| May 04, 2007 | Friday | Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1428 |
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Thy turn, beloved Punjab
LAND of the five sacred rivers (three since gifted to India by the first of our many military geniuses), fairest love of all, wilt thou not wake up at last and cast aside those habits of bootlicking which were always thy tradition for centuries past but which have bloomed like never before since this luckless country was born sixty years ago?
Luckless? What else would you call a country which has endured the likes of Ghulam Mohammad, Iskander Mirza, Ayub, Yahya, Zia, Ghulam Ishaq, Farooq Leghari, and…forget it. Intellectually-challenged all of them, couldn’t look beyond their noses, yet chosen by our stars to play havoc with this country’s fortunes.
But to return to the present, their lordships in Sindh showed the way by greeting the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, when he came to address lawyers in that province. Their lordships in the Frontier, headed by provincial Chief Justice Tariq Pervez, lived up to the chivalrous traditions of their homeland and gave the Chief Justice of Pakistan a warm welcome when he addressed the Bar in Peshawar.
Puts Punjab in a spot, doesn’t it? If their Punjabi lordships, choosing discretion over valour, keep away from the Chief Justice’s address to the Lahore Bar on May 5, they risk inviting national censure, with people accusing Punjab of being Punjab. If they show up, as they should and as their brethren in Sindh and the Frontier already have, they risk courting the displeasure of their chief justice, Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain, who is said to be not on good terms with the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
Iftikhar Hussain’s brother, Shahbaz Hussain, is a federal minister (for social welfare). His nephew, Farrukh Altaf, is District Nazim, Jhelum. We know what nazims are to this dispensation: its foremost bodyguards. For these and other reasons, lawyers representing the Chief Justice in the Supreme Judicial Council – which is hearing the reference against him – have accused the junior Iftikhar of bias, contending that he shouldn’t therefore sit in the Council.
All eyes are on their Punjab lordships. What will it be, the call of conscience or the triumph of expediency?
We should be aware of the deadweight of Punjabi tradition, bootlicking being a constant of Punjab’s history and politics. The Q League is the name not of a party but a phenomenon.
Whenever a military saviour, and we have had many, rides into the political arena, there is always s a Q League ready at hand to welcome him, comprising elements from the Punjab squirearchy and now even the urban elite.
It doesn’t matter who the saviour is. He only has to be in command for Punjab’s comic artists to perform around him.
Woe to the saviour, however, whose foot slips or in whose hands the reins of power slacken for on the entire planet there is scarcely anything as quick-changing as the Punjabi elite. It worships the rising not the setting sun.
Everyone in the Q League vies to be his master’s voice. But upholding Punjab’s glorious traditions, Punjab chief minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, is in a league of his own, outstripping all competitors.
Muhammad Ali Durrani, the information minister, is no patch on him. Durrani engenders disbelief the moment he opens his mouth, hardly the hallmark of the true professional. Pervaiz Elahi, by contrast, even when hitting such sixes as in his famous remark that Musharraf would be elected president-in-uniform ten times appears sincere and genuine. Durrani’s guile can be spotted from a mile. Pervaiz Elahi looks the very picture of innocence.
Times have changed. Once upon a time the best darbaris (courtiers) were from Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad Deccan, and Delhi. The banner is now in Punjab’s hands.
Or rather in the hands of the Punjabi elite, because the people of Punjab sway to a different beat. Does anyone doubt what is likely to happen on May 5 when the Chief Justice starts his journey from Islamabad and gets on to the Grand Trunk Road to Lahore? The government is already having sleepless nights picturing the reception he is likely to get. Hence a new twist in the comedy we are witnessing.
A government which didn’t miss a beat at the Chief Justice’s manhandling on March 13 is now suddenly concerned about his safety. It is trying to tell him that in view of the bad security situation, it would be best if he flies to Lahore instead of going by road.
No, the charge of collaboration applies only to the Punjabi elite, not the people of Punjab. Let’s also remember that a fresh chapter in the annals of collaboration is now being written by a party, or its leadership, which derives most of its strength from Sindh. Pervaiz Elahi and cousin Shujaat are uneasy precisely for this reason, fearing that the monopoly on collaboration they have hitherto enjoyed is in the process of being challenged by the Daughter of the East.
Can’t such souls read the writing on the wall? Can’t they sense which way the wind is blowing? Why do people, drawn from all sections of society, brave the heat and stand vigil before the Supreme Court whenever the Chief Justice makes an appearance? Not for love of the Chief Justice but because they feel, more by instinct than from reason, that great issues are at stake in this confrontation. That if the nation misses this moment now another like it may not come for a long time.
When was it that a chief justice of Pakistan defied a ruling general? Judges were never supposed to behave like this. Along with the Punjabi elite, they were the leading defenders of military rule, catering to its necessities, legitimising its excesses, dancing to its tune. But in the present instance a chief justice, in the very lair of the ruling general, defies him openly, refuses to submit before him. When attempts are made to break him, he refuses to break.
When did lawyers across the country, including Punjab, so stoutly contest an authoritarian set-up? We are no strangers to authoritarianism. But when did such a lawyer-led movement erupt before?
Bar and bench are pillars of the same temple, the temple supposedly of law and justice. When the Bar is pulling in one direction, and so forcefully that would-be collaborators from within its ranks are afraid to show their true colours, how can the bench remain immune from these stirrings?
Since when did a judge of the Lahore High Court, Justice Jawad Khawaja, doff his robes of office in protest against the acts of a military government? Since when did a civil judge posted in Gujar Khan, Sajida Chaudhry (may her name be ever remembered), risk official displeasure by attending a reception for an out-of-favour Chief Justice?
In the context of Punjab these are unheard of things, all because of the Chief Justice’s defiance, all because of the lawyers’ movement.
On March 8 how secure were our godfathers, masters of their universe. Since then in retreat, battered by confusion, unable to comprehend the intensity of the spark their own folly has ignited.
This struggle is not about the person of the Chief Justice, although he is its leading symbol. It is about the nation’s future. What is our destiny? The worshipping of false gods or a republic based upon law as our founding fathers intended? Imperfect vessel of history though he may be, Justice Chaudhry today represents things bigger than himself: the law, the Constitution and the independence of the judiciary. Showing him respect means respecting what he has come to symbolise.
Nothing seems to be happening right for the godfathers. They are now upset with the larger bench constituted by the acting CJ, Rana Bhagwandas, to hear the CJ’s petition in the Supreme Court. This entire matter concerning the Chief Justice was meant to be over soon. But with each passing day it is acquiring newer dimensions.
Revelations from Field Marshal (self-appointed) Ayub Khan’s soon-to-be-published diaries couldn’t have come at a more unpropitious time. This is what Ayub says of Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, Bhutto’s successor as foreign minister. “I am getting concerned about Mr Pirzada, our foreign minister…He has not proved much of a success…he is on the run in foreign ministries most of the time, often purposelessly….has hardly any communication with the staff…chases small things most of the time and is frightened of taking a definite stand on any issue.” Then this unkind cut: “There is also the suspicion that he is not above telling a lie...”
Ayub was a disaster in every respect but in nailing Sharifuddin Pirzada’s colours to the mast, he may have done the nation this one service, albeit posthumously. Even so, more than telling us anything new, he merely confirms our worst suspicions.
Pirzada has been constitutional consultant to military rulers past and present. He heads the team representing the Generalissimo in the Supreme Court, as opposed to the Supreme Judicial Council where the presidential team is represented by two lawyers who are doing Punjab proud, Wasim Sajjad and Khalid Ranjha.
About Wasim, a quintessential creature of the establishment, the less said the better. Against Khalid the charge is more serious. Waris Shah’s ‘Heer’ is perhaps the greatest work in Punjabi literature, its immortal hero, Ranjha. Now think of ‘Heer’ and the picture that comes to mind is of Khalid Ranjha. Imagine Romeo and Juliet being spoiled forever because of some scoundrel called Romeo.
