the working of the health care system. The study concluded that the anti-malaria policy, whose thrust was mainly on curative measures, was unsuccessful largely due to "financial, organisational and administrative constraints". While recognising the role of these technical aspects, Sakhti Padhi felt that the anti-malaria approaches in other countries [such as Israel (Palestine), the US and so on] show that a threshold of agricultural and socioeconomic development (and associated improvement in living conditions), health services infra-structure, and educational level may have to be reached for the successful application, effectivity 'and maintenance of anti-malaria measures. Hence, the technical aspects of malaria control are to be linked up with the whole question of agrarian and socio-economic underdevelopment which, more generally and importantly, means entering the terrain of political economy.

and Free' Elections ON July 5, Pakistan celebrated the eleventh anniversary of General Zia-ul Haq's coup which ousted Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, on a night which now seems snugly engulfed in .history July 5 is also the thirty-sixth day of Zia's second coup, in which he ousted Mohammad Khan Junejo, an unknown man from the small town of Sindhri, in the heart of Sind. There are only two similarities between Bhutto and Junejo. They both came from Sind, and both were dismissed from office by the same man. Here the similarities end. We know why Bhutto was dismissed, but the very surprising thing is that even after thirty-six days, no political analyst has been able to come up with some concrete facts and has been able to base his analysis on something solid. Most of what has been said and is being written is based on cither hearsay, speculation, or at best, on what can be called "an indication of what we think is the real situation".