As a young man in the late 1980s, I visited a recluse by the name of Dr G.M. Mehkri a lot, primarily because of his terrific personal library. He told me that he was part of a large group of intellectuals who were invited by Z.A. Bhutto to work out the country’s post-1971 ideological narrative.

Once in 1989, he wanted a friend of mine and me to discuss with him the 1973 constitution. He began the proceedings by saying that he couldn’t recognise it anymore. He told us that a lot of what was discussed in the conference of intellectuals that the Bhutto regime had organised in early 1973 had been incorporated in the constitution. But he then added that from 1974 onwards — and especially in the 1980s — so many amendments were made to the document that it had become “unrecognisable.”

He used to say that “from 1974, the Bhutto regime began to snuff out the constitution’s progressive spirit” and that “by the time Ziaul-Haq had begun to play with it, he had turned it into a document that encouraged bigotry …!”

The majority of motions rejected in 1973 gradually became part of the constitution from 1979 to 1989

Mehkri who was a PhD in political science would sometimes even sleep in his library. He described the much-amended constitution as “revenge of the right-wing parties which were sidelined by voters but were appeased by Bhutto and Zia.”

According to him, the religious parties) had detested Jinnah’s “Muslim modernism” — an idea that peaked during the Ayub Khan regime (1958-69). Mehkri then told us that these elements began to put the blame for the 1971 East Pakistan debacle on ‘Muslim Modernism’. He claimed that Ayub’s ‘Muslim Modernism’ was driven by “monopolistic capitalism” and that Bhutto wanted to shift the idea to the left.

These weren’t the musings of a disgruntled and reclusive intellectual. Going through National Assembly Debates Vol: I and II — the early debates of the first post-1971 National Assembly published in March 1973 — one can clearly note that the Bhutto regime was initially doing exactly what Dr Mehkri claimed.

These debates (on the formation of the new constitution) took place months before the constitution was finally passed in August 1973. In Vol: II of the publication, there’s an interesting debate on the role of Islam in the constitution. I am assuming this debate took place in February 1973.

It kicks off with Shah Noorani, chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP) asking that the constitution be made “entirely Islamic,” to which Mahmood Azam Farooqui of another religious party, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), responds by saying that it should be left to the Supreme Court to decide what was (or wasn’t) Islamic.

Noorani then claims that “Pakistan was made in the name of Islam,” to which the ruling PPP’s S. Ahmad Rashid responds by saying: “Pakistan wasn’t created to implement Islamic rituals, but to implement an Islamic economy which was socialist.” So after a vote, Noorani’s motion to make Islamic rituals mandatory in the constitution was defeated.

The next day, Rashid suggested that the term socialism be added to the constitution to which his own party member Makhdoom Zaman moved that instead of socialism, the term “Islamic Socialism” be used (“as the basis of Pakistan’s economy”). JI’s professor Ghafoor disagreed and asked that just the word Islam be used whereas dissident PPP man, Ahmad Raza Kasuri, suggested the term “Musawat-i-Muhammadi.”

JI members in the assembly maintained that “socialism was anti-Islam” and the government was trying to make the constitution socialist. Their sentiments were echoed by Maulana Ghaus of Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam (JUI) who said that though his party had supported PPP’s manifesto (in 1970), he could now “smell communism” in Rashid’s motion. The PPP’s Kausar Niazi sarcastically asked how come (parties such as JI and JUI) had no problem accepting the term “Islamic democracy” but were finding faults in the term “Islamic Socialism?”

After a long discussion, the four assembly members agreed to use the term Musawat-i-Muhammadi. The next day members of religious parties in the assembly complained that the government was suggesting a time period of seven years after which all laws in Pakistan would become “Islamic.” They said this was too long a period and there was no guarantee that the assembly (if dominated by secular parties) would even do so after seven years. When the treasury benches refused to accept a time period less than seven years, the opposition walked out in protest.

When the opposition members returned, JUI’s Maulana Ghaus and another religious parliamentarian Maulana Abdul Hakeem asked that apostasy, speaking against Islam and preaching of any other faith other than Islam be made unlawful in the constitution. To this PPP’s Khurshid Mir said that if they did that then non-Muslim countries could react by enacting laws against preaching Islam. He said that the laws being proposed by Ghaus and Hakeem could encourage violence by those who believe that someone else was not a “correct Muslim.” The motion was rejected.

The opposition then asked that the teaching of Islamiat and Arabic be made constitutionally compulsory in schools. The suggestion of teaching of Arabic was accepted by the assembly. Later, Mian Manzoor and Shah Noorani said that laws be enacted in the constitution against the “spread of obscenity” (on TV and films) and against the sale, production, import and consumption of alcohol. They were supported in this by a PPP member, Begum Nasim Jehan.

However, a majority of members on the treasury benches agreed to not support the motion when PPP’s Hafeez Pirzada said that the government was committed to curb all social ills and there was thus no need to enact any such laws. The motion was taken back.

The next day, JUI’s Maulana Haq and JUP’s Maulana Al Azari forwarded a resolution that a clause be added in the constitution demanding that the president/prime minister (and eventually all parliamentarians) be ‘pious’ to which chief of PML-Qayyum, Abdul Qayyum Khan, said that “all the ulema in the parliament were not ulema anymore because they had become politicians.”

Abbas Mehmood and Kausar Niazi of the PPP said that “there was no yardstick in Islam to measure one’s faith” and that the ulema cannot be given this task “because they are always hasty to declare a person a non-believer.”

It is interesting to note that a majority of these motions which were rejected in 1973 gradually became part of the constitution — mainly between 1979 and 1989. That’s why Dr Mehkri would look at the constitution, shake his head and mumble, “I just can’t recognise this anymore, just can’t.” He passed away shortly after.

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 24th, 2017