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Old Tuesday, May 01, 2012
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Has Imran Khan’s Political Tsunami Hit Pakistani Shores?
May 1, 2012
By M. SHAHID ALAM
Exclusive Article

1.
I have never had the patience for long-winded novels, and much less for memoirs, but I am glad I persuaded myself to read Imran Khan’s Pakistan: A Personal History. Now that Tehreek-e-Insaaf , the political party founded and led by Imran Khan, gathers momentum – after many years in the political wilderness – and may yet grow to challenge the established political parties in the next elections, it is time to take a closer look at the man who leads this party, and promises to restore justice and dignity to Pakistan’s long-suffering but mostly passive population.

Once I had gotten past the Prologue – which I thought did not belong at the beginning of the book – Khan’s narrative never lost its power to sustain my interest. The book takes the reader through many unexpected shifts in the protagonist’s life – from cricket to charity work, from charity work to politics, from the life of a celebrity to a life of piety, from disdain for Islam to a deepening respect for its richness and depth, from contempt (a colonial legacy common to Pakistan’s elites) for ordinary Pakistanis to a growing concern for their tormented lives, from wilting shyness before audiences to a determination to face the glare of public life, from growing anxiety about Pakistan’s problems to an unshakable resolve to do something about them; etc. In short, the book takes the reader through the life of an extraordinary man, at first fully immersed in the privileges of his class and his cricket celebrity but slowly turning inwards, questioning the colonial mindset of his own privileged class, angry at the limitless corruption of Pakistan’s rulers, and, finally, reaching resolution in his commitment to take Pakistan back from its corrupt elites. A politician with Imran Khan’s record would be rare in Western ‘democracies.’ In a country like Pakistan, mired for decades in the corruption of rapacious elites, he is an anomaly – an outlier. Should the Pakistanis embrace Imran Khan, should they give him the chance to pick and lead the nation’s political team, this could be a game-changer for their country.

While describing his spiritual journey following the pain of his mother’s death, Imran Khan sums up his life in an aphorism, “A spiritual person takes responsibility for society, whereas a materialist only takes responsibility for himself (87).” Quite apart from the truth-value of this statement (since a ‘materialist’ or someone without belief in God or afterlife may also choose to take responsibility for society), this sentiment very aptly describes the author’s long and tortuous passage from indifference towards larger questions – both metaphysical and political – to a deepening engagement with God and the history and fate of Pakistanis and Muslims. In time, after much soul-searching, Imran Khan chooses to take “responsibility for society.” Once he has formed a conviction, Imran Khan has shown that there is no turning back for him.

Imran Khan’s autobiography contains some homespun theology too. At one point, he describes how cricket nudged him towards faith; it began with observations on cricketing luck. A game can turn on the toss of a coin; success in bowling can depend on the way the ball is stitched, on umpiring mistakes, on fortuitous injuries, on the weather, etc. In other words, “there seemed to be a zone beyond which players were helpless, and it was called luck (84).” He muses, “…could what we call luck actually be the will of God?” Is it possible, amidst the infinite complexity that produces any outcome, that God intervenes in our lives, nudges a particle here a particle there to confront us with outcomes that surprise us, overthrow our certainties, deflate our egos, forcing us to think of higher forces?

After his mother’s painful death from cancer, Imran Khan turned away from God. Questions of theodicy troubled him. He worried that his life’s accomplishments could vanish in a moment. In the face of this vulnerability, persuaded by a logic that recalls Pascal’s wager, he resumed his salaat. “This was really like an insurance policy – a sort of safety net in case God really did exist.” It is likely that Imran had arrived at his reasoning on his own, or he had encountered this argument in the Qur’an. Unknown to most Muslims, the Qur’an makes this argument on several occasions; it is then taken up by Hazrat ‘Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, and in the eleventh century by al-Ghazzali.[1]

Imran Khan speaks reverently of the influence of Mian Bashir on his life, an obscure but spiritually gifted man who gently led him to discover the inwardness and beauty of Islam. People who have lost touch with metaphysics will likely frown at this influence. Untroubled by such skeptics, Imran Khan recognizes this obscure sufi as the “single most powerful spiritual influence” on his life. I respect this openness to the Unseen, this divinely implanted ‘naiveté’ – if you will – that lies at the heart of all authentic religious experience, and that Western rationalism and scientism have nearly destroyed in modern man. Despite the materialism that assails us, we can stay in touch with this ‘naiveté.’ In better times too, very few men and women could reach the summits of the mystical ascent; but they sought spiritual sustenance in the baraka of the valis, friends of God. Unknown to Pakistan’s militant secularists, Asadullah Khan Ghalib too – despite his celebrated skepticism – sought intimacy with God through veneration of Hazrat ‘Ali and his family.

2.

Imran Khan is nothing if not resolute in pursuing the goals he sets for himself; and his goals have never been modest. “Over the years,” he writes, “I came to the conclusion that ‘genius’ is being obsessed with what you are doing (63).” Quite early in his cricket career, spurred by the example of Dennis Lillee, he decided to remake himself as a fast bowler. His teammates and coach warned him that he “had neither the physique nor the bowling action to become a fast bowler (118)” and he could ruin his career if he tried to change his bowling style. Imran Khan was not deterred. He remodeled his “bowling action to become a fast bowler,” and as he worked hard towards this goal – he writes – “my body also became stronger for me to bowl fast.” Most cricket commentators agree that Imran Khan went on to establish himself as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. Fewer still have combined his eminence in fast bowling with skill at batting and leading his team.

When Imran Khan set out in 1984 to establish Pakistan’s first cancer hospital – he ran into a wall of skepticism. When he presented his plans for the Hospital to the leading Pakistani doctors in Lahore and London, they were dismissive; he did not give up. Working indefatigably to collect mostly small donations from tens of thousands of people at home and abroad, Imran Khan began construction work on the project in April 1991. The Hospital admitted its first patients in December 1994, with a commitment to provide free care to all poor patients. Skeptics had warned that this policy was not viable, but generous Pakistanis proved them wrong. Now plans are underway for building two more cancer hospitals in Peshawar and Karachi.

Our author has shown the same dogged persistence in the arena of politics. When he announced his entry into politics in 1996 – with the formation of a new party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf, dedicated to fighting corruption in public life – Pakistanis ignored him. In the first elections it contested in 1997, the Tehreek won no seat; in the second election in 2002, it won a single seat. Imran Khan could draw large crowds to his rallies, but they were drawn to their cricket hero not the political leader who promised to deliver a better future for them. Perhaps, Imran Khan had not done his homework. His promise to fight corruption did not yet carry a broad appeal; his message did not resonate with workers, peasants, students, clerks and small shop-keepers. Pakistanis knew that their leaders are corrupt, but they did not see Imran Khan as the force that could pry Pakistan out of their dirty but powerful grip. Imran Khan had not begun the hard work of building his party from the ground up, creating a cadre of committed workers and donors. He spent too much time on talk shows and too little time organizing his party.

The failure of Tehreek-e-Insaaf to make an impact in the 2002 elections may well have ended Imran Khan’s political career; but he was not ready to quit the field. He persisted in his attacks on Pakistan’s corrupt elites through regular appearances on television talk shows that had proliferated following General Musharraf’s liberalization of the media. Then came the attacks of 9-11, the US decision to draft Pakistan into its so-called Global War Against Terror. Gleefully, Pakistan’s generals accepted every demand that the US made on Pakistan’s sovereignty; they gave the US air and land corridors to Afghanistan, control of one or more airbases in Pakistan, and free run of Pakistan to CIA operatives. Only the religious parties and jihadi factions opposed this surrender of Pakistan’s sovereignty, but they occupied limited political space in Pakistan. With few exceptions, Pakistan’s ‘liberal’ and ‘left’ intellectuals also supported the US War; they were happy to see the Taliban driven out by the American invaders. The political tides were begging to turn for Imran Khan. This was his opportunity to broaden his critique of Pakistan’s corrupt political classes; their corruption now veered towards treason. None of this was surprising, but it did bring out into the open Pakistan’s descent to the depths of servitude.

As events unfolded, the charge of treason would gain greater plausibility. General Musharraf’s government kept the Americans happy by killing the Taliban who had sought refuge in Pakistan; others were captured and handed over to the Americans. In open violation of Pakistan’s constitution, the government also began to disappear Pakistanis who were then secretly transferred to the Americans. Pakistan’s involvement in America’s war entered a new phase in 2004 as the CIA mounted its first drone strikes on Pakistani territory. On American demand, the generals also directed the Pakistani military to attack Taliban sanctuaries in Waziristan. Pakistan’s political classes had now privatized the army. Pakistani soldiers now killed the Taliban and Pakistanis to enrich the country’s political elites.

While the generals collected cash from the US, Pakistanis would pay the price for this treason. Pakistan’s war against the Taliban and their Pashtun hosts produced a frightening backlash that has continued to grow. The logic of this backlash was simple, as Imran Khan also explains. No doubt encouraged by the Afghan Taliban, the families of the Pashtun victims – calling themselves the Pakistani Taliban – mounted devastating retaliatory attacks against military and civilian targets in Pakistan, but mostly against the latter. There was no change in Pakistan’s commitment to America’s war when a civilian government, led corrupt politicians rehabilitated under a deal hatched in Washington, replaced General Musharraf in 2008. While Pakistan’s liberal and left intellectuals wanted the government to exterminate the Pakistani Taliban; they insisted that the Pakistani Taliban was an Islamic fundamentalist movement to take power in Pakistan and had nothing to do with the war Pakistani military had unleashed against the Pashtuns. Imran made the opposite argument. Terminate the war against the Pashtuns and Afghans, and the Pakistani Taliban would cease their attacks; they would disappear as quickly as they had appeared.

After a long delay, Imran Khan’s strategy began to pay off. As Pakistan escalated the war against its own people in two of its four provinces, as Pakistani capital fled and foreign capital shunned the country, as the economy worsened, as poverty deepened, as political factions in Karachi engaged in bloody turf battles, as power outages persisted, as supply of cooking gas become intermittent, the anger and desperation of Pakistanis also grew. Who could lift Pakistan from this descent into chaos? Pakistanis knew better than to expect a savior to emerge from the military or the established political classes: for they had produced the mayhem and were its chief beneficiaries. In this gloom, Imran Khan beckoned to Pakistanis. His calls for justice grew louder, his jeremiads against corrupt politicians became sharper, his critique of the generals became unsparing. Slowly, his message began to resonate with Pakistani youth and the urban middle classes in Pakistan. Starting in mid-2011, the polls signaled a surge in his popularity.

On October 30 2011, Imran Khan was ready to take a measure of his popularity with a rally in Lahore. The rally was a great success; more than two hundred thousand people showed up. Most people agreed that nothing like this had been seen since the days of the charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s. On December 25, the Tehreek organized a second rally in Karachi, the stronghold of a local ethnic party, with the same results. Finally, some sixteen years after his entry into politics, people were beginning to rally around Imran Khan and his party. This surge in his popularity suddenly changed the political map of Pakistan. It also produced some unwelcome results; now that his prospects looked brighter, some members of the established political class began to knock on the Tehreek’s door. Imran Khan was now a political force; after wandering for many years on the margins, he had arrived with a bang on Pakistan’s political scene.

Imran Khan offered a more optimistic assessment of his prospects. He described the surge in his popularity as a political tsunami that would in time sweep out the old corrupt order. Was this a case of excessive self-congratulation? This would depend on whether the Tehreek could sustain the momentum it had generated, whether it could capitalize on this surge to build a grassroots organization, whether it could expand its program to incorporate the interests of workers and peasants, and whether it could create an intellectual cadre that would disseminate its message through print, television and the internet. Can Imran Khan energize the people, raise their hopes of change to a fever pitch, so that attempts to defeat them by extra-legal means could backfire and persuade the Tehreek to lead an uprising? I will return to these questions; but first, I wish to turn to the increasingly shrill and frenzied attacks against Imran Khan by Pakistan’s putative liberal and left-leaning intelligentsia; these attacks are most visible in the English-language print media. Their shrill commentary suggests that they are beginning to take him seriously.

3.

Pakistan’s ‘liberal’ and ‘left-leaning’ groups bring three related charges against Imran Khan: he is an Islamist (or fundamentalist), a partisan of the Taliban, and a rightist. They rely on less than half-truths in making their case.

Imran Khan is certainly Islamic in his thinking, inspiration and identity but he is not an Islamist, a term that generally applies to Muslims who subscribe to a literalist interpretation of the Qur’an and the Traditions of the Prophet. Unlike many Pakistanis who identify themselves as liberals or leftists – and take a Kemalist view of Islam as a backward religion that must be rigorously excluded from the public discourse and even public space – Imran Khan derives his identity from Islam and seeks inspiration in the Qur’an and the Traditions. In regards to the relevance of some of the legal aspects of the Qur’an, together with Allama Iqbal and Fazlur Rahman (for many years, a professor of Islamic Studies at University of Chicago), he recognizes the need for revisiting some of the rulings that were given currency by the consensus of a previous age. In this sense, it would be appropriate to describe Imran Khan as an Islamic modernist; but unlike most Islamic modernists he also feels a strong affinity for the sufi tradition of Islam that has emphasized the spirit and inward content religion without neglecting its outward practice. In both respects, I doubt if there are Islamists who would admit Imran Khan into their inner circles.

Is Imran Khan then a partisan of the Taliban? The United States has used its hegemonic control over mainstream global discourse – especially since launching its global military offensive under the cover of the Global War Against Terror – to smear all freedom fighters it does not support as terrorists. The discourse on terrorism is very cleverly designed to focus the world’s attention on the relatively insignificant acts of violence by oppressed peoples and thereby legitimize the massive acts of violence perpetrated by Western nations against the rest of the world. In American demonology, anyone fighting against the US occupation of Afghanistan is a terrorist – whether he is Afghan or Pakistani. Most ‘liberal’ and ‘left’ writers in Pakistan have internalized this American rhetoric; it follows that the Afghans and Pakistanis fighting the US occupation do not have a legitimate cause regardless of what fighting tactics they employ. In describing Imran Khan as Taliban sympathizer, then, these writers hope to smear him as a terrorist-sympathizer. This smear will not stick. Most Pakistanis recognize that Imran Khan supports the right of Afghans to rid their country of US occupation; other than that and his ethnic kinship with the Pashtuns, there can exist little affinity between him and the Afghan Taliban.

It is time now to explain the scare quotes surrounding the political labels left, right and liberal. In much of the Islamicate, politics has moved into strangely dubious territory, where these labels retain very little of their original meaning. As the liberal or left-oriented political elites in much of the Islamicate began to lose their legitimacy starting the 1970s – because of their dismal failure to create free, sovereign and prosperous polities – and faced growing opposition from various Islamist movements, they chose to sacrifice their ideology in order to cling to power. They had risen to power on an anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and, in some cases, socialist platform. Starting in the 1970s, the survival of the increasingly repressive regimes they led was tied to the support of Western powers in return for keeping the Islamists out of power; this was the pact they made with the devil. It was an enduring pact that crushed any opposition to these regimes until the recent Arab uprising. The liberal and left factions in Pakistan also reprogrammed themselves after the end of the Cold War. Under Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People’s Party, once left-leaning, anti-imperialist, sought legitimacy in Washington and quickly embraced its neoliberal program to open the economy to Western capital.

If the formerly liberal and left leaning forces completed this metamorphosis with little difficulty, this is not entirely surprising. Even when they proclaimed socialist ideals or employed anti-imperialist rhetoric, the thinking of the politically dominant classes in much of the Islamicate had been shaped by an Orientalist narrative. After the Western powers had destroyed or marginalized the traditional learned classes – judges and jurisprudents trained in Shariah, theologians, physicians, engineers, architects and artists – this created space for the emergence of new intellectual classes that were beholden to their colonial masters. More often than not, they were secular and nationalist in their politics, and, following their Orientalist mentors, they blamed Islam for their backwardness; as a result, even when they paid lip service to Islam, they were determined to exclude it from their political discourse. In keeping with their colonialist thinking, they affected Western styles and mannerisms but did little to acquire the institutions, sciences and technology that were the motors of Western power and prosperity. It is no exaggeration to assert that these new elites – despite their nationalist rhetoric – felt closer to their colonial masters they had replaced than to the people they claimed to lead.

In consequence, as Islamist opposition movements began to reject their claims to leadership, the failed political elites retreated into the arms of their former colonial masters. They sought to convince the Western world that they faced a common enemy; the Islamist parties eager to replace them would turn the clock back on human rights, women’s rights and the rights of minorities. Worse, should the Islamist opposition gain power they would pursue policies openly hostile to Western interests. Despite the about-turn in their policies, however, these elites continued to sport their old political labels. They were ‘nationalists’ but owed their survival to Western arms, money, diplomatic support, intelligence, and advice. They were ‘liberals’ but they were happy to use the police state to suppress opposition to their regimes. They were ‘socialists’ but eagerly embraced the neoliberal dictates of the IMF and the World Bank.

In Pakistan, different factions of the ruling elites – who variously claim to be ‘nationalists,’ ‘liberals’ or ‘leftists’ – strenuously lobby the Americans or the British to gain power or to keep it. They outbid each other in sacrificing vital national interests; they never tire of proclaiming that the nation’s economic salvation depends on attracting foreign investment; they have backed unconditionally America’s so-called war on terrorism; they oppose the Afghans’ right to free their country of foreign occupiers; they cheered when General Musharraf used Pakistan’s military to fight Pakistanis who aided the Afghans; they privately assure the Americans that – despite their public stance – they stand firmly behind the deadly drone strikes against ‘targets’ inside Pakistan. Disregarding Pakistan’s Islamic sensibilities, a tiny minority of ‘secularists’ in Pakistan want to impose Western sexual mores on Pakistan; they have campaigned to abrogate the nation’s laws against blasphemy, not prevent its abuse or mitigate its penalties; they refuse to defend the rights of Muslim minorities in Western countries; they support America’s demands to shut down the madrasas in Pakistan but have long supported a colonial system of education for the elites that uses syllabi and exams designed in Cambridge.

Indeed, recently, one columnist at Dawn – a leading English newspaper – lampooned Imran Khan for refusing to share the podium with Salman Rushdie at a literary event in India. I do not know what inner demons drove Rushdie to produce his obscene caricature of Islam, but it does seem odd that a writer – that any person with imagination – would seek to sully and shatter a sacred treasure of humanity only because he finds himself excluded from its deep mystery. Needless to say, I did not support Ayatollah Khomenei’s call for Rushdie’s assassination; nor do I support the death penalty for apostasy. Islam supports free choice in matters of conscience, but the state may limit the activities of well-funded foreign missionaries that use pecuniary inducements to gain converts.

4.

Imran Khan has a great deal to say about the canker of Pakistan’s colonial legacy; the cultural divide that separates the class of brown sahibs and the great mass of Pakistanis who remain anchored in their history and traditions; and the new American masters this class has served since the departure of the British.

He also writes about his own struggles to overcome the Orientalist culture into which he was born, the culture of the brown sahibs, their sneering contempt for Islam, their denigration of the ‘natives’ and their culture. He describes his long and distinguished career in cricket that reveals a perfectionist and a man undaunted by failures. He shares with the readers his personal discovery of God, about growing spiritually through his own struggles in cricket and his charity work; finding inspiration in Islam’s great thinkers, poets and sages – most of all the great Islamic poet, visionary and philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal – but also seeking the blessings of nameless sufis, who prefer to live in obscurity and poverty despite their spiritual gifts. This review can only look at some of these issues; to accompany Imran Khan on his life journey, to walk through the many stages of his life, to explore his personal narrative of Pakistan’s political failures you have to read his Pakistan: A Personal History.

Quite rightly, Imran Khan blames the brown sahibs – a few thousand of the most powerful military officers, bureaucrats, and influential landed families – for never giving Pakistan the chance to develop into a self-respecting, sovereign and prosperous country. This class had retained or acquired its social rank, wealth and power during the colonial era by rendering loyal service to the British rulers; demonstrating their servility to their foreign masters by adopting their dress, mimicking their life style and mannerisms, and gaining familiarity with the history of British royalty, British place names, and British writers. They turned to jaundiced Orientalists for their knowledge of Islam, the history of Muslims and of India; and from them they acquired their deep contempt for Islam, the Muslims and their languages and traditions. Like their British masters, they interacted with the ‘natives’ – those who did not speak English or spoke it with a native accent – only as social inferiors, as clerks, peons, servants, peasants, low-ranking military officers and nameless jawans in the army.

Imran Khan provides several vignette from the social life of these brown sahibs in Pakistan. “In the Gymkhana and the Punjab Club in Lahore,” he writes, “Pakistanis pretended to be English. Everyone spoke English including the waiters; the men dressed in suits; we, the members’ children, watched English films while the grown-ups danced to Western music on a Saturday night (43).” At Aitchison College, where the sons of Punjab’s landed elites were trained to become brown sahibs, boys “caught speaking in Urdu during school hours were fined, despite it being the official language of Pakistan (47).” Elsewhere, he writes, “When I was a boy I remember one of my uncles asking a cousin of mine, who was wearing shalwar kameez, why he was dressed like a servant (49-50).” Asked if he could speak Urdu – I can recall – the son of leading civil servant who served during General Ayub Khan’s tenure, shot back, “Only a little, when talking to the servants.”

Led by Iqbal, Jinnah and a small band of dedicated leaders – from the various provinces of British India – the struggles and sacrifices of ordinary Muslims had created a country they had hoped would make them proud, a country that would be guided by the highest Islamic ideals of justice, a country where they would be safe, where they could prosper, a country that would be a source of strength for the Muslims they had left behind in India, a country that would offer inspiration and leadership to the Islamicate. This was not to be. Within a few years of gaining independence, the brown sahibs in Pakistan seized control over the affairs of the country. That was the beginning of Pakistan’s descent into a shameless kleptocracy in the service of foreign powers.

“Far from shaking off colonialism,” writes Imran Khan, “our ruling elite slipped into its shoes (43-44).” Our brown sahibs made no significant changes to the colonial structures developed by the British to keep their Indian subjects on a tight leash. This omission was deliberate: the intent was to keep the ‘natives’ down, to continue to smother their long-suppressed energies, to stifle their creativity. As a result, the economy that Pakistan’s elites promoted soon became dependent on foreign loans; its capitalist class built its wealth on defaulted loans; its manufacturing sector could not move too far beyond processing raw materials; the educational standards at state institutions were allowed to deteriorate so that quality education was confined to the rich; and sixty years after independence more than half the population remains illiterate.

Over time, the emerging middle classes too began to mould themselves in the image of the brown sahibs. Since Urdu or the regional languages would get them nowhere in Pakistan’s private or public sectors, they began sending their children to English schools. Under colonial rule, the Muslim middle classes had abandoned Arabic and Persian, thus losing contact with the classics of their civilization; in the sixty years since gaining nominal independence, the new generations that attended English schools have become strangers to Urdu as well. Were it not for the logic of audience ratings – most viewers do not understand English – that forced the proliferating television channels to run their programs in Urdu, spoken Urdu too would be on its way out. Nevertheless, many of the actors who play lead roles in the Urdu serials can scarcely carry on a conversation in Urdu; the credits for these serials too are often presented in English. A growing number of commercial billboards in the cities also display their Urdu slogans and jingles in Roman letters.

The style of education at Aitchison College – the elite boarding school that he attended – Imran Khan writes, transformed Pakistani students “into cheap imitations of English public school boys.” These students adopted Western sportsmen, actors and pop stars as their role models. Only much later did Imran Khan come to understand how much this “education dislocated our sense of ourselves as a nation.” A generation later, this cultural dislocation is being reproduced on a much larger scale in dozens of elite schools – all run as profit-making enterprises – that prepare their students for the Cambridge O-level and A-level exams. As a result, writes Imran Khan, “Today our English-language schools produce ‘Desi Americans’ – young kids who, though they have never been out of Pakistan, have not only perfected the American twang but all the mannerisms (including the tilt of the baseball cap) just by watching Hollywood films.” In imitation, poorer children too are deserting the state-run Urdu schools to attend poorly staffed English medium schools run out of apartments but carrying exotic labels. Some are named after Catholic saints, in a tawdry attempt to bask in the prestige of Christian missionary schools. Others carry more hilarious names. One school, less inclined to borrow the halo of Catholic saints, calls itself, Oxford and Cambridge Islamic English-Medium School. I am aware that this faux Anglicization is being driven by global forces as well, but – in the Islamic world alone – Turkey, Iran and Indonesia continue to give primacy to their national languages.

A slavish Westernization among the elites has forced Pakistan into intellectual sterility. Over the past century, these Westernized classes have produced little world-class scholarship on the country’s history or social and economic structures; their scientific production too remains mostly meager and mediocre, if not worse. Nearly all the great Muslim thinkers and writers of the previous hundred and fifty years in South Asia had received their early education in wholly or partly traditional setting; and this includes Ghalib, Hali, Syed Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, Abul Kalam Azad, Shibli Nu’mani, Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi, Saleemuzzaman Siddiqui, and Faiz, to name only a few illustrious figures from that period. Yet the growing cohorts of Western-educated Muslims since the 1900s have produced scarce any thinker or writer who could stand comparison with their predecessors. As the middle classes too increasingly submit themselves to the same shallow Westernization, this has deepened the poverty of Muslim intellect in South Asia.[2] As the shift towards Western education has drained the Madrasas of its recruits from the middle classes, this has produced another deleterious effect: the coarsening of the Islamic discourse that flows from the madrasas. Imran Khan is deeply cognizant of this intellectual malaise. “If our Westernized classes started to study Islam,” writes Imran Khan, “not only would it be able to project the dynamic spirit of Islam but also help our society fight sectarianism and extremism…How can the group that is in the best position to project Islam do so when it sees Islam through Western eyes? The most damaging aspect of the gulf between the two sections of our society is that it has stopped the evolution of both religion and culture in Pakistan (340-1).”

The coarsening of religious discourse in the West too flows in large part from similar causes: the abandonment and denigration of religion and its mystical traditions by the intellectual classes. In the West this process began with the Renaissance and the Reformation, gained strength with the Enlightenment, and reached its apogee in the nineteenth century with the launching of Darwinian evolutionalism. As a result, over the past three centuries, Christianity has increasingly adopted hard fundamentalist positions – especially in the United States – that draw their inspiration from the conquest narratives of the Old Testament not the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Over the past half century, especially, the more fundamentalist variants of Christianity have become the refuge of whites who have been marginalized by the rapid economic and social changes in the United States. They vent their anger at immigrants, blacks and Muslims, at women who take charge of their bodies, and – paradoxically – at ‘big’ government, the only institution that could help reverse their economic marginalization. Increasingly also, they have been led by Christian Zionism and Israel’s military successes to identify with Jewish colonization of Palestine. In their commitment to Israeli expansionism, these messianic Christians are more intransigent than the Israelis themselves.

5.

Imran Khan blames the Westernized elites for the Pakistan’s deepening problems. Quite early on, these elites ensured that independence would merely exchange one set of white masters for another: the Americans for the British. Unlike the British, the Americans would rule over Pakistan through local surrogates; the brown faces of these surrogates would maintain the happy illusion that Pakistanis were in control of their destiny.

Although this neocolonial relationship has seen some ups and downs, starting in the 1990s, the top echelons of Pakistan’s governments have been appointed by Washington and, accordingly, their activities are monitored and supervised by the US ambassador in Islamabad. In turn, the Pakistani rulers and their cronies use the government to capture rent, much of which is transferred to foreign bank accounts. Pakistan’s subordination to the US reached a new lows after the 9-11 attacks as the rulers – civilian and military – rented the country’s ports, highways, airspace, air bases, and, soon, its military to the US for moneys that have largely gone into private coffers.

Although Imran Khan does not spell out the manifold linkages that bind Pakistan’s corrupt rulers to the United States, he understands that Pakistan cannot move forward unless it ends its neocolonial ties to the United States. To this end, he sets himself several interrelated tasks. A Tehreek government will pull Pakistan out of America’s so-called war on terrorism; this means stopping the drone attacks on Pakistani territory, revoking all the territorial concessions General Musharraf made to the United States, and ending Pakistan’s war against its own people in Pakhtunkhwa. “Pakistan should disengage from this insane and immoral war,” writes Imran Khan (360). If this could be done, the chief factor that has been destabilizing Pakistan, pushing it to the edge of a civil war, will disappear. Pakistan’s military disengagement from the US will be followed by efforts to end Pakistan’s dependency on foreign loans to pay for government programs, much of which have been diverted to private coffers in the past.

Is all this doable? Despite the dire warnings of slanted commentators, should Pakistan withdraw from the US war against terror, it is extremely unlikely that it would face a war. At present, the US has no stomach for starting another war even as it and Israel threaten to start a war against Iran. The US will certainly stop payments of the blood money, but this should not hurt Pakistan since most of this money finds its way back where it came from. China too will oppose any US attacks against Pakistan, and will stand ready to tide Pakistan through its balance of payments difficulties.

Pakistan can gain economic independence – Imran Khan argues – by ending tax evasions; this alone will double the government’s revenues. Ending corruption at the highest levels of government, therefore, is the Tehreek’s signature policy goal. Imran Khan has sought to develop a culture opposed to corruption in his own party; the Tehreek requires the party’s office bearers to declare their assets and tax returns; it has set in motion steps to elect all office bearers to the party; it will deny the party’s ticket to anyone with a record of corruption; and, it has promised to make all elected and unelected officials accountable to an independent National Accountability Board. Ending corruption at the top – Imran Khan maintains – will banish corruption from lower levels of government. I am afraid this is a wish not a well-considered expectation. It will take a lot of hard work – a variety of administrative reforms – to push back against Pakistan’s rampant corruption.

Reforming the country’s education system is a fundamental goal of the Tehreek. The country’s three-tiered system – consisting of private English-medium schools, public schools using Urdu and local languages, and the madrasa system – is divisive. The English schools reproduce the class of brown sahibs and spread their pernicious culture to the growing middle classes; the poorly staffed and poorly equipped public schools deny the great majority of the country’s population a decent education; and the madrasas have become a welfare system for the poorest children. The plan is to replace this multi-tiered educational system, one that has perpetuated the colonial mindset, with a uniform system of education for everyone that will embrace mathematics, the natural and social sciences, and history while giving their proper place to the Pakistani languages, English, and the Islamic sciences.

Another important policy goal of the Tehreek is to create a system of local governance for Pakistan’s 50,000 villages. This will take local development funds out of the hands of politicians and put them in the hands of elected village councils, who will decide how this money is spent. They will also serve as the local government for the villages, with responsibility for maintaining municipal services, including a registry of births, deaths and marriages; and reviewing the work of local officials responsible for policing, health, irrigation, and education. In addition, like the panchayats of the pre-colonial era, the village councils will provide cheap and quick adjudication of local disputes.

Imran Khan has not articulated – at least in his book – an economic policy. Most likely, this omission is deliberate; he has had many occasions to set forth his economic policies but he has persisted in reiterating his position on a few signature issues, including corruption, lawlessness, and the betrayal of Pakistan’s , national interests by the rulers. As a result, we know very little about what policies he favors on infrastructure, industry, agriculture, urban labor, urban transportation, exports, energy, water, R&D, etc. This appears to suggest that he takes a rather Adam Smithian view of economic development. If you provide honest governance – I have heard him say this a few times – this will create the right incentives for all other matters to move in the right direction; the proverbial invisible hand will sort things out for the best. With their property rights secured, private individuals, pursuing their own interest, will generate savings, investments, innovation and, therefore, rapid economic growth. It is possible that Imran Khan has not had time to formulate policies in these areas; or he believes that the focus on a small number of core issues will best help to energize support for his party. In either case, it is this writer’s view, that he should quickly remedy this neglect. For good governance alone will not energize Pakistan’s people to become active economic agents of change. In addition, from an electoral standpoint, he is more likely to expand his support base by articulating his position on issues that are vital to the interests of workers, peasants, ordinary citizens anxious for their health, and prospective investors in Pakistan’s economy.

Certainly, better governance will be a hugely positive thing for Pakistan; it can start to reverse the ruination produced by decades of rampant corruption. But good governance alone will not lift Pakistan out of poverty nor will it produce economic miracles. Objectively considered, no one will contest the British claim that they instituted ‘good governance’ in India once the rule of the East India Company was replaced by representatives of the Crown. Nevertheless, the evidence is also clear that during their long stay in India the British produced a great deal of economic misery; unfettered British imports destroyed India’s manufactures; British capital displaced indigenous capital from the most vital areas of the economy; their destruction of indigenous educational institutions produced mass illiteracy; and they pauperized the Indians. Good governance alone will not produce economic development if that governance is not used to encourage the growth of indigenous capital, institutions, technology, education and skills. Good governance must also be used to correct past social inequities and the new ones that a capitalist system is certain to produce. If good governance is used only in support of markets and capital, it will very quickly be overthrown by the inequities produced by the capitalist system. Let us not forget that Western democracies – especially in the United States and Britain – are now mostly hollow institutions; they are tolerated by corporate leaders only because they can game these systems to perpetuate their wealth and power.

6.

Notwithstanding the surge in his popularity in the cities, what are the chances that the Tehreek, if given the chance, will be able to form the country’s next government?

If Pakistan had a presidential system of government, it is more than likely that Imran Khan would sweep the polls; the rivals that any party might place against him would look like cretins. Under Pakistan’s parliamentary system, however, he faces an uphill task. In this decentralized system, where elections have to be won in several hundred local constituencies, the Tehreek candidates will have to fight against the power of corrupt local incumbents who will use their traditional authority, their money, dirty tricks, thugs, and help from their foreign masters to defeat a challenge that threatens to end their plundering binge. Winning a majority of these local contests cannot be easy.

On his path to power, Imran Khan will have to face a showdown with several factions of Pakistan’s corrupt elites. Many top generals, bureaucrats, politicians, media barons, loan-defaulting mill-owners, journalists, television anchors, and leaders of civil society have become entangled with American interests: they have cultivated ties with various US agencies; they or their close relatives hold green cards; they or their relatives work for subsidiaries of Western corporations; they have advised or worked for Western think tanks; their NGOs have thrived on foreign funding; and they have become rich and are hungry for more. Perhaps, the corrupt elites may concede victory to the Tehreek, since they may soon engineer a return to power; but it appears more likely that they will fight back, since this will end even if temporarily the bonanza they have enjoyed since 2001.

If it appears that the Tehreek is going to win the next elections scheduled for 2013, will these elections be held or, if they are allowed to proceed, will they not be rigged to ensure the Tehreek’s defeat? Alternatively, the political parties in power may try to increase the chaos in Pakistan’s cities, and thus pave the way for a military takeover that may end Imran Khan’s political career. More simply, the CIA or some segment of the corrupt elites, or the two working together, may assassinate Imran Khan. Can Imran Khan forestall these subterfuges? None of these options are certainties, but not to anticipate them and have contingent plans to deal with them would be reckless.

The power of the corrupt elites will be hardest to dislodge in Pakistan’s rural hinterlands that are still dominated largely by traditional power barons: the landlords, dynasties of so-called pirs, and tribal chiefs. Despite his tremendous charisma and notwithstanding his populist rhetoric, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto chose the easy route to electoral victory by co-opting the traditional rural power barons. This compromise brought an easy victory but, bending to the power of these barons, Bhutto proceeded to marginalize the left block in his party. At the same time, he implemented his farcical ‘socialist’ agenda of destroying Pakistan’s nascent capitalist class; he seized and handed over their industries, banks and even schools to the stalwarts in his party. Imran Khan too is aware of the handicap he faces in a parliamentary system; and – on a smaller scale so far – he too has opened leadership positions in his party to the old power barons. This compromise is certain to alienate the old workers in his party, but it also carries the more serious risk of alienating the young voters who have pinned their hopes for change on the Tehreek’s commitment to establish a just order in Pakistan. The propagandists of the old order are already hammering home this point. It does not inspire confidence when the Tehreek takes a strong stand against drone strikes but appoints a former foreign minister – who supported these strikes during his tenure – as the vice-chairman of his party.

Imran Khan’s defense of these compromises is not convincing. These old politicians – he parries – are welcome to join his party but he will vet them for corruption before he awards them the party’s tickets to the national and provincial assemblies. If the Tehreek cannot win the rural constituencies without enlisting the local power barons, he will have to embrace many more of their kind. Should he do this, however, he will surrender his chief strength – the unwavering commitment to reform the old order. Once the scions of the traditional political families begin to fill his party – even if they look less corrupt than others – the Tehreek cannot implement the reforms that will hurt the economic and political interests of this class of people.

Aware of these risks, Imran Khan is seeking to strengthen his hand by organizing his base, consisting of younger voters. He has launched a drive to register them as members of the Tehreek. Once the membership rolls are ready, he promises that they will elect their local, regional and national leaders. It is a formidable undertaking; it has never been done by any party other than the Jamat-e-Islami that restricts membership to practicing Muslims. If the Tehreek succeeds in this endeavor, this may begin to alter the dynamics of power at the local levels. As a grass-roots party with a strong organization, it could stand up more effectively against the power of the local barons. This will reduce the need to bring these rural barons into the party; the Tehreek could use them selectively to win a few seats in districts where its support base is weakest.

The Tehreek has a chance to extend its populist appeal to the rural areas with its plan to institute thousands of elected village councils. This is the only program that carries the prospect of mobilizing the peasants behind the Tehreek, but for this populist appeal to take roots, the party has to do two things. It must ensure that the rural population hears about this program and understands the benefits it can bring to them. More importantly, the Tehreek has to come up with a plan to assure the rural poor that these village councils will not be captured by the local power barons. How is this to be done? If the party members can be organized at the level of the villages, they can pit their organized strength against the bullying of the local thugs. The Tehreek should also create mobile brigades of young idealist college students who will be ready to travel and deploy to the villages to support – with their disciplined but non-violent presence – the rural poor during the elections to the village councils. The elections can be staggered to ensure that these college volunteers are available at the village elections. In addition, these elections should be held only after the Tehreek has had time to reform the police force.

Since it began drawing crowds, its rivals have accused the Tehreek of receiving support from the ‘establishment,’ a code word for the security agencies working under the umbrella of the Pakistan army. This is a smear. The Tehreek’s support has grown because the people can see more plainly than before their country being pushed ever closer to the brink by the unbridled corruption of their rulers: and they see Imran as their only real chance of reversing their country’s slide into chaos. The Tehreek should continue to distance itself from any material assistance of the security agencies, but I hope that that it enjoys the tacit support of the mid-level and junior officers and the jawans in the military, who cannot be too happy at having to kill other Pakistanis and whose lives were sacrificed by the military leadership so that they and the civilians leaders could collect blood money from the United States. In 1996, the Pakistan army faced a spate of desertions from its ranks as they were asked to fight the Afghan resistance and their Pakistani hosts. Although these desertions were contained, it cannot be doubted that resentment still simmers in the army’s rank and file against the military leadership for their readiness to do the bidding of the United States for pecuniary gain. One hopes that as the Tehreek ratchets its campaign, it will work in subtle ways to win the esteem of the rank and file in Pakistan’s army. The knowledge that their own rank and file have their eyes on their backs will restrain the generals who may want to extend their profitable partnership with the United States.

The Tehreek should also send out signals – convincing signals – that it has a second arrow in its quiver. It must let Pakistanis know that it is ready to mobilize its ranks for more forceful action if the corrupt political elites will use dirty tricks to extend their corruption binge for another five years. Pakistan cannot survive another five years of their depredations. In times of crisis – and has Pakistan faced a greater crisis than it does now – the movement to save the country must be ready to proceed along two tracks: change through the electoral process but if that is obstructed the people must be ready to bring down the corrupt rulers through massive and sustained but non-violent protests. Victory only comes to those who are prepared to broaden their democratic struggle if change becomes impossible through the ballot box.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2010).
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From among our many wounds
May 2, 2012
By Shahzad Chaudhry

On April 26, the Supreme Court reached a landmark decision in the matter of the prime minister’s alleged contempt of court. The verdict left behind in its wake, the perennial debate on whether it was really a ‘landmark’ verdict or not. There is no doubt that the prime minister was indeed convicted, but he was given a very light sentence. By now, anyone who has followed this case and its aftermath, is well schooled in 63 (1) (g), 63(2) and 63(3) — the roadmap that will lead to the prime minister’s removal from the hallowed office he occupies. The Court gave due consideration to the mitigating consequences of 63 (1) (g), the most debilitating clause in announcing the light sentence. The Court does not mention 63(2) and 63(3) in the short order; these are the analytical addendums that show the Court’s implicit intent.

The experts have called this a ‘smart’ verdict. Those adept at reading between the lines point to the denial of an opportunity to the PPP, and especially to the PM, to seek judicial martyrdom which could then have become the emotional basis for recourse to a sympathy vote in the forthcoming elections. Given its abysmal performance in government, the PPP is once again rekindling its victim status to paper over its all-round failure through emotive diversions. The agitation in Sindh following the judgment was a reflection of this. The misplaced reaction lacked relevance since the PPP itself was still unsure whether to treat the verdict as a relative success — the PM had escaped jail — or another knot in a tightening noose with the PM’s likely disqualification looming.

The verdict was also considered ‘smart’ because the Court avoided an explicit manifestation of it becoming a party to the removal of an increasingly tainted PM, whose family has been besieged by an unending saga of corruption cases. In an equally smart move, anticipating the tightening noose around the PM, the PPP has raised the bogey of both the military and the judiciary as its feared protagonists, forcing both these institutions to handle all matters such as this one with care. The fact that the government is perceived to have been involved in rampant corruption, has led to serious disappointment among the people at the lax punishment given to the PM, notwithstanding the fact that any sentence given to him would have had the same effect. The people wanted retribution for the perceived excesses of their chief executive and found the courts wanting.

The desired game plan for the government’s detractors from here on is for the speaker of the National Assembly to follow through with the disqualification clause under 63(2), which would then set in motion clause 63(3) to be implemented by the election commission. But what if the speaker does not see any ‘question’ arising on the PM’s status? Accepting a loss is as much a mental disposition as it is a tangible reality. If questions are raised on the neutrality of the umpires, a loss may never be acknowledged. Mostly in such cases, one team walks off; the difficulty here is that team PPP is not willing to walk off!

The next best bet for the government’s detractors would be to hope that the opposition — the PML-N, the PTI and others — forces the government’s hand to act on the Court’s implicit order to send Mr Gilani home. However, Nawaz Sharif may have other complications to sort out before he is ready to bring the edifice down. Until any of this happens, the convicted PM is here to stay.

Here are a few points for the Court to consider: trying to avoid facing difficult consequences and unwilling to carry out justice to its logical end is patently escapist. When the judges were reinstituted on the back of a popular movement, they became messiahs for the average Pakistani who pinned his hopes on the Chief Justice and his colleagues. I am afraid that the Court has fallen short in its first real test. It is equally pertinent to suggest that when pronouncements are moulded to suit the prevalent environment, they may lead to the rebirth of a tacit doctrine of necessity.

I agree with those who have handed round one to the government. It has been a case of paani vich madhani (churning the waters without consequence) as far as the courts are concerned.

-The Express Tribune
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Our sad history
May 3, 2012
By Rasul Bakhsh Rais

The decision of the apex court of Pakistan to convict an incumbent prime minister on charges of contempt of court and sentencing him ‘till the rising of the court’ is more than symbolic. It should be regarded among those decisions in our history, which generated great political consequences rather than resolve them. The modern court system is based on the philosophy of resolving social conflicts, maintaining order and disciplining society by interpreting established laws. The role of the Supreme Court, however, is much larger on two counts. It is the Court of final resort, as well as the final interpreter of what established law entails.

In any democratic system, the courts must have the highest regard, respect, and support of the government and that of society at large. What earns them societal respect is their degree of fairness, independence, courage and the ability to stay above social and political divides. Courts and societies give energy to each other, progress together and complement each other — one provides support and the other justice.

Sadly, this is not how things have worked in our history. The courts and the society in Pakistan’s crisis-ridden political history have not worked out that relationship. They found each other on opposite sides when the Supreme Court threw its weighty justice on the side of political adventurers, usurpers and violators of the Constitution. The law of necessity and the law of popular sovereignty, which assigns power to the people, have been in natural conflict. In the past, courts have sanctified the law of necessity, giving legitimacy to usurpers and on the opposite side, the people of Pakistan have put faith in their representatives and parliament.

Being on opposite sides, the courts and society could not build a congenial relationship that could benefit both, and ultimately could have provided better safeguards for democracy, fundamental rights and civil liberties. The courts would have then equipped themselves, not only with raw legal power, but also with social power and political respect.

This did not happen until Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry stood up to General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. His conversion, from conferring legitimacy upon Musharraf by taking oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order more than six years earlier, to an independent chief justice, surprised and shocked the military ruler. Musharraf humiliated him, locked him and his family up and went on to recreate a pliant Supreme Court to support him. Look at the magical and dramatic effect of saying no to a military ruler on the public — the chief justice became a national hero, all political parties, except those sharing power with Musharraf, launched a national movement and never rested until the old judiciary was restored.

That is the only time when we saw the judiciary and the society in Pakistan united, and that raised hopes for democracy and constitutionalism. I do not wish to comment on the merit of the contempt of court case. That is the job of legal experts. The point I am trying to make is that when a court makes an unprecedented decision of convicting a prime minister for not implementing one of its orders — writing a letter to Swiss courts to open cases against President Asif Ali Zardari — which the prime minister thought was not politically possible for him to implement, it will produce political consequences for the Court and the political order.

Had we not had the history of the Court and the people having conflicting positions, perhaps the effects of the judgment against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani would not have gone beyond inflicting personal pain and a political setback for him. Now, however, we may see the political community divided along partisan lines, and the PPP mobilising its constituency on the victimhood card. This may not augur well for the Court-society relationship.

-The Express Tribune
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Politics of animosity
May 3, 2012
By: Azam Khalil

“The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.”

– Lowell

Collective wisdom demands that one must learn from past mistakes, but Pakistani politicians refuse to do so. When the PPP government came into power after the 2008 elections, it had the opportunity to steer Pakistan out of its multiple crisis. Keeping this in view, the government and the opposition joined hands in a coalition set-up, providing some relief to the people. But as things unfolded, both parties overlooked the Charter of Democracy signed by them and fell apart, creating despondency and confusion amongst the masses.

Mian Nawaz Sharif, however, showed political sagacity when he refused to toe the line of the hawks in his party, who advocated outright confrontation with the government in Islamabad. It seems that these stalwarts preach that the PML-N thrives in confrontation. The policy adopted by Nawaz Sharif was criticised by the detractors of PML-N, who accused its Chief of being a ‘friendly opposition’, rather than playing the role of a ‘viable and vibrant opposition’.

At the same time, the PPP-led government displayed political maturity when it made developmental funds available for its political opponents allowing them to function. It also accomplished some landmark achievements such as reaching consensus on the issue of National Finance Commission, or NFC, and passing of the 18th, 19th and 20th Amendments laying the groundwork to strengthen democracy. However, with the elections now less than one year away, politics has returned to the old ways where difference of opinion and personal animosity are borderline cases. The mudslinging between the PPP and PML-N belies the understanding that the politicians have finally matured in Pakistan.

The shouting matches between the leaders of the two mainstream parties started after the Supreme Court verdict, which adjudicated that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is guilty of contempt of court because he disobeyed the order to write a letter to the Swiss authorities in a case related to the NRO. While the right of appeal is available to the government and a decision that may or may not be overturned by the court, the opposition parties have gone for the jugular of PPP.

In essence, they have jumped the gun. In response, several PPP ministers have come out in the open and levelled extremely serious charges against PML-N’s top leadership. This debate was, it seems, initiated by the Opposition Leader of National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who declared: “The Prime Minister will not be allowed to enter the Assembly hall.” According to him, Mr Gilani was disqualified after the court verdict.

In the meantime, the government came out with its own version declaring that it was the prerogative of the Speaker National Assembly and the Election Commission of Pakistan to declare whether an MNA is disqualified or not. Anyway, it would have been better, if the opposition had waited for the outcome of the appeal that the government intends to file before the Supreme Court to review the decision of Mr Gilani’s case. Therefore, the premature reaction by it has ignited a chain reaction ringing alarm bells about the country’s security. The politicians must remember that if they continue with this attitude, the time may not be far when there is an early demise of democracy that would add to the problems already being faced by the country. Therefore, the country’s political leadership must play a positive role to save the system before it is too late!

Charge sheets are being distributed by the PPP and PML-N leaders against one another to the satisfaction of those who do not want the people’s will to prevail. It will be a pity, if conditions deteriorate to an extent where the country falls a prey to yet another military intervention. Some may think that this is a farfetched proposition, but history reveals that military dictators have intervened on much lesser issues than those that confront Pakistan today.

One hopes that sanity will prevail and the government and the opposition, as well as other state organs, will not only strictly follow the Constitution of Pakistan, but also ensure that they do not encroach upon the others’ jurisdiction. At present, it seems that some state organs are not strictly following the Constitution. And there is an effort by design to acquire the powers of other institutions that are not within their constitutional domain.

As far as the political leadership is concerned, it must remember that the major responsibility for the country’s progress and prosperity rests on its shoulders. It is advisable for the political leaders to refrain from mudslinging that will do no good to this country. Instead it will complicate an already fragile situation, ruin the economy and create conditions where political parties may become irrelevant in Pakistan. So, it is the duty of the top leaders of all political parties to stop their members from indulging in activities that are deterimental to the country’s vital national interests.

To achieve this purpose, it is the government’s duty to invite the opposition parties to sit together and draw a plan where a political code of conduct is agreed upon and then enforced, which will lead to a peaceful transition from one democratically-elected government to the other without much hassle. Otherwise, political parties and their leadership will be the first ones to bear the brunt in case democracy is booted out of the country once again!

The writer has been associated with various newspapers as editor and columnist. At present, he hosts a political programme on Pakistan Television.

Email: zarnatta@hotmail.com
-The Nation
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A looming crisis

Nasim Ahmed


It was one of the most dramatic moments in Pakistan's political and judicial history. It was an awe inspiring spectacle as a sitting prime minister was called to the Supreme Court to hear in person the judgment in the contempt of court case against him that had lingered on for more than two months, keepimg the whole nation riveted in a state of nerve-racking tension.

After a long, hard and abrasive legal battle that the PM had fought through his lawyer who spared no trick in his bag to deflect attention from the main issue, the moment of truth finally came as the seven judges constituting the special bench entered the court room to announce their verdict. The silence was deafening as Justice Nasirul Mulk announced the unanimous verdict: the Prime Minister was guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to detention till the rising of the court. The punishment was symbolic, but its underlying message was unmistakable.

The short order read: "For the reasons to be recorded later, the accused Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan/Chief Executive of the federation, is found guilty of, and convicted for, contempt of court, under Article 204 (2) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, read with Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance (Ordinance 5 of 2003) for wilful flouting, disregard and disobedience of this court's direction contained in paragraph number 178 of the judgment delivered in the case of Dr. Mubashir Hasan versus the Federation of Pakistan (PLD 2010 SC 265). After our satisfaction that the contempt committed by him is substantially detrimental to the administration of justice and tends to bring this court and the judiciary of this country into ridicule.

2. As regards the sentence to be passed against the convict, we note that the findings and the conviction for contempt of court recorded above are likely to entail some serious consequences in terms of Article 63 (1) (g) of the Constitution which may be treated as mitigating factors towards the sentence to be passed against him. He is, therefore, punished under Article 5 of the contempt of court ordinance (ordinance 5 of 2003) with imprisonment till the rising of the court today."

The verdict, which drew instant reactions both from the supporters and opponents of the government, exposed a deep cleavage in the national polity as well as confirmed that the ruling party is in no mood to abandon its confrontationist policy against the judiciary. Immediately after coming out of the courtroom the Prime Minister termed the judgment as inappropriate, while the Law Minister, underlining the government's official policy in the National Assembly, said that despite being convicted for contempt of court, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will continue to hold the premier's post. Playing on the judiciary vs. Parliament theme, he also meaningfully added that the Speaker had the final prerogative to decide Gilani's fate. Addressing NA Speaker Dr. Fehmida Mirza he said: "You are the final arbitrator." Attorney General Irfan Qadir said the verdict was "unconstitutional and unlawful", while the Premier's lawyer described the Supreme Court's verdict as "beyond the scope" of the charges framed against him.

Following the conviction of the Prime Minister a dispute has arisen in the country over whether the Prime Minister stands disqualified or not. The government holds fast to the view that verdict has not affected Gilani's position as Prime Minister, but many constitutional experts are of the opinion that under Article 63 (1) (g) of the Constitution he is disqualified from holding public office and should resign as prime minister.

Under the rules, the Speaker of the National Assembly has 30 days to decide on a disqualification move while the Election Commission a further 90 days, which means that the premier can remain in office for four more months. The government also has a time limit of 30 days to file an appeal against the judgment.

On the basis of its past record as well as its latest statements, the government seems in no mood to act on the apex court's order in letter and spirit and will use various legal and procedural tactics to delay matters. But in doing so it will be playing on a very slippery wicket as it cannot go on indefinitely defying the Supreme Court without facing the consequences.

The threat of a new political and constitutional crisis looms large in the country as the main opposition parties, including the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami and Tehrik-e-Insaf, have in one voice called upon PM Gilani to step down in deference to the apex court's order. In their opinion, the PPP government has lost its moral authority to rule, and the only way out of the mess is to hold new elections. If the government remains adamant, they may file a new petition in the Supreme Court for the disqualification of the PM as well as launch a street agitation to force the government out of power. The nation must brace for stormy and uncertain days ahead.

-Cuttingedge
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Conviction and its aftermath

Raza Khan

After the conviction of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for contempt of court, for shunning its orders and ridiculing the apex court decisions, the political atmosphere in the country has changed a great deal.

The change is as welcome as a breath of fresh air for some while unacceptable to others, although there is no doubt that by invoking Article 63. 1 (G) of the Constitution while convicting Prime Minister Gillani, the latter has been disqualified from holding public office or being a public representative.

Now, it is up to Pakistan People's Party’s (PPP) high command to decide what course it will take after the disqualification of its prime minister. The only option with the party seems to be to bring a new prime minister, but this may not be a cakewalk either.

The reason is that the PPP does not have a simple majority in the National Assembly. Even with its core allies, including the Awami National Party (ANP) or, to a certain extent, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the PPP is well short of a majority of 171 National Assembly votes in a house of 342. Already the MQM seemed to be ambivalent when its leader Haider Abbas Rizvi told journalists, after the prime minister's conviction, that for his party on the one hand is the respect of judiciary and on the other hand consolidating democracy.

This is a meaningful statement. The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) joined the PPP government for the very personal reason of saving the skin of Moonis Elahi in a corruption scandal. As the PPP government played a significant role in making a case against Moonis Elahi and then used it as an arm-twisting tactic to bring the PML-Q into the ruling coalition fold, the latter may take the opportunity by the forelock to get out of this blackmailing.
However, by joining the government, the PML-Q also saved the party from total disappearing as perks and privileges of the government kept many parliamentarians of PML-Q hanging around its leaders, the Chaudhris of Gujrat.
Sensing the situation slipping out of the hands of the PPP, the parliamentarians from FATA may also bid adieu to the government pulling the rug from under the feet of the government. Moreover, if the government decides to defy the Supreme Court and Prime Minister Gillani continues to serve as prime minister, in this way he would not have any locus standi and his executive actions deemed devoid of legality.

Such a stand by the government would create a legal-constitutional crisis. In such a scenario, the Supreme Court's orders would be violated; therefore, under the constitution, the judges of the SCP can ask the executive authority of the state to come to its assistance to enforce its decisions. It may be mentioned that the military is part of this executive authority of the state and thus bound to come to the assistance of the Supreme Court to enforce its decisions. Keeping in view the history of Pakistan, in which the Army has always acted as a final arbiter to determine the rulership of the country, history may repeat itself.

However, much would depend upon the opposition parties that how they act in this extraordinary situation in which the chief executive of the country has been convicted and no more has de jure powers. There is a possibility that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) would resign from the National Assembly to use the constitutional and political crisis to its advantage. If the PML-N acts in such a manner, the situation would go absolutely out of the PPP's hand and the party would not be able to keep its government afloat.

The PML-N has the support of around 90 MNAs and if they resign en masse it would be impossible to hold bye-elections on such a large number of seats when the existing parliament is a few months from completing its five-year term. The PML-N, if it decides not to leave the NA, the PPP may get a lease of life and may be able to complete its tenure. According to a KP minister belonging to the PPP, who wished not to be named, the party high command wants to hold elections in March next year and not before that. It means that the party would like to complete its constitutional tenure.

However, the most important question is what PML-N would gain if the PPP is able to complete its tenure? The party will gain something. For instance, the PML-N government in the Punjab would also be simultaneously completing its tenure. This will give political advantages to the party. On the other hand, the PML-N would also gain applause from democratic quarters for not playing any role in derailing democracy.

But the situation would be very perilous for the PML-N. By not delivering a final blow to the PPP government the PML-N would also lose its credibility and there is a possibility that it would lose more of its political constituency to the rising Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Because as long as the PPP rules and there are no fresh elections, the PTI would get more time to reorganize the party, which it is currently doing. Late elections suit both the PPP and PTI, but not the PML-N. For the PPP, late elections means an opportunity to give more government jobs, initiate more developmental schemes and announce more concessions and relief to the public in the final months of its rule, which has been unprecedented for bad governance and inflation.

The PTI has already announced to launch a Long-March if the PPP defies the SCP conviction of the prime minister in the contempt case. If the PML-N does not resign from the NA, the PTI Long March is more likely. Given the current popularity level of the PTI and the unpopularity of the government, and general dissatisfaction within the masses, any future PTI Long March could gather a lot of steam. This would further boost the prospects of the PTI to win the next elections. For this very reason, the PTI may launch a Long March. So the coming weeks and months are full of uncertainty and peril, but hopefully democracy and the system would not become the victim of petty political interests.

-Cuttingedge
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Pakistan in turmoil after the SC’s historic verdict
Faheem Amir


Pakistan has become a place where many important, troubling and tragic things are happening every day. Karachi and Balochistan are bleeding continuously. Sectarian killings have started again. The Lahore bomb blast has broken the lull in violence in Punjab. The entire nation is in despair after the Bhoja airline crash and the Siachen tragedy.

There is no end to the prolonged load shedding and energy shortfall. The people are launching protests against unemployment, soaring prices, non-payment of salaries and the poor law and order situation throughout the country. In these testing times, the Supreme Court's verdict, on April 27, against PM Gilani has triggered turmoil in Pakistan.

The Supreme Court has made history by convicting the PM, for the first time in Pakistani history, in a contempt of court case. A seven-member bench, headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk, also ordered the prime minister's imprisonment until the rising of the court, which lasted 32 seconds. The court passed two orders, one in which the prime minister was convicted and the other regarding release from the sentence.

"The respondent (PM) appeared in person along with his counsel. The order was passed in the open court. After that, the convict remained in the custody of the court till his release upon rising of the court," the order said.
"For the reasons to be recorded later, the accused, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan and chief executive of the federation, is found guilty and convicted for contempt of court under Article 204(2) of the constitution read with Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003, for willful flouting, disregard and disobedience of this court's direction contained in paragraph 178 of the NRO judgement, after our satisfaction that the contempt committed by him is substantially detrimental to the administration of justice and tends to bring this court and the judiciary of this country into ridicule," Justice Nasirul Mulk said.

The order further says, "The conviction for contempt of court ... are likely to entail some serious consequences in terms of Article 63(1)(g) of the constitution, which may be treated as mitigating factors towards the sentence to be passed against him (PM)." Article 63(1)(g) says, "A person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament), if .... he defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary or the Armed Forces of Pakistan, unless a period of five years has elapsed since his release.

"As regards the sentence to be passed against the convict, we note that the findings and the conviction for contempt of court recorded above are likely to entail some serious consequences in terms of Article 63(1)(g) of the constitution which may be treated as mitigating factors towards the sentence to be passed against him. He is, therefore, punished under Article 5 of the contempt of court ordinance (ordinance 5 of 2003) with imprisonment till the rising of the court today," the court said in its order.

After the bench had announced its decision, Aitzaz requested it to give him some time to give his submissions but the court ignored his request. Aitzaz said, "The court has gone beyond the scope of charges framed against the PM on February 13." He claimed the prime minister has been convicted of allegedly scandalising the court.

With this conviction, Pakistan has plunged into a new political crisis, as a debate about the eligibility of Gilani as prime minister has started in the country.

Some political leaders, thinkers, lawyers and constitution experts are of the view that PM Gilani should step down immediately after this conviction.
The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N)'s leader Nawaz Sharif said that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani should step down after being convicted by the Supreme Court (SC).

Talking to a TV channel, Nawaz said that the premier should resign from his office and pave the way for a new PM. "In light of the (SC) verdict, I think PM Gilani should resign immediately rather than prolonging the issue." The former PM said that his party would no longer accept him as the PM and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) should introduce a non-controversial caretaker PM. He suggested that the government should hold elections immediately and appoint a neutral PM who would write the letter to the Swiss authorities. "If the government is willing, the PML-N would support a caretaker set up for the federal and provincial governments."

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)'s Chairman Imran Khan said, "Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani should step down immediately. If he will not obey the law, why will anyone else in the country?" He said it was a historic day for the courts when they had indicted a powerful person. It was the first time that the rulers of the country had been brought to justice, he said, adding that the ruling elites had joined together to defy the law. He warned that his party would march towards Islamabad if the government defied the Supreme Court verdict regarding the prime minister's conviction.

While Law and Justice Minister Farooq H Naek told the National Assembly that Yousaf Raza Gilani is still the prime minister and will remain so, as the Supreme Court had not disqualified him. "Prime Minister has not been disqualified. He is the prime minister and will remain the prime minister," Naek commented concluding his speech in the House.

On April 27, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said nobody could remove him from his office except the Speaker. Addressing the National Assembly, he said, "Am I not an elected Prime Minister? Do I not represent 180 million people of Pakistan? Nobody can remove me from the office of Prime Minister except you Madam Speaker.

"If the Parliament denotifies me, I will be honoured. This is up to the custodian of the House," Gilani said.

Taking on the key opposition party PML-N, its leadership and Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the Prime Minister said, "They cannot act like God. We have majority in both the Houses of the Parliament. They (Nawaz, Shahbaz and Nisar) should respect others. I challenge them if they have courage, they should move a no confidence motion against me," Gilani asserted.

The United States also said it continues to work with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and believes he remains leader of the Pakistani democratic government.

"There was a court decision, he was given a 30 second sentence, I believe, and he remains the prime minister of Pakistan... And, as such, we continue to work with him and Ambassador Grossman did meet with him in Pakistan," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said

In response to Gilani's statements, Nawaz Sharif urged Yousaf Raza Gilani to immediately step down as prime minister, otherwise, he would face 'unexpected results'. Nawaz Sharif said Gilani had violated his oath by remaining loyal to Zardari instead of the Constitution. "Pakistan is running without a prime minister since Thursday morning," he said and added that all the decisions and acts of the prime minister and the federal cabinet were illegal and unconstitutional. The former prime minister said that his party had many options to get its demands fulfilled, adding that the N-league would protest in and outside the Parliament.

The PTI leader Imran Khan said on Twitter: "After SC judgment PM has lost whatever shred of legal and moral authority he had. He must resign immed."
"Who will follow court orders if the government doesn't?" says Mehmood-ul-Hassan, president of the Karachi Bar Association. "What kind of a message are we sending internationally - that we have a convicted PM holding office?"

Talking to the Independent, Raza Rumi, an analyst, said: "It is unlikely the PM will step down until the appeal is settled. The court has not disqualified him, which involves a legal procedure, and it may take up to four months to complete. However, there is increased pressure from media and the opposition for him to step down. Pakistan's political uncertainty will hamper its foreign policy and more importantly the economy."

BBC News writes about the verdict: "Many believe that through its order on Thursday, the court has tried to put an end to an increasingly difficult situation and has left the matter of Gilani's disqualification to others, whoever they might be - the parliament, the media, the political opposition".
Some thinkers and newspapers say that this verdict has made the judiciary controversial.

Daily Times writes in its editorial: "Instead, ever since the restoration of the judiciary in 2009, the latter's assertion of 'independence' and 'judicial activism' has more often than not led it into controversy, a divisive factor in legal and public circles. However the present case of the contempt conviction of the PM turns out, perhaps the verdict has opened the floodgates of making the judiciary more controversial than ever in our history and diluting the universal respect that should be its due".

The PPP and its allied parties have already launched protests against the court's verdict through out the country on April 28. The PPP' supporters could be incited in coming days by their leaders.

The aforementioned developments categorically say that PM Yousaf's conviction has triggered turmoil in the country, which is already struggling with major economic and security challenges amid tense US-Pak relations. A two-year-long tug-of-war between the judiciary and Pakistan People's Party-led government has not yet ended with this conviction. A fierce battle between the PPP, the judiciary and opposition parties is expected in the near future, which will add to the miseries of the common people and push Pakistan rapidly towards chaos.

-Cutting
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A separate constitutional court?
By Sufyan Rana
Published: May 4, 2012

The writer is a solicitor advocate and director of Azmi-Rana Solicitors in Manchester, UK

By any barometer, the events of April 26, 2012, were seismic. The Supreme Court of Pakistan held that Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, was guilty of contempt of court — under Article 204 (2) of the Constitution and Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance — and should be punished with imprisonment till the rising of the court, under Section 5 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance.

Two very serious questions are to be determined. First, does the conviction disqualify the prime minister? Second, if so, is sanction automatic or does it require a further constitutional step by the speaker or chair of the National Assembly?

In order to be eligible for the office of the prime minister, the candidate first must be a member of the National Assembly. Accordingly, whilst the prime minister can only be removed through a vote of no confidence, a member of the National Assembly may be subjected to the rigorous requirements of Article 63 which outlines twelve grounds on which a member of Parliament can be disqualified, one of which is that if he has been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction of (an act) which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary.

In order for the prime minister to be eligible for that office, he first needs to be a member of the National Assembly. If his membership of the National Assembly is subject to disqualification then he is ineligible to be prime minister. The question, therefore, is not whether the order of the learned judges disqualifies the prime minister but whether it disqualifies him from being a member of the National Assembly. There is no doubt that on an initial reading of the short order — particularly the summary of the learned judges that the judiciary has brought in to ridicule — that provisions of Article 63(1)(g) automatically kicked in.

Once the ground for disqualification is established, the question to consider is whether the sanction is automatic or whether it requires an additional constitutional step. The answer to that is somewhat debatable. Article 63(2) states that if any question arises whether a member of parliament has become disqualified from being a member, the speaker or the chairman shall, unless they decide that no such question has arisen, refer the question to the Election Commission within 30 days.

The phrase “any question” is curious for it is capable of having multiple meanings, all of which are capable of further examination. It is capable of denoting that Article 63(3) should only be invoked in the event of there being any doubt about disqualification as well as denoting that it can also be invoked if there is any issue (whether it is beyond doubt or not). If the earlier interpretation is applied, then Article 63(1)(g) leaves no room for doubt and the prime minister is automatically disqualified. However, if the latter interpretation is applied, then disqualification is not automatic and the matter has to be referred to the Election Commission for the final opinion. However, before such a referral is made, the speaker or chairman has the right to consider that no such question — disqualification or no disqualification — has arisen. It is unclear what factors form the basis of this consideration but clearly, judgments — in this instance a Supreme Court decision — can be reviewed and, if necessary, ignored.

In short, and notwithstanding the clarity of Article 63(1)(g), the speaker or chairman may exercise such an option and not refer the matter to the Election Commission on the basis that no such question has arisen. Whilst this is unlikely, it is not beyond the realms of legal possibility. Accordingly, whilst such an important issue as this should be determined by a court, it is entirely within the ambit of the Speaker or Chairman of the Assembly to take a different view. What the current crisis has made clear is that it is now time for Pakistan to look to establish a separate Constitutional Court which looks solely at how the constitution is to be interpreted.

-The Express Tribune
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The prime minister’s contempt case

By Nafisa Shah
Published: May 4, 2012

The writer is an MNA and the Central Coordinator of the PPP Human Rights Cell

The prime minister’s (PM’s) contempt of court case is the first case where both, the justice system and its administration under Article 10A of the Constitution, will be tested. Indeed, the entire public discourse on the Yousaf Raza Gilani case revolves around how the courts follow the legal and procedural requirements of a fair trial. The fair trial principle, embodying due process, is a cornerstone of the common law system and recently, in Pakistan, has received a new impetus as it has been made a part of the most crucial aspect of the Constitution: fundamental rights.

The 1973 Constitution guarantees all citizens equality before the law. In the Eighteenth Amendment, the 1973 Constitution has not only been restored to its original shape but has also been strengthened, especially in the case of the fundamental rights chapter where three provisions have been included; Article 25A: Right to Education, Article 19A: Right to Information, Article 10A: Right to fair trial.

The fundamental law has an overriding effect on all laws, as the Constitution states that: “Any law, or any custom or usage having the force of law, insofar as it is inconsistent with the rights conferred by this chapter, shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void.” The fundamental rights chapter is safeguarded by the superior judiciary; an essential area where the higher courts exercise original jurisdiction.

The newly introduced Article 10A reads: “For the determination of his civil rights and obligations or in any criminal charge against him, a person shall be entitled to a fair trial and due process.”

This makes fair trial an inviolable principle of the law of our land. The right to a fair trial is also an essential part of the international human rights law and includes: the right to be notified of charges in a timely manner, the right to adequate time for the preparation of a defence, the right of the accused to defend him or herself, the right to a counsel chosen by the accused and the right to communicate privately with the counsel and, most importantly, the right to appeal to a higher court. More recently, the role of the media in depriving the accused of the right to a fair hearing has been under debate, especially in the India, where judges are now considering devising a code of ethics for media reporting in such cases.

In some common law countries, the principle of fair trial has been considered the very method through which courts control their own processes and procedures. Ensuring that the court’s processes are fair to the citizens is a more intrinsic a principle to protect and uphold than declaring someone guilty or innocent. In other words, the means are more important than the end itself.

I am sure that the proceedings of this case will be observed with interest by the legal community, the human rights community but, most importantly, by every citizen of Pakistan to whom Article 10A applies for due process of the law.

The political parties demanding the resignation of the PM seem to be overlooking the fact that the trial is not yet over, notwithstanding the short order of the Supreme Court. At this stage, the Supreme Court has invoked its original jurisdiction, which means that there are further steps before the trial will be deemed complete. The Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003 Section 19(iii) allows the prime minister this right; “in the case of an original order passed by a single judge or a bench of two judges of the Supreme Court an intra-court appeal shall lie to a bench of three judges and in case the original order was passed by a bench of three or more judges an intra-court appeal shall lie to a bench of five or more judges.” The PM has the right to appeal once the full judgment is received; after this, he has the right to review the judgment once it has been given. Only after the right of review is completed and he is declared guilty can the disqualification process start. In effect, the PM has served his sentence without receiving a copy of the full judgment, which is a procedural flaw and has been noted by the legal community. In any conviction judgment, whether of 30 seconds, three months or three years, the convicted party has a right to receive the full text, explaining reasoning of the court, so that the defence may take the process of the appeal forward.

That the conviction sentence has already been served complicates the argument but there is still no legal ground on the basis of which some political parties are demanding his resignation. The PM has not – as yet – been convicted on moral turpitude, giving false evidence, or for absconding, as are the basis of eligibility for elections to the parliament, in the Conduct of General Elections Order 2002.

It has also been pointed out that Prime Minister was charged with disobeying the court — a civil contempt and not ridiculing it, which constitutes judicial contempt. All defence witnesses presented argued on the court charge of the civil contempt. However, the short judgment has invoked Article 63 1g, a constitutional provision for scandalising the court, for which he was not charged. Punishing the prime minister for a charge that was not clearly stated and, therefore, not defended has raised questions of due process and fair trial procedure. As the ancient legal maxim holds “No person shall be condemned unheard”. And now voices are already being raised on whether this is happening in the case of a citizen who also happens to be the prime minister and enjoys the support of the majority of this nation.

-The Express Tribune
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When the going gets tough…
May 5, 2012
Abbas Nasir

WHENEVER politics in Pakistan hits choppy waters conspiracy theorists come into their own, clarity becomes a victim, all of us struggle to find the truth and get obsessed with the ‘nuance’.

But who’d blame our tribe? How are we expected to provide lucidity to a discourse when many of us have contributed to the chaotic scenario staring us in the face? Whether our role was spurred by competitive pressures or ideological considerations is immaterial quite frankly.

If you are struggling to make sense of a single word so far, my future as an analyst, as a soothsayer, is as secure as that of the chief of army staff. I am embarrassed to concede there was the temptation to say the elected prime minister.

But by the time this appears in print, who knows, the detailed verdict may be out giving short shrift to my analysis. That would spell disaster for my career as someone whose ‘reliable and respected’ insight allows some readers to help understand complex issues and the writer to pay the bills.

Does this mean, I can afford to hold my piece (yeah, yeah I know the spelling) till the final verdict or till the first tank appears on Islamabad’s famed Constitution Avenue, aptly termed Eighth Amendment Avenue all through the years the sacred document was all but superseded by it?

Definitely not! It isn’t without reason that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’ remains my favourite guiding principle. Which analyst worth their salt would shy away from analysis on the mere pretext that they are confused too and can’t make head or tail of the situation? Lamest of lame excuses, you’d say.

For one who is always partial to things psychedelic, the current backdrop is an incentive rather than the opposite. Let’s start with Gen Kayani’s address to a large open-air audience in the GHQ grounds. The occasion was a remembrance for our fallen soldiers.

The general’s speech was ‘nuanced’, given the political situation. So nuanced that one side of the political divide latched on to his recommendation for ‘equal justice to all’, while the other gleefully embraced his view that ‘all organs (institutions) of the state should respect the constitution’ and stay within its bounds.

It’s a hint of the times, perhaps, that apart from a lonely editorial in this paper, nobody really asked if the constitution allows the army chief to make political statements. Nobody suggested, at some point in time, it would help greatly if he focused on the ‘mistakes, shortcomings’ of his own institution.

We aren’t talking of minor transgressions here, overt as well as covert, or the most serious, the subversion of the constitution. We only need him to focus on the second line of defence his organ of the state has chosen and what that’s done to our society, sanity and security.

And if he is trying to rein in this galloping monster no matter how slowly, as many of his supporters say, then we can only applaud and welcome that. We know how committed some of his predecessors were to this insane ideology of hate.

In a week which we saw scenes bordering on the suicidal in the National Assembly, reviving fears of, well, the known, the Supreme Court short order holding the country’s chief executive guilty of contempt continued to provide grist to the analysts’ mill whatever their preferred medium.

They were as diverse in their reading (one has to be polite and civil, doesn’t one?) of the situation as the politicians.

Perhaps spooked by perceived PTI inroads into PML-N’s bastion of Punjab and succumbing finally to hardliners Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and younger brother Shahbaz, Nawaz Sharif decided to go on the front foot in announcing he was seeking the prime minister’s ouster by any means possible.

In contrast, the great Khan’s cricketing instinct prevailed. He decided to wait for the detailed verdict and play the ball on merit. Having been a feared fast bowler and having faced equally fiery ones, perhaps he knows best how a bouncer can imperil a batsman going prematurely on to the front foot.

But his detractors would say, without proof of course, his caution has more to do with the retirement of ISI chief Shuja Pasha and hence the lack of decisive counsel. This would predictably lead to cries of derision in every shade of the language from his fanatical supporters.

Talking of attempts to get on to the front foot, the government came up with its own effort. A resolution reposing confidence was passed in different sittings of the two houses of parliament. But this supposed triumph was soured too.

Another resolution passed to express support for the creation of a separate province in southern Punjab was apparently moved in the National Assembly without consulting the ANP allies and, by the evening, their senior spokesman Zahid Khan was saying his party hadn’t voted for it.

If all this doesn’t leave you confused try this. All through the initial days of the memogate controversy, we saw press photographs, footage, of meetings between our civilian and military-intelligence heads looking exceedingly grim to say the least.

This week we saw apex-level consultation on restarting relations with the US. In the footage, the president was apparently cracking a joke which brought a muted smile to the army chief’s lips (I am told he doesn’t laugh).

The sight of a laughing Rehman Malik wasn’t surprising as his loyalty to his leader would so warrant. The prime minister also smiles frequently. But yes, the broadest, widest grin adorned the face of the otherwise serious, moustached, even fierce-looking, new chief of the ISI.

Now how significantly nuanced is the ISI chief’s reaction to the PPP leader’s joke? Please let me know if you figure it out. I promise to do the same if I have any luck. As long, of course, as we don’t tell each other the smile is the precursor to the proverbial last laugh.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
-Dawn
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