Warning signs for the MMA

FOUR factors have contributed significantly to the ascendance of religious extremism in Pakistan. First, extensive Saudi funding for exporting Salafi/Wahhabiism to the subcontinent and for keeping religious reactionaries at bay in seminaries set up in regions at a distance from the Kingdom.

Second, reliance by the military high command and civilian autocrats like (Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif) on religious elements to promote anti-democratic agendas. Third, anti-Americanism generated initially by the pro-Israeli US commitment and fuelled subsequently by the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Fourth, and the organizational zeal of the Jamaat-i-Islami which enabled it for the time being to gather disparate religious groups under the umbrella of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA).

Today, because of a curious twist of fortune attributable to vote manipulations to prevent the PPP and the Muslim League (Nawaz group) from dominating the outcome of the election 2002, the MMA sits triumphant in the provinces of the NWFP and Balochistan and makes its presence felt even in the federal legislature in Islamabad. So undoubtedly, the religio-political factor has arrived in the Pakistani political arena. it remains to be seen how the MMA will proceed hereafter.

In truth the MMA is not a political party in the sense the PPP is, for despite the shared Islamic agenda of its constituents, it is more an alliance of expedience cobbled together for the purpose of maximizing the seat count in the national and provincial assemblies. Having achieved this objective, it appears to have lost its way by focusing on contentious non-issues and retrogressive moves.

By adopting a retrograde approach towards urbanized lifestyle in general and President Musharraf’s central executive in particular, its founders have embarked on a collision course with vested interest groups, oblivious to the precariousness of their alliance.

If it is to survive as a fixture in the political firmament, the MMA founders must learn several lessons. It must, for instance, be apparent as to where the leadership lies. The MMA prefers to operate in a hydra-headed fashion, responding more by instinct than by design, in a babble of different (often conflicting) voices to political challenges. It is also uncertain whether the MMA headquarters are located in Mansura at the JI, Qazi Hussain Ahmed base, or in Dera Ismail Khan at the JUI Fazlur Rehman base, or in Akora Khattak (JUI Sami-ul-Haq base), or in Muridke (Ahle Hadith Hafiz Hussain Ahmed base), or even in the Binori Mosque complex in Karachi where the superhawk of the theocratic order, Maulana Shamzai, presides.

A far more serious matter, however, is the absence of a programme that is well-researched, professionally enunciated, practicable, dynamic and durable. To claim that the implementation of the Shariat represents the totality of the MMA programme is unconvincing because it is unattainable. It is unattainable because such a claim raises more questions than answers, such as: which Shariat? Or whose version of the Shariat?

And, since there are thousands of Shariat stipulations addressing all aspects of life, which aspects of the Shariat? In the absence of a single unified code of Shariat acceptable to the majority of the Ummah, it would be impossible to circumscribe any Shariat programme. Moreover, any attempt on the MMA’s part to do so would be selective, if not downright arbitrary, and hence not generally acceptable.

So far its failure to appreciate the rules of politics and the mores of statesmanship has led it from blunder to blunder culminating in the NWFP Shariat Act and the proposed Hisba Act, both prime examples of the MMA’s ignorance of political processes. Thus, leaving aside other considerations, such as the question of validity vis-a-vis the Constitution, of provincial legislation on fundamental Islamic issues (since the Constitution itself acknowledges the pre-eminence of the Shariat) and on the need for provincial enactments to harmonize with the federal policies, the statutes themselves are flawed, reportedly being rehashed versions of the Nawaz Sharif Shariat legislation programme replete with syntactical shortcomings and ambiguous terminology dealing with issues that are unlikely to promote and enlightened mode of life.

How simplistic to presume that a sharaee form of life can be imposed on a pluralistic Pakistani society by questionable statutory measures passed by a captive legislature! Such a mindset, however, suggests that enforcement of these measures will be no different from the bulldozing approach displayed so far.

So, if the MMA adopts arbitrary methods (demonstrated recently by the strong arm tactics of the billboard razing / video-cassette smashing groups in Peshawar and Multan) to enforce a theocratic order in the NWFP, such a step would be contrary to democratic norms and principles amounting to a betrayal of the electorate’s trust. Furthermore, a form of Shariat based on the Sunni Deobandi doctrines of the dominant MMA elements would give rise to serious inter-sect contentions involving the Barelvis (comprising the majority of Pakistan Sunnis), the Shias (representing a significant proportion of the Muslim population) and other non-conformist sects. The MMA’s claim that its Islamization programme represents the will of the people is untenable, for even though it did secure the majority of the votes in the NWFP, the number of votes cast were less than 50 per cent of the electorate. What is more, its voters largely comprised seminary students and religious extremists reared of free board and lodging and prone to blindly supporting any MMA edicts, including those on beards, burqas, dress form, etc., as important aspects of the Islamization programme. The real challenge for the MMA, therefore, is to win the hearts and minds of the middle classes instead of relying on blinkered supporters.

Despite these fault lines, if the MMA does manage to survive in power in the NWFP, it should distance itself from the Taliban legacy. Today, Talibanism is a discredited phenomenon globally, even denounced in the Muslim world for its repressiveness, human rights violations and the disservice to Islam by allying itself with terrorism. In any case, Taliban revivalism would contravene federal government policy — a conflict resulting possibly in its ouster from power.

So, in order to decide on the appropriate Islamic image on a macro level, the MMA should study current international trends away from fundamentalism in several Muslim countries including, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Even the pro-Islamic Turkish government which came to power in reaction to secularism has adopted a moderate forward-looking stance.

This then is the correct approach for the MMA’s survival. Such an approach takes nothing away from the MMA’s Islamic allegiance. All the other aforementioned routes are likely to fail. Additionally, any recourse to confrontation on grounds of religious ideology would pit the MMA against the centre and the US, jeopardizing vital Pakistani interests (such as the Kashmir issue and possibly Kahuta).

Thereafter a hobbled Pakistan would be hard put to face up to India on outstanding issues. Whether one likes it or not, the post 9/11 US police objectives for the world (some of which are correct and some wrong) will be pursued with the persistence displayed by the US in winning the cold war against the Soviet Union. Two factors favour the US in this: the absence of an adversary like the USSR and its vast superiority over all others in resources, means and technological know-how.

A wise MMA operating in conformity with these trends, just as the Palestinian Authority has learnt to do, would bide its time supporting salutary US measures, opposing negative ones and trying to survive to be able to continue its mission.

It should recognize that the habits, customs and lifestyle of Muslims conditioned by historical and geographical factors, ethnicity and climate have always varied from one region to another. It should also realize that Islam in Pakistan is not in danger, that most Pakistani Muslims are true believers and that it is a fruitless exercise to try to convert the committed.

It should acknowledge that Islam is a source of enlightenment for “Allah is the light / of the heavens and the earth ...” far removed from “....the depths of darkness / in a vast deep ocean ....” (Al-Quran: S/A XXIV: 35 and 40) It would appreciate that the Prophet (PBUH) spread Islam by example, not by force of arms or administrative coercion.

The writer is a barrister-at-law and a lecturer in legal studies.

C

What’s wrong with this picture? President Bush, who is fresh off raising $3.5 million at a $2,000-a-head hamburger and hot dog dinner at a Washington hotel, is heading to California to help meet his goal of $175 million raised between now and the GOP convention, which begins Aug. 30, 2004.

In the meantime, the House of Representatives has just passed a plan to permanently eliminate the estate tax.

But although the GOP energetically finds ways to woo the wealthy, it has not been able to remedy the most embarrassing part of Bush’s tax plan _ the denial of a child tax credit to 6.5 million low-income working families with 11.9 million children.— Los Angeles Times

A distant dialogue

CONSIDERING that Mr Vajpayee’s offer to resume dialogue had been made on April 18 this year, the pace of progress since then has confirmed the impression that India will set its own pace. New Delhi had always made sure, in its dealings with the smaller South Asian countries, that they were mindful of their status as small powers. Now, in the post-9/11 scenario, when the incipient unilateralism of the Bush administration has turned into the right of pre-emption, diplomacy and negotiations are following a pattern that suits the BJP mindset.

The high commissioners, whose role was terminated by India after December 13, 2001, will return to their posts June 30. Communication links that had been severed by New Delhi are being gradually restored, with the bus service set to resume from July 1. That the movement is in the positive direction is being welcomed not only in South Asia but also in the world at large. A summit meeting would be decided on after a great deal of preparatory work at the working level, and even here a decisions has yet to be taken if the bilateral agenda agreed in 1997 between the foreign secretaries would be revived, and if so, in what order.

The leadership of both India and Pakistan has been engaged in diplomatic efforts to get their respective points of view across to major countries. Since the Vajpayee offer, India has been particularly active, wanting to be seen as a pillar of peace and stability. The mantra of “ending cross-border terrorism” has been constantly repeated. This serves two convenient purposes. Pakistan is presented as being too committed to violent ways to honour its pledges, while India’s state terrorism in Kashmir hardly attracts any attention. Kashmir is seen not as an unfinished business on the UN agenda, but through the prism of “cross-border terrorism”.

That the dramatic opportunities for a breakthrough in Mr. Vajpayee’s earlier peace-making efforts in February 1999 (Lahore summit) or July 2001 (Agra summit) are ruled out in the new global environment is understandable, though Agra was torpedoed by the Indian hawks. The new realities that have emerged after 9/11 are that the US global domination is complete, with the Muslim world in the dock and India a strategic partner of Washington. Pakistan has acquired a position of its own, helped by its geopolitical situation, but does not command the place India has gained.

Starting with the Clinton presidency, the US has carried out a major policy review of its relationships in South Asia. The result of that review was plain during Clinton’s tour of South Asia in March 2000, when he spent five days in India and just five hours in Pakistan. In India, he spoke about his vision of a new strategic partnership with New Delhi, while in Pakistan he gave a stern lecture on the need to restore democracy and to fight terrorism.

George Bush’s victory in the 2000 US election has thrown up a leadership that believes in exercise of the unrivalled military and technological power as the world’s sole superpower — to set up a new world order based on that superiority. As the small group of advisers who had begun advocating a new imperial order in the world even in the closing years of the presidency of the elder Bush have established their control over the global policies of the younger Bush. In the new American-dominated world order the BJP leadership in India has found a new direction fully compatible with their own hegemonic ambitions in South Asia. With a hawkish Sharon at the helm in Israel, a nexus between New Delhi and Tel Aviv has received a boost from the 9/11 events.

The BJP’s decision to identify with the overall US strategy was exemplified by the quick support that India extended to the National Missile Defence initiative of President Bush after it was launched on May 1, 2001. This attitude was in marked contrast to that of China, which not only sensed the underlying objective of the total global hegemony but also saw in the NMD initiative a direct threat to its own security. Indeed, Indian strategists owned up to the entire NMD approach with the purpose of downgrading Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence.

India had also achieved a certain success in establishing a linkage between the jihadist elements in Afghanistan and those in Kashmir, so that there was an expectation, after the 9/11, that Pakistan would stand accused of supporting and assisting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. However, the courageous decision by Islamabad to join the US-led coalition against terror, and the support it has extended to the coalition forces has had the effect of safeguarding its vital interests.

The situation that has emerged, in the light of the active role assumed by Pakistan in fighting and containing jihadist elements in Afghanistan, and Pakistan itself, is that it is now recognized as an important participant in the fight against terrorism. However, the position assigned by Washington to New Delhi as a strategic partner, both in patrolling the Indian ocean sealanes and in containing the perceived long-term threat from China, puts that relationship at a higher level.

A key difference is that Pakistan’s nuclear capability is not acceptable, especially to Israel, while India’s nuclear teeth are not seen as posing any threat. The linking of North Korea’s nuclear capability to a missile-for-nukes exchange with Pakistan gives rise to speculation whether Pakistan could also be targeted for possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Even on Kashmir, though a section of US scholars and analysts like to bring up the matter of the choice of the people of Kashmir, who are said to be increasingly interested in independence, the US is unlikely to bring any pressure in favour of a just and durable settlement. The private view of many US experts is that the Line of Control offers the least troublesome of solutions. This is what the Indian side may be willing to concede, even though it cannot be a solution, since it does not take into account the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

Despite all this, some of the vital components of normalization between India and Pakistan are already in hand. A structured dialogue may take some time to resume. Some major obstacles to trade may be taken up. Certainly, neither India nor Pakistan would like to be blamed for holding up progress on Saarc meetings. The foreign secretaries of the two countries are expected to take up the timing of the Saarc summit in July, with December already mentioned as a likely date.

How do we move towards a more purposeful phase of dialogue? The two prime ministers have expressed happy thoughts about meeting each other. But what will they discuss and in what order? The agenda agreed in 1997 identified two key issues: peace and security and Kashmir. The first has to take up nuclear-risk reduction, on which some progress was apparently made at expert-level meetings. Public opinion in Pakistan would want at least the initiation of a foreign secretary-level meeting to begin talking about Kashmir. Reducing violence and repression in the disputed territory, along with the accusations of cross-border infiltrations could also be among the topics to discuss.

There are six other topics that can also be taken up to signify that a dialogue has begun. These include Siachen Glacier, Sir Creek, Wular Barrage, and issues relating to travel, trade and cultural exchanges. There was an agreement between the foreign secretaries in 1989 regarding the Siachin Glacier that could not implemented. This too could be taken up at one of the earliest meetings between the two sides.

The writer is in former ambassador of Pakistan.

Living with today’s Caesar

THE US victory in Iraq and its long-term consequences are being widely debated in the media and by the various think tanks around the world. The motives identified range from the control of Middle Eastern oil to safeguarding Israel’s security.

Future predictions focus on the growing alienation between the western and the Muslim worlds, leading to more and not less terrorism in future. Some observers are more worried about the emerging global order, in which powerful countries can act unilaterally without the UN’s endorsement to pre-empt possible (and not actual) threats to their security, thus destroying the postwar international diplomatic and political system, based on the UN Charter, providing for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation state.

But in this fateful debate, one important dimension remains unexplored — the historical evolution of the western world and the intricate relationship between Europe and America.

The phenomenon that we are witnessing today was predicted almost half a century ago by the famous French writer, Amaury de Riencourt in his book published in 1957, under the title of “Coming Caesars”. With remarkable foresight, he says in the introduction to his book:

“It is the contention of this book that expanding democracy leads unintentionally to imperialism and that imperialism inevitably ends in destroying the republican institutions of earlier days; further, that the greater the social equality, the dimmer the prospects of liberty, and that as society becomes more egalitarian, it tends, increasingly, to concentrate absolute power in the hands of one single man.

“Caesarism is not dictatorship, not the result of one man’s overriding ambition, not a brutal seizure of power through revolution. It is not based on a specific doctrine or philosophy. It is essentially pragmatic and untheoretical. It is a slow, often century-old, unconscious development that ends in a voluntary surrender of a free people escaping from freedom to one autocratic master”

Tracing the historical roots of the contemporary political scene, Mr Riencourt draws a distinction between culture and civilization. Culture grows in young societies, creating new values, artistic styles, new sciences, new legislatures, new moral codes and new intellectual and spiritual structures. It emphasizes individual rather than society, original creation rather than preserving the old. “Civilization, on the other hand represents the crystallization, on a gigantic scale, of the preceding cultures deepest thoughts and styles, basically uncreative and culturally sterile but efficient in its mass organization, practical and ethical, spreading over large surfaces of the globe, finally ending in a universal state under the sway of a Caesarian ruler.

In the light of this interpretation, Mr. Riencourt refers to the momentous phase of our contemporary history, when the European culture is evolving into the American civilization. “The twentieth century is the dramatic watershed separating the European culture that lies behind us from American civilization that lies ahead.”

“Political power in the western world” he says, “has gravitated towards the United States and id within the US, in the office of the President. The power of the President of the United States has grown with the growth of America and of democracy within America, He is at once the chief of the most powerful armed forces in the world; he is the only statesman in the western world who can make major decisions alone in an emergency. He is in control of de facto empire into which the scattered fragments of the dissolving British Commonwealth are being merged.”

The positive driving force in this situation is neither political nor strategic; it is essentially psychological — the willingness to follow in any emergency, economic or military, the leadership of one man. This is in part a reflection of the growing mistrust of parliaments, congresses and representative assemblies in most societies.

This evolution has coincided with the “impulsive emotionalism of American public opinion which swings wildly from apathetic isolationalism to dynamic internationalism”. The American public wants to personalize issues and responsibilities and instinctively looks towards their sole leader to take them to victory against actual adversaries (like the Soviet Union) or imaginary foes (like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein).

Such concentration of power, Mr Riencourt reminds us, is no accident resulting from unexpected emergencies but the natural outcome of an historical evolution. “The approaching Caesars are no longer historical accidents, temporary tyrants or reactionary dictators who attempt to turn the clock back, all of whom are merely replicas of classical Greece’s tyrants.

Those short-lived despots have nothing in common with the Caesars who eventually will organize the universal empire toward which their civilization has been tending. The coming Caesars are the lethal product of centuries of historical evolution, each succeeding generation having unconsciously added its stone to the towering pedestal on which they are going to stand”.

While this historical explanation of how President Bush is becoming the de facto Caesar of the 21st century and changing the course of our history is revealing, a more sobering part of Mr Riencourt’s message concerns the future of our planet, “What happens today germinated generations ago. Yesterday’s seeds are today’s blossoms. We must recognize what kind of seeds we are sowing today if we want to know what tomorrow’s blossom are going to be...

“Whereas in the past a new culture has always sprung from the ruins of an antecedent civilization and blossomed forth, the wreck of our own western civilization might well mean absolute death for the entire human race, what was only an episodic death in the past might be final tragedy tomorrow.

“Modern man’s technological power will no longer allow him to make those grievous mistakes that past civilizations were free to indulge in — nor can he ignore the lessons of a past that other civilizations did not possess, Man’s technical knowledge makes it possible for him to build heaven on earth or destroy his planet, and his historical knowledge makes it possible, for the first time, to avoid those deadly shoals on which every other civilization has destroyed itself.”

The writer is a former foreign minister of Pakistan.

I heard you, I think

ALTHOUGH you’d never know it listening to television or reading corporate reports, clear language remains an important means of communication. Mollycoddling the obsequious obfuscators who leverage an extensible repository of blather is a continuous threat to understanding what’s really happening anywhere, regardless of critical causality.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the Enron and other corporate accounting scandals where really impressive-sounding terms were sprinkled, then poured and ultimately shovelled into corporate public statements.

Drawing on its own internal corporate synergies and creative visualizations, a team at Deloitte Consulting has invested nine months imagineering a dictionary of some 350 “bullwords,” phrases and words that often indicate less an attempt to communicate ideas than an effort to obliterate them. It then developed a computer programme that can be applied much like computer spell-checking systems to, say, a company’s annual report.

Bullfighter, as the programme is called, detects bullwords and jargon-jammed passages that are free of meaning. Users then can rate the company. Too many bullwords tips investors that there’s more being hidden than revealed. They then can put their money into a more transparent enterprise.

“That’s a good indicator of the linkage between clear and straight communications and business performance, including the issue of transparency and trust,” said Brian Fugere, a Deloitte partner. In short, Fugere and his no-nonsense team have had it with repurposeable, value-added knowledge capital and robust, leverageable mindshares. It was truly incentivizing to expunge such talk from the entire team’s bandwidth and envisioneer a day when clear talk will be triumphalistic.

Applied to 30 gigantean companies, Deloitte found Home Depot the best on clarity, while computer hardware and software companies were the most graveolent and contraindicated. In Enron statements, Bullfighter detected arcane verbosity and verbal fog deepening with the company’s troubles.

Of course, users of the programme, downloadable exempt from cost at www.dc.com/bullfighter, might also apply Bullfighter to the ritual utterances of indecipherable political verbiage that seem likely in coming calendrical rotations. Rather like a consumer’s guide to flatulent phrasings and ideational argumentations by disputatious and controversialistic oppositionists. And then voters could expunge the wordy perpetrator from their intended balloting patterns.

Clearly, newspapers are free of obese verbosity and every minute hold clarity and conciseness as achievable endpoints. —Los Angeles Times

Judicial system needs reform

IT was probably an American who coined the phrase Monday Blues. It was intended to describe that dreadful getting back-to-the-office feeling after a relaxed, care-free weekend. In Karachi we also get our share of Monday Blues, but not necessarily for the same reason. In fact, so far as I am concerned, some of the more momentous events in my life have occurred on Mondays.

It was, in fact, on a Monday morning, exactly five years ago, that this writer was informed by two terrified and breathless employees in his place of work that they had seen a student fire six times in a fit of rage. Why a young man should, of all the places in this city, choose my neck in the woods to empty the chamber of his TT pistol, will always remain something of a mystery.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, because the target was apparently an imaginary spot on the ground close to our bookshop, whose owner assumed the poor fellow had been denied admission in a medical college. However, when a person starts demonstrating his prowess with a weapon, provided he is not a policeman, a ranger, a member of the fighting forces or a feudal stealing somebody else’s water, the incident has to be registered . And so my two employees trotted off to the police station to file a first information report.

Dealing with the police has always been a tricky business in banana republics and adds immeasurably to life’s bitter harvest. On the rare occasions that this writer had to file an FIR in a Karachi police station, he got the distinct impression that writing reports was the very last thing that a station house officer wanted to do.

Once, when he turned up at the Clifton police station to report an accident causing damage to his car, and stated that the insurance company needed a document from the police to process a claim, the SHO was positively hostile and refused to file an FIR on the grounds that 24 hours had elapsed between the time of the accident and the visit to the police station.

The thought of showing, what in local Jodia Bazaar parlance is charmingly referred to as Quaid-e-Azam’s portrait, did cross one’s mind. This writer, however, preferred to act on the advice of a civil servant whom he held in high esteem. When in Rome do as the Romans do. And so, borrowing the mobile phone of a businessman who had come to report a theft in his house, this writer dialled a friend in the intelligence bureau with whom he played bridge, and was careful to end the call by sending greetings to Shahbaz Sharif It worked like a charm.

Within five seconds a completely new tableau began to flicker into view, as a somewhat louche policeman was turned into a people-friendly upholder of the law. The tone was altered to one of tenderness, laced with mild resentment, and he even offered to deal with the fellow who had hit my car, by employing methods which had little to do with the Marquess of Queensbury’s rules.

Nevertheless, the Monday shooting, as the incident came to be referred to, was duly reported at the Frere police station. After the initial excitement, people stopped discussing the episode. In a city rent with violence, an unhappy student venting his anger and frustration was just another statistic in the records. And then , exactly a year later, this writer received a summons to appear as the chief witness in a magistrate’s court .

Naturally, it had to be a Monday morning, and not only my two employees and I, but also the people managing the court, appeared to be suffering from the Blues. The magistrate was a woman, and from all accounts, quite a tartar who ran her court like a medieval tyrant. The fact that her stenographer had not turned up made matters worse, because she would have to take her own notes. The petite young woman in a black coat and starched white shalwars, who was representing the trigger-happy student in what was obviously her first case, was cringing with fear.

Turning to me, our eyes meeting with almost terrifying recognition, the magistrate asked me my name. This was duly provided. The lady mulled over the surname which, friends have informed me , has popped up at various times in Nairobi and Chitor, and fixing me with a piercing stare said, “ Caste ?”

This writer was a little taken aback, especially as he had been led to believe that there are no castes in Islam, just sects. How wrong he was. Everybody in the court apparently thought one’s caste was the most natural thing in the world, and had to be guarded like the crown jewels.

The room became exceptionally quiet and there was a hush as dense as a Nordic forest. Realizing that matters were unlikely to progress unless an appropriate answer was given, this writer decided that he had little choice but to conform and to play along. And so, in a voice which was in between the last trump and a tiger calling for his dinner said, “ Rajput, sub-caste Kshatriya.”

This apparently seemed to satisfy the magistrate who scribbled something in the ledger before her, while everybody in the room nodded assent. They probably hadn’t come across too many Rajput-Kshatriyas and might have wondered how the person sitting at the head table proposed to deal with me. We could now get on with the case The stenographer suddenly made an appearance, and after getting a royal rebuke from the magistrate who didn’t take too kindly to her staff coming late, took over the task of making notes.

In evidence, this writer said that he was in his room when he heard six shots being fired, but hadn’t actually spotted the villain of the peace. When asked if they had actually witnessed the shooting, my two employees, both family men with lots of mouths to feed, suffered a sudden acute attack of amnesia.

The first, who had actually witnessed the incident from ten feet away, and was now wearing eyeglasses the lenses of which were so thick they could have started bush fires if held in the sun, said that he couldn’t really be sure if the young man in the dock was the same as the fellow who pulled the trigger. The second, who had subsequently picked up the shells and called the police, said he wasn’t even sure if there had been a shooting , because somebody was selling firecrackers, and it was possible that six of them might have gone off accidentally.

That, more or less, summed up the case for the prosecution. The young man in the dock had a smile of satisfied malice on his lips.

But, just as he was about to congratulate his defence attorney, who throughout the proceedings hadn’t said a word, the clerk of the court informed the magistrate that the case was not over because on the very same day that the student had emptied the chamber of his pistol outside the bookshop, he had performed a similar feat in somebody else’s compound.

This time the victim happened to be a retired army brigadier Attempted assault with a prohibited weapon, and that too when carried out by a felon without a proper licence, is a pretty serious offence. The lady magistrate came into her element. The lad’s goose was certainly cooked.

Though the incident occurred five years ago, nothing has really changed in the courtroom. People are still being asked about the caste to which they belong and felons still manage to go scot-free, because in the glare of public scrutiny, unprotected witnesses, terrified of reprisals, are too scared to tell it like it really happened.

Who is going to protect their families when the goons come around and pick up their teenage daughters ? And what about the judges who take correct, but dangerous decisions ? Who is going to protect them ? Who protected that fine upright judge of the High Court of Sindh, Mr Justice Nizam Ahmed, who, if for nothing else, will be remembered for his decision to abolish the practice of using fetters for prisoners, which, regrettably was reversed by the police who, on one occasion, were actually photographed shackling a one-legged prisoner.

There has been considerable criticism in seminars, discussions and workshops on the method currently being employed in the legal system in the country. Under this practice the two lawyers, often give the impression that they are playing games with one another, while the judge is not really a participant.

Under the inquisitorial system, which a number of people have recommended, it is the judge who takes over and grills the defendant. Surely, the time has come for a change in the system. After all, if a change can come in the political system, why should the judicial system be left behind?