WE had a chance of shooting ourselves in the foot yet again but, mercifully, desisted. I do not know who is to be thanked for this, Judge Jaffery, General Musharraf or the collective wisdom of the military government. But whoever it is deserves the nation's thanks.
If Nawaz Sharif had received the death sentence there would have been no end to the blackening of Pakistan's already besmirched image. That we have been spared this outcome is no small cause for rejoicing.
All the others have been acquitted: a smart decision indeed although I know of people who would be disappointed at Saifur Rehman going scot free. Even if he had no hand in the events of October 12, 1999, like Cinna the poet who was strung up for his "bad verses" (or so at least Shakespeare assures us), Saifur Rehman for the effrontery he displayed when in power deserved to get something.
Anyhow, it is good for the country this sorry chapter now comes to a close. A death sentence, even if it was never to be carried out, would have turned Nawaz Sharif into an instant martyr, the continued object of international concern and attention. His party also would have felt bound to stick to him in his hour of trouble. Life imprisonment changes all this. It has the ring of dullness to it and as such robs his cause of any lingering excitement.
Calls to replace Nawaz Sharif as Muslim League head can be expected to intensify. Being written off as a thing of the past by colleagues who hung on his every word is a more daunting and bitter prospect than even the lonely months in prison which stretch ahead. Between an imprisoned leader buoyed up by the active sympathy of his followers and someone whom people are only waiting to forget and cast aside lies a world of difference.
It was said in a news report that in prison Nawaz Sharif was reading Nelson Mandela. Wrong choice of author. He should be reading something closer to home. Sharif of course is paying the price for his foolishness. He may have been convicted on the hijacking charge but the fact that this charge was brought against him was a consequence of, and not the reason for, his dismissal from power. Had the god of foolish things smiled on him on October 12 it is not his conduct which would have been judged but perhaps someone else's.
Let us not forget that two parallel chain of events were taking place on that fateful day. Nawaz Sharif tried to install a favourite as army chief and also tried to prevent General Musharraf's plane from landing at Karachi or indeed anywhere in Pakistan. Because he was oblivious to the 'balance of forces' (a late Marxist expression), he failed on both counts. The army meanwhile not only tried to remove him and seize power but, being the army, it also succeeded. Since to the victor belong the spoils, it should not be surprising if in the aftermath of these happenings it is only Nawaz Sharif who should have been in the dock for his actions and no one else.
This is not to cast any aspersion on Judge Rehmat Hussain Jaffery who has delivered, on the basis of the evidence presented, a fine judgment. A judge sits in judicial not political judgment and as such has to focus his eyes narrowly on the precise issue before him. Political judgments he has to leave to others.
Nawaz Sharif's real crime was that his hitherto legendary luck ran out on October 12. He over-reached himself when he tried to remove one army chief too many. The army high command was already bitter because of the fallout from the Kargil crisis. It also remembered General Jahangir Karamat's resignation as army chief which occurred amidst tension between him and Nawaz Sharif. Smarting under these injuries, the army command was in no mood to be pushed around. Any man would have sensed this. Not the king of the heavy mandate who plunged in where a Caesar would have feared to tread.
In Pakistan there is a written penal code (largely Macaulay's handiwork) and an unwritten political code distilled from the experience of the past 52 years. Offences, even serious ones, under the written code are open to mitigating circumstances. But for serious offences under the political code there is little leniency.
In a country where life is cheap and policemen can get away with staged murders, a former prime minister was hanged because he had 'conspired' to murder a political opponent. Note that he had actually pulled no trigger and yet he swung from the gallows. Of course, he may have committed a crime under the written code. But more serious were his offences falling under the unwritten code and it were these which took him to his rendezvous with Tara Masih.
After he was overthrown from power and his popularity, far from diminishing, actually soared, General Zia felt threatened: there was one rope and two necks. Zia made sure it was not his neck around which the noose tightened. Sharif also committed an offence falling under Pakistan's unwritten code of political conduct but there the comparison between him and Bhutto ends. Compared to Sharif, Bhutto was a titan, which is why the generals who overthrew him were afraid of him. Musharraf has said repeatedly he is not a vindictive man. More to the point, he does not seem to be a paranoid man. But it is also true that Sharif is no threat to anyone. He can come out from prison tomorrow and be a threat only to Ijazul Haq and Mian Azhar. He is built altogether on a smaller scale. But built, let us not forget, closer to Pakistan's diminished hopes and specifications. In the '70s, despite defeat at the hands of India and the loss of East Pakistan, Pakistan marched to a bolder tune.
In the air was a greater elan and confidence. Pakistan's circumstances today are impoverished. The times and the great talents of the Muslim League complement each other. In today's Pakistan we could only get leaders like Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and - well, let me go no further. But if comparisons between Sharif and the original Bhutto are unrealistic, a comparison of their respective parties yields interesting parallels. Just prior to his hanging Bhutto had gone on hunger-strike to protest against something or the other. As a result his physical condition, which was already bad, further deteriorated.
The Central Executive Committee met in solemn session in Islamabad with acting secretary-general Yasin Wattoo (now a stalwart of the PML) in the chair and issued a solemn appeal to Bhutto to break his hunger strike: "Beloved chairman, please eat" being the headline in an Urdu newspaper.
When a possible death sentence hung over Nawaz Sharif the leadership of the Muslim League declared that they would pray for him. Perhaps the Muslim League feels vindicated because its prayers have been answered.
Prior to Bhutto's hanging the most fervent wish of senior PPP leaders was that their resolve should not be tested. They had no stomach to stand up to the army.
Feelings have been no different in the Muslim League whose top leaders repeatedly made it clear that they did not believe in confronting the army. The PPP at least was honest about its pusillanimity and made no attempts to make a virtue of it. The Muslim League has been cleverer: its leadership has said that the country cannot afford any confrontation between the Muslim League and the army. In Pakistan the unforgiving nature of the permanent government is matched only by the fecklessness of the political class.
There is another point worth remembering about the unwritten code which is the highest law of the land. The most heinous crime in it is political overstretch. For a politician stretching out his hand too far there is no forgiveness. That is why there is point to the demand once voiced by the late Maulana Kausar Niazi that there should be a separate graveyard for ex-prime ministers in Islamabad. No occupation in Pakistan has proved to be more hazardous. Bhutto senior may have been a dangerous creature but it says something for our bracing climate that every prime minister to come after him has also felt the sword of abrupt dismissal on his or her neck: twice Benazir, twice Nawaz Sharif and, long ago, even the vapid Junejo.
While it is true that prime ministers have been strangely incompetent commodities, it remains not a little strange that in Pakistan wherein the history of folly is long and colourful other crimes routinely have gone unquestioned and, of course, unpunished: assembly sackings, constitution abrogations, unwanted wars, even the country's dismemberment. Over these events which have regularly punctuated Pakistan's tempestuous history broods the eternal silence of the sphinx.