Pakistan losing territory to radicals

The rise of a powerful cleric exposes economic and political failures in a government-administered area. Part 1 of three.

from the May 29, 2007 edition

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Many are poor

From the vantage of the cosmopolitan capital, Islamabad, Pakistan is one of the most rapidly growing economies in Asia. But Swat, home to 1.5 million, is a reminder that the frontier has long been deprived of that wealth. The gradual death of an agrarian way of life in Swat, following increased mechanization and a series of land reforms that undercut sharecropping, has promoted the wealth of a few at the expense of thousands. With little local industry, residents of Swat have some of the lowest incomes per day in the province, a formula for discontent.

Local officials in Swat complain they haven't received development funds from the federal government in more than two years. "If I had money, I would give [the city] a vision for development. But I don't have any money," says a frustrated Jamal Nasir Khan, a mayor of Swat based in Saidu Sharif, the district capital. Mr. Khan says he'd like to build more schools and health facilities for the area's population, 49 percent of whom live below the poverty line and 61 percent of whom are illiterate.

It is a problem repeated throughout the NWFP. "Since 1977, there has been no attempt at regional equality," says Karachi-based economist Kaiser Bengali.

Although NWFP has some of the highest rates of poverty, illiteracy, and violence in Pakistan, it received just $34 million in federal aid and development grants in 2006, compared with Punjab's $210 million – even though Punjab, by many accounts, already has the healthiest economic indicators in Pakistan.

"In some villages, the largest employer is the jihadis," Mr. Bengali adds.

Swat is a startling example. Because unemployment is high, Fazlullah is able to summon hundreds of volunteers – who receive meals in exchange – to help build his new madrassah in Mingora, the city of 175,000 where he lives. Situated along the Swat River, the large religious school will someday offer poor students of this city, which has no university, a free education in Fazlullah's ultraconservative brand of Islam. Aides say proudly it will cost nearly $2.5 million, suggesting that while Fazlullah's audiences may generally be poor, he has wealthy patrons.

Since he began preaching two years ago, Fazlullah has drawn more than 15,000 weekly to his Friday prayers. His vision of militant Islam reaches thousands more in the valley by way of his illegal radio station, which he used until recently to warn parents not to send their girls to school. Few parents seem to have heeded that warning, but the government still intervened in May, striking a compromise in which officials would look the other way if Fazlullah stopped preaching against girls' education.

"Tell me, what wrong have I done? I am preaching religion, and religion is not terrorism," Fazlullah says in a brick room on the site of his new madrassah, surrounded by bearded aides.

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