‘Hanoz Dilli door ast’

WHAT follows are impressions gained on a brief visit to New Delhi late last month.

One is fortunate to be received by the evergreen Sardar Khushwant Singh, now nearing 90. He holds court for about an hour at 7 pm. A notice outside his flat door sternly reminds visitors that those without an appointment are not welcome. The curtains in his sitting room, inherited from his dearest friend, the late Manzur Qadir, have the words Assalam-o-Alaikum boldly printed in nastalique script. The ambiance is friendly, frank, familiar and disarming for a Pakistani.

But Khushwant is distraught. Last year’s Muslim carnage in Gujarat has once again shaken him to despondency, depression and distress. His latest is a savage booklet titled The End of India; it traces the roots of communalism and Hindutva in India from the 19th century to its blossoming into power. He minces no words in condemning the Muslim-Christian hating Hindu right-wing religio-political parties such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), Shiv Sena and the more mischievous Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad.

Khushwant in his booklet (P.73) expresses this more eloquently: “The Sangh (RSS) is already targeting leftist historians and ‘westernized’ youth. Tomorrow it will turn its hate on women who wear skirts, people who eat meat, drink liquor, watch foreign films, don’t go on annual pilgrimages to temples, use toothpaste instead of danth manjan, prefer allopathic doctors to vaids, kiss or shake hands in greeting instead of shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram...’ No one is safe. We must realize this if we hope to keep India alive.”

And the same can truly be said for Pakistan. The ugly head of religious fanaticism over here is the evil twin of Hindutva.

Every ideal of the Quaid on moderation and keeping religion out of the affairs of the state has been overturned by thoughtless politicians, timid bureaucrats and other evil busy bodies who wear their religion on their sleeves, never in their hearts. As in India where Christian missionaries have been burnt alive by fanatics, their counterparts over here bomb churches, missionary hospitals, and schools. The NWFP government turns a blind eye to the destruction of billboards with female images; but, in keeping with certain well-known cultural proclivities, permit billboards with male images.

My next port of call was again a former Pakistan inhabitant — like Khushwant — the well-known lawyer from Karachi, Mr Ram Jeth Malani, now one of India’s leading lawyers. Ram Jeth, 80, a former union law minister and currently the chairman of the India Kashmir Committee reaches out to the APHC dissidents and even terrorists. He tells me that he recently met some active terrorists for a heart-to-heart talk in a secret conclave and at the meeting all of them warmly embraced him.

As I was leaving his house after a most hospitable evening, he handed me the text of a speech that he recently delivered at Berkley University in California. I give below a part of his speech:

“The right of a minority to secede arises in two contexts only — colonialism and the subjection, of the people to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation. No such right arises where the minority enjoys social and political equality with the majority. This issue has been examined by the Supreme Court of Canada in an advisory opinion rendered in the context of Quebec’s right to secessionist self-determination. The court said: “This right arises when and only when a people is governed as part of a colonial empire; where a people is subject to alien subjugation, domination or exploitation, and possibly where a people is denied any meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination within the state of which it forms a part”.

The Kashmir case is not similar to say where a state or province, which is part of a historic or established legal entity, wishes to exercise the right to self-determination. If say Tamil Nadu (India), Balochistan (Pakistan), Texas (US) or Brittany (France) demand self-determination, this can be denied on the principle of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state for these states are part of a historic and established national entity and not subject to the adverse conditionalities of the above court opinion. It is for this reason that the separatist struggles in Quebec and Indian Punjab did not attract much worldwide sympathy.

By contrast, in Kashmir, the two disputants did agree to the right to self-determination by holding a plebiscite under UN covenants. No mandate was ever given by the electorate to the 120 or so elected representatives of the then J&K assembly to decide this basic issue on behalf of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, “no meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination within the state of which it is (presumed) to be a part” has occurred, as a principle laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Even if we assume that the then J&K state assembly had such a power to assign to itself the right of the people to decide on its behalf, it is well known that the person who manoeuvred this decision of the state assembly — Sheikh Abdullah — did so on a bargain that J&K state would have a special status in India, and near-sovereign autonomy which was enshrined in the Constitution of India (Article 370A).

Exactly a half century back on August 8, 1953, the Sheikh was arrested and thereafter incarcerated for 11 long years for presuming to take autonomy literally; the Sheikh’s removal was a precursor to a long line of arbitrary dismissals of the chief ministers by New Delhi. As Muzaffar Baig, a sitting minister of J&K, told the current New Delhi negotiator on April 27: “We told Vohra that the government of India has always been purchasing the leaders of the state. This can be done even today.” What to speak of autonomy practically every major decision of the chief minister is subject to the countermand of Delhi’s governor in Kashmir.

Mr Ram Jeth Malani concludes:

“With full democracy and guaranteed human rights sustained by an independent election commission and Supreme Court no minority in the state of Kashmir can possibly claim the right to secession.”

What to speak of “guaranteed human rights”, Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed admitted in the J&K assembly on June 21 that “disappearances” and arbitrary arrests have continued even after he took office. A. G. Noorani in a perceptive article appearing in the Front Line magazine states: “PDP chairperson Mehbooba Mufti must move beyond her daily reproaches to her father on the disappearances”. It may be recalled that the nodal demand of Mufti Sayeed’s election platform was to end arbitrary arrest and disappearances. As for the independent election commission most people are agreed that elections from the mid-80s onwards, with the possible exception of the last one, were all rigged.

On August 1, the fire-eating, anti-Muslim, Mahant Ramchandradas Paramhans of Ram Janamsthan movement, which destroyed Babari mosque at Ayodhia in 1992, died at age 90. Mr Vajpayee ended his funeral oration in front of the pyre, with the words: “Everyone will have to make efforts to make true the Mahant’s ‘last’ wish.” And Mr L.K. Advani: “Nobody would be able to stop fulfilment of the Mahant’s dream for the temple. It would be definitely fulfilled.” (The Hindu, August 2, 2003). Needless to say the Mahant’s ‘last wish’ and dream was to erect the temple exactly where the mosque stood for 400 years.

Mr Vajpayee retracted his statements after three days. Mr Advani did not.

No visit to New Delhi is complete without a call on the former Jhelum/Lahore resident and former prime minister of India, Mr I. K. Gujral. As a senior statesman he is much respected in the political circles of Delhi. His visage is similar to Trotsky’s intellectual, spry and comfortable with himself, he projects India’s point of view with precision and persuasion.

I suggested to him that Kashmir requires a ‘facilitator’ on any table of Indo-Pakistan talks, as both sides bargain so hard with cards close to their chests that it is difficult to distinguish the woods from the trees. I mention the Indus Water Treaty and the Rann of Katchh arbitration: these agreements were not possible without third-party facilitation. I indicated Switzerland or Sweden as possible facilitators in our Kashmir matter.

Mr Gujral responds: “No country is ever neutral”. The mantra of bilateralism evidently means nothing less than decisions imposed by India, unfettered, unalloyed, imperial in content and almost divine. India is, therefore, judge and jury in its own cause. A typical example of this attitude was an inside page news item in one of the Indian newspapers that India had expressed “concern” to Nepal for inviting a representative of the secretary-general of the UN to “sit in” on talks currently under way between the government of Nepal and the Maoist rebels.

If there be unceasing fanatic for greater Indo-Pakistan cordiality hopefully leading to some roadmap of an agreement, it is the veteran well-known columnist, formerly from Sialkot, Mr Kuldip Nayar. We appear to be in agreement on various points but a disagreement towards the end.

The points of agreement run as follows:

* Pakistan must appreciate that no division of J&K on a communal basis would be acceptable to any government in Delhi or public opinion in India.

* India must appreciate that acceptance of the Line of Control as an international border in Kashmir would not be acceptable to any government in Islamabad or public opinion in Pakistan.

* Pakistan must concede that the sponsorship of terrorism right from 1965 has proved a failure; it is counter-productive and has retarded Pakistan’s economic and political growth. In objective analysis, terrorism in Kashmir has proved far more costly to Pakistan than to India. It must take certifiable steps to stop cross-border terrorist movement.

* India must concede that the terror of the Indian army and the ‘disappearances’, torture in custody, rape and other excesses have spawned and promoted terrorism — both Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri — and provided fuel to Islamic militancy.

* India must appreciate that Kashmiri Muslims are by and large an alienated lot. The onus is on India to bring about real changes to rectify the situation.

* Pakistan must appreciate that there are 150 million Muslims in India, and Pakistan’s Kashmir-centric policy militates against Muslim interests in India, promotes communal hatred and generally makes life more difficult for the Muslims in India.

In the context of the above assumptions, which I think we agreed upon, an interim solution lies in India implementing Article 370A of its Constitution in letter and in spirit on a non retractable basis by giving the J&K the autonomy promised by Article 370A of the Constitution.

Likewise Pakistan should follow suit in Azad Kashmir by giving it equal autonomy.

The Muzaffarabad-Srinagar road should be opened and the two state assemblies should have a joint session once a year. Trade and traffic into the respective parts of Kashmir held by India and Pakistan be controlled by the respective Kashmir governments.

The intention of these steps is a conscious attempt to blur the rigidities of the Line of Control. Autonomy under Article 370A will, of course, remain a dead-letter as long as the strength of the Indian army is not reduced to pre-1988 levels and Delhi’s governor no longer functions as a ‘viceroy’.

Where I differ with my friend Kuldip is that autonomy should lead eventually to the independence of the Valley. There is little dispute as to where the remaining parts of the old J&K state belong: these parts are more or less well integrated in Pakistan and India, respectively.

Does reason have more than a chance of survival in this turmoil than a snowflake in hell?

The writer is a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly.

Governance and Shariat

THE Shariat does not provide a finished organizational model for governance but it does allow us leeway to work through certain recommended processes, described below, to devise one.

In addition to the law and injunctions found in the Quran and Sunnah the shariat may also be said to include determinations contributed by ijma, qiyas, and ijtehad. This latter part may be regarded as fluid inasmuch as it can be repealed or revised by subsequent generations. In its wider sense, ijma means a consensus of the Muslim community (the umma) on issues that have not been settled in the Quran or Sunnah. In a narrower and more conventional sense it denotes agreement among experts on Islamic law.

Opinions vary on the mechanics of arriving at a valid ijma. The participants may or may not assemble at one place and time, they may register their assent by speaking loud and clear or by remaining silent after one of them has spoken, and they may be as few in number as two or three or far more numerous. Some of the ulema maintain that the ijma of the Prophet’s companions, reached during the pious caliphate, binds all subsequent generations of Muslims.

Others would not invest the companions with quite that measure of magisterial authority. In their reckoning ijma of one generation of jurists would remain a part of the shariat until reversed by a subsequent ijma. Note that jurists speaking on the subject are inclined to exclude laymen from this undertaking, a position that many of us may not want to support.

Qiyas is analogical reasoning. A situation arises that has not been dealt with in the Quran or Sunnah. We look in these sources for one that approximates the situation at hand, and try to resolve it in light of the way the former was handled. Stated another way, we ask ourselves how the Prophet (pbuh) would have responded if the situation in question had arisen in his time.

Ijtihad, which is a similar exercise, is the application of reason and common sense in devising approaches to novel issues and problems while remaining true to the overriding values and principles of Islam and, where necessary, constructing innovative reinterpretations of the Quran and Sunnah to meet these new demands of our times.

As in the case of ijma, the qazis and muftis of yesteryear, and their successors today, want to reserve the right to qiyas to themselves. Many of them will tell us also that the “door to ijtehad” is closed because all the interpretation and refurbishing that could usefully be done has already been done by the great medieval fuqaha (jurists). But many even of those willing to reopen the door to ijtehad will not admit laymen (whom they regard as uninitiated) to participation in this work.

How do we respond to them? The founders of our various schools of law, and some of their eminent successors, were indubitably men of great learning. They were illustrious professors. We owe them careful attention, but we do not owe them unquestioning submission.

Great learning and professorship were not their exclusive preserve. Men of similar accomplishments can arise in our time also. Moreover, the Quran and Sunnah do not require us to concede that ijma, qiyas, and ijtihad must be the business of the professional ulema alone, and that the community at large, acting directly (as in a referendum) or through spokesmen in legislatures and organs of civil society, must forever remain excluded from a role in these undertakings.

Keeping these preliminary considerations in mind, let us now turn to issues of governance. It is customary to say that Islam is a complete code of life. Without stopping to consider what is so great about completeness, one may suggest that the relevant verse in the Quran does not necessarily mean that God has told us everything about the business of life that could possibly have been told. It could just as well be interpreted to mean that He has told us all that he intended to tell us, and that he has left the rest to our own abilities and good sense to discover and settle.

He has endowed our community, in all ages, with sufficient resources in wisdom and ingenuity to meet issues and problems that confront it from time to time. Subjects of governance and politics belong to this domain.

The Quran and Sunnah say only that we are to obey those among us who are in positions of authority and, second, that we are to settle our collective affairs by mutual consultation (shura). But they tell us nothing about ways of setting up ruling authorities and the procedures they are to follow in conducting their business.

The Prophet’s (pbuh) words and actions as a rule are his sunnah and therefore a part of the shariat. One may then be tempted to say that his rule in Madinah, and subsequently that of the pious caliphs, offer appropriate models for us to follow. This is a lot easier said than done. The Prophet’s title to rule issued from the fact of his being a prophet, and secondarily from the fact that he had founded the polity he ruled. All governmental powers — civil and military, and within the former executive, judicial, and rule-making — resided in him. Guided by God, he was accountable only to Him. We don’t have prophets any more. But consider also that, during the ten years of his rule, Madinah was a garrison state that waged six wars and many more border clashes with hostile forces. The Prophet simply did not have the time to institutionalize governance in its various dimensions and aspects. We look to Madinah for the ethic and ethos of its ruler, but it won’t do as an organizational model.

The same holds for the pious caliphate. It was essentially a system of one-man rule. Once again, all governmental powers resided in the caliph. He consulted some of the town’s notables, accepted or disregarded the advice they gave him, as and when he deemed fit. Each of the pious caliphs reached office by a different route, even though the semblance of an elective element may be discerned in three of the four cases. Failure to institutionalize shura and succession to rule will probably count as a major shortcoming of the pious caliphate.

One-man rule during the pious caliphate worked well principally because each of the four incumbents excelled in selflessness, dedication to the public interest, and Islamic righteousness. The form and procedures of their rule will not work as a model, because contemporary Muslim societies do not normally produce and send out men of comparable rectitude into the arenas of governance.

The ideas of election to positions of authority, accountability of those who occupy such offices, and shura are present in the shariat, and it does not stop us from institutionalizing them. It may then be safe to say that a state is Islamic not because it duplicates a given model in terms of organization and procedures; it is Islamic inasmuch as it pursues Islamic values.

Let us now return to the shariat’s injunctions that we obey our rulers, and that we settle our affairs by mutual consultation. The Quran says: “Allah is no friend to revolts.” The penalty for treason and rebellion is death. One should like to think the obligation to obey referred to rulers who were legitimate and righteous. The Prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said: “whosoever sees evil, let him undo it with his hand; if he cannot do this, let him speak against it; if he cannot do even this, let him despise it with his heart and wish it were otherwise, and this is the lowest degree of faith.”

Abu Hanifa is said to have given money to the organizer of a revolt against an unrighteous caliph of his time, but did not join it because he thought it was going to fail, which it did. Imam Hanbal, and later one of his more eminent followers, Ibne Taimiya, upheld the people’s right to oppose an unrighteous ruler. But the majority of medieval and subsequent jurists went the other way. They dismissed legitimacy as a doctrinal issue, saying that superior force created its own legitimacy, and that the ways and means employed for reaching office were inconsequential.

These jurists, notably al-Mawardi and al-Ghazali, maintained also that the obligation to obey remained binding even if the rulers were wicked. The community might withdraw allegiance from an unrighteous ruler and transfer it to a successful rival, but it should not revolt. They adopted this view primarily because of their fear that revolt would prove to be a remedy much worse than the evil it sought to remove. It would bring about chaos, factional strife, civil war, breakdown of public order, and loss of security of life and property. Imam Ghazali went a step further to advise that one may not denounce the ruler’s conduct if his ensuing wrath was likely to touch persons other than the critic himself.

We can set aside the reasoning of medieval jurists. The reality on the ground, and the “necessity” it dictates, need not be the same in our time as they were during their day. We can get rid of wicked governments without throwing the community into disarray. If we have a working democracy, a motion on the floor of the National Assembly, signifying lack of confidence in the government of the day, and supported by the requisite majority in the house, will bring it down.

The injunction concerning shura would seem to require democracy. Taking the practice of shura during the pious caliphate, not as a model but as a point of departure, we are free to stabilize it by institutionalizing it so as to suit our needs and circumstances. Is there such a thing as Islamic democracy that is substantially different from western democracy? Yes, there is. But its unique character will derive not from its organizational forms and procedures but from the goals and purposes to which it is committed.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

E-mail: syed.anwar@comcast.com

Fresh election to save democracy

GENERAL Musharraf is the founder of a new democratic order, Chaudhry Shujaat is its ideologue, Tariq Aziz its strategist and Sheikh Rashid the spokesman. Hedged around by them all is Zafarullah Jamali who is expected to keep the government going.

Without a mandate or conviction and as if unawares of the consequences they are dragging the country into the jaws of theocracy. Not the national interest but General Musharraf’s army command and personal ego may spare the country this terrifying prospect in his last-ditch stand against an overbearing religious alliance.

The practitioners of the new-fangled order, whether in the government or opposed to it, have splintered every party and undermined alliances. Some have joined Musharraf, others are bargaining with him for a share or just to coexist, still others are daring him to quit. All of them claim to be the standard-bearers of a mission. Indifferent and wary is the common man. To him the argument and agitation, eerily reminiscent of the dying days of Ayub and Bhutto, are not for his well being but for their own power. Only the characters have change,d values have nosedived, scepticism has spread wider.

Why the people are disillusioned while their leaders haggle can be better understood by looking at the events of the past 45 months, what was promised, or expected, and what has actually happened.

Broadly speaking, the politics was to be cleansed; concentration of authority in one hand, or office, was to be prevented by checks at the federal and provincial levels and devolving it to the districts; violence, especially of religious and sectarian variety was to be eradicated; civil services were to be reformed to perform better; integrity and independence of the judiciary was to be restored; the press was to be freed and the economy rehabilitated.

This would read like the charter of any other government on entering office. In the circumstances in which General Musharraf assumed power, the only criterion to judge his government should be whether it has been fair and just in conducting public affairs, rising above factional politics or pressures. To that, the short answer must be a resounding No. The justification for his extra-constitutional intervention is thus lost. The argument can be only about the success or failure of his plans or schemes as it would be for any conventional government. Only a freedom fighter and not a coup maker can be the harbinger of a new order.

One credit which must not however be denied to him even by a biased mind is for keeping himself and the top layer of his administration free of financial corruption even if they could not escape cronyism or conquer other prejudices. But that is not enough to vindicate him.

His detached and professional approach to economy has rehabilitated it. His partisan and naive approach to politics and administration has subverted both. The public peace and economic growth will now be long held hostage to constitutional controversies at the top and political wrangles caused by of the devolution plan in the provinces, in the districts and even below. Party politics is inevitable, and acceptable, in the federal and provincial governments but the town and village administrations should not be subjected to it.

A reality that must not be glossed over is that the nazims are political beings. Irrespective of the party to which a nazim might belong, his thinking and actions are bound to be coloured by his political affiliation or ambition and for that reason alone he must come into conflict with the other nazims, above or below, and also with the provincial and federal legislators and ministers. The officials who are appointed by the provincial governments but work for the nazims are tending to become pawns in this political game losing whatever little objectivity was left in them. In Pakistan’s traditions and culture it would be a tragedy for the common folks, the rural peasants and urban poor in particular, if the revenue, police, irrigation and other officials to whom they must go seeking relief or help were to come under the control of the same landlord (which a nazim inevitably will be) against whom they seek redress.

The remedy to this intolerable situation is simple and can be instant without scuppering (as the military slang goes) the devolution plan on which Musharraf, like his uniform, has staked all his prestige. The district administration under the nazim should manage civic services and coordinate all development projects but the regulatory subjects, especially law and order and revenue should revert to the provincial government. thus the ongoing “warfare” will end and the local councils will get down to serve the people rather than govern them, that th people are more than enough already by a host of agencies. Between a political nazim, and police, both committed to their own charters, an administrator must interpose who is under the influence of neither, nor beholden to them and thus could provide relief to those aggrieved. Even if he doesn’t get relief, a citizen must have an avenue to ventilate his grievance, to unload the burden of his worry short of going to a court of law.

High on Musharraf’s priorities and in the hopes of the people at the beginning of his government was a farewell to sectarian violence and advent of a liberal, tolerant society. But his priority fell an early prey to political expediency. The attacks on the Christian churches, Shia mosques and Ahmadiyya homes were never more frequent and murderous than in his time and yet show no sign of abating despite the ascendancy of religious groups after the elections. The rise in religious violence when Musharraf had vowed to put an end to it must count as his greatest failure flowing from the pernicious politics in which he got involved. It is an occasion for soul searching for Musharraf, the leaders, the theologians and the people alike.

The stark reality is that Musharraf could not but cease to be neutral once he decided to cast Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and those who stuck to them, out of the electoral field. The maladministration, corruption or loan default were all viewed through the prism of loyalty or defiance. The legality and morality of it took a nosedive. Victory at the polls and mustering majority after that through blandishment or immunity from prosecution or lure of office became the sole concern. Nominations to the Senate and to the seats reserved for women and minorities were also used to that end. The nominees thus made beholden to their sponsors have become oblivious to the cause of the gender or special interest they were expected to represent. The whole system stands so perverted that it must give way to new elections sooner or later, sooner the better.

Mr J.M. Lyngeloh, India’s chief election commissioner has won Ramon Magsaysay award (often described as Asia’s Nobel Prize) for conducting fare and free elections in Gujarat and occupied Kashmir, both riven by revolt and communal strife and administered by partisan governments. Mind you, lyngeloh is no judge, just a plane administer yet he was able to protect the weak Muslims from the Hindu chauvinists and from the government’s lackeys of their own faith.

Here the national elections conducted by Pakistan’s former chief justice in an atmosphere which was peaceful and under a government which professed to be non-partisan have been neither fair nor free, and a retired general administers our free part of Kashmir and yet we expect the people of occupied Kashmir to die and vote for accession to Pakistan.

Democracy in Pakistan and freedom movement in Kashmir could be salvaged only by fresh and free elections from which no one but convicted criminals may be barred. The neo-religious order likely to emerge out of the current bargaining, if it succeeds, will sound the death-knell of both.

Old despots never fade

OLD despots never fade away, though they should — especially in the case of Efrain Rios Montt, the “scorched earth” general and once-deposed Guatemalan leader. Twice before, he tried but failed to circumvent a Guatemalan constitutional provision barring those who participate in coups from becoming president.

On his third try, on July 14, he got a boost from a crony-packed Constitutional Court, which let his latest presidential candidacy advance. This is a disturbing setback for human rights, and the United States and other nations have correctly let Guatemala know that it could have repercussions.

Though Guatemala’s Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the Constitutional Court’s twisted ruling, it still may fall to Guatemalans — using voting rights they laboured to secure — to send the general and his blood-soaked career into ignominy.

It won’t be easy. Rios Montt, who leads Congress and heads the political party of President Alfonso Portillo, is a master of populist campaigning and a ruthless manipulator of government power. He’s focused on winning votes in rural areas, where the desperately disenfranchised poor might succumb to his religion-tinged demagoguery.

—Los Angeles Times