Asia Times: Poets, politicians and Pakistani mangoes


	July 20, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Poets, politicians and Pakistani mangoes
By Muhammad Rafique

ISLAMABAD - Once asked how he liked his mangoes, the 19th Century poet Asadullah Khan Ghalib replied "they should be sweet and plentiful".

And indeed, sweet and plentiful mangoes were exchanged at the weekend as gifts between Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at their summit in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, the monument to love. (The Indian leader, too, is a poet, but not as great as Ghalib.)

Pakistan boasts a sumptuous variety of the "king of fruits" and its export markets are growing fast, earning precious foreign exchange for the country. Pakistani mangoes, notably, are on sale at the famous London store, Harrods, where their unique taste and aroma are well appreciated, as they are in Europe, the Middle East, the United States and the Far East.

But despite their reputation as a nutritious food and symbol of friendship and love, mangoes also have a more sinister connotation in Pakistan. On August 17, 1988, crates of mangoes were loaded onto the plane of then dictator General Zia ul-Haq, and shortly after take-off from Bahawalpur in southern Punjab the plane crashed, killing the leader as well as the chairman of the joint army chiefs committee, the United States ambassador, and 27 other people.

A US-Pakistani investigation committee established that the accident was caused by sabotage, and one of Zia's senior officials publicly accused the military dictator's successor as army chief, General Aslam Beg, of engineering the crash. Now retired but still dabbling in politics, Beg is known jokingly among Islamabad diplomats as the "mango kid".

Ghalib lived and died in Delhi during in the twilight years of the Mughalas and the start of the British Raj. But times have changed since then, and so too has the quality of the fruit that, like the monsoon season in the subcontinent, has inspired poets and lovers.

Mangoes are mainly grown in southern Punjab and Sind provinces. The first variety of mango to be ready for harvest is the Sindhri, in May, but in recent years doctors and mango lovers of the fruit have charged that the crops are ripened with with the help of chemicals, and therefore they are unhealthy. Other varieties, such as chaunsa and malda, are also said to be chemically enhanced.

The export quality of mangoes, however, meets the stringent requirements of importing countries, although there have been cases of importers complaining that cargoes have not matched the samples on which the contract was based.

Mango exports fetched Pakistan US$11.56 million in fiscal 1999-2000, up nearly 50 percent over the previous year when it earned $6.7 million, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan issued by the government. This involved more than 47,600 tons of mangoes. This season exporters hope to export about 70,000 tons. An Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) spokesman told Asia Times Online that mango exports fetched $18 million in fiscal ending June 2001 and expected that earnings would jump to $36 million by June 2002 due to better packaging, marketing and quality control.

The EPB, in collaboration with the private sector, organizes mango exhibitions around the world, such as in Hong Kong, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, Dhaka, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Rotterdam and Dubai. Pakistan has set an export target of $10.1 billion for fiscal 2001-02, with the bulk earnings from cotton, but the country is trying to increase exports of non-traditional items such as fruits, vegetables and fish and fish preparations. Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves hover around $1 billion, a poorer position than even Bangladesh.

The EPB plans to launch hectic mango marketing campaign in Asia and Europe. Target countries are Spain, Italy, Iran, Turkey, France, Germany and the Scandinavian nations. A package has been worked out for mango exporters that will look after their grading, packaging, storage, freight rate and other related problems. The EPB has held a series of meetings in recent months with mango growers, exporters and various airlines at Karachi, Multan and Lahore, to arrange additional cargo capacity to meet the enhanced export target. Pakistan International Airline has agreed to provide 45 percent additional capacity to various destinations in Europe including the United Kingdom and other places at existing rates.

Pakistan's sindhri and shaunsa varieties, which make up 90 percent of exports, virtually rule the world market. India is a main rival, and it has an edge over Pakistan as its mango season lasts more than eight months. In Pakistan mangoes are available from late May to at the most mid-September. India also has more modern marketing techniques. For instance, it has a website promoting gifts of Alphonso mangoes that can be sent anywhere in the world.

The mango season is in full swing now, and housewives are buying raw ones to make achar (pickles) to last into the coming months. It is also time for mango parties, which have replaced cocktail parties as Zia banned alcohol in the country.

Mangoes still have their political significance. Asked recently why he had not yet sent the usual peti (crate) of mangoes he seasonally sends as a gift to his favorite journalists and friends, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Pakistan's senior-most politician and evergreen doyen of the democrats, replied the mangoes on his farms had not yet ripened fully.

Nawabzada also recently met Musharraf, to the surprise of some of his colleagues in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). So the question is, will Nawabzada send a crate or two of his mouth-watering mangoes to the general?

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