Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dr A Q Khan
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
From Print Edition
17
16
Part - I
Random thoughts
The news that Pakistan was going to import 50,000 tons of daal channa drew my attention. We, an
agricultural country with vast tracts of uncultivated land and an abundance of water, importing daal?
But first the cowardly terrorist attack on the PAF Colony at Badaber, Peshawar. This barbarous attack
has once again shown that terrorists can hardly be called human, let alone Muslims. Human life means
nothing to them. Thanks to the bravery of air force and army personnel, an even bigger tragedy was
averted. Still, 29 innocent people lost their lives, mostly in the mosque during prayers. May Allah
Almighty shower His blessing on the departed souls Ameen.
The armed forces and the public should join hands in hunting down all terrorists once and for all.
Imran Khan and Pervez Khattak should put their house in order instead of wasting all their time and
energy on politics.
Now back to daal. Pakistan is an agricultural country and it accounts for about 25 percent of our GDP.
About half of our labour force is engaged in this important sector. Due to irregular rainfall, most
agriculture is dependent on water supplied through almost 40,000 miles of irrigation canals the
longest in the world. Wheat is the main crop, followed by rice, millet, maize, pulses, barley, fruits,
vegetables, Basmati rice and cotton.
The agricultural sector plays an important part in the economy, not only by providing food for the
people, but also by earning almost 75 percent of the foreign exchange earned from exports. About
half the working population is employed in agriculture, thus providing livelihoods for the rural
population and raw materials for many industries. How ironic is it then that we need to import channa
daal. We have large tracts of so-called non-fertile, sandy land, ideally suited for peanut and gram
cultivation. The government should encourage farmers and help them to utilise this unused land with
the available manpower. This can be done if the problem is tackled seriously.
Lebanons late famous philosopher/poet, Gibran Khalil Gibran, the third-most best selling poet of all
times (behind Shakespeare and Laozi), portrayed people like us with these words:
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion./Pity the nation that wears cloth it does not
weave,/eats bread it does not harvest,/drinks wine that flows not from its own wine press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero/that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful./Pity the
nation that raises not its voice save when it wakes in a funeral,/boasts not except among its ruins/and
will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
If we read curse instead of pity, dictator for bully and medals and badges for glittering
conqueror, we have a true picture of our country.
The PM recently announced an attractive package for farmers. If honestly implemented, it can go a
long way to help them. However, some critics are calling it a gimmick to cheat farmers in connection