THE latest political stint to hit us comes as no surprise to the 170 million suffering people of Pakistan — ‘orphans of the storm.’
Since the death of my friend, Zamir Niazi, who the journalists of the ‘free’ press cannot and must not forget, and who used to read seven newspapers (three English and four Urdu) before telephoning me in the morning with a precis, I have to rely on what I can assimilate of the local political shenanigans (old hat) from the four English newspapers I read.
In one, on July 28, in a box on the front page under the headline ‘Altaf endorses decision,’ the ‘warnings’ of the Pir of London were listed: “He warned the establishment that if any operation was launched against the Muttahida then there would be ‘Dama Dam Mast Qalandar’ in all the provinces.”
He “further warned the top authorities and corridors of power in Islamabad that all their pomp and glory would be shattered.” He “also warned the agencies to learn a lesson from the past...”. He ‘warned’ the president and prime minister “that people around them were not sincere and are busy in hatching conspiracies.”
The Muttahidas were sincere, said Altaf Bhai, and they would retain all their non-ministerial non-advisory positions (which generate power and pelf) and continue to serve the people.
This thunder from London must undoubtedly have caused President General Pervez Musharraf to shiver and shake in his boots. He and his allies, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, will sit down and resolve who it will now be who and who will be in charge of the hapless child’s health and welfare — the third-rate father or the fourth-rate mother.
Whichever it be, whatever little the child owns is up for grabs. One of the latest grabs to be identified is 1,200 acres of land in Sheikhupura which is split and owned by various smallhoders, poor farmers. The government of Punjab intends to ‘acquire’ this land. According to a report in this newspaper on July 24 under the heading ‘BoI confirmed acquisition of 1,200 acres for a car plant,’ “The Board of Investment (BoI) on Sunday confirmed that the Punjab government was in the process of acquiring 1,200 acres of (agricultural) land in Sheikhupura for a Mercedes assembly plant.”
However, in an earlier report on July 22 ‘Is cheap land for pricey Mercs a fair deal?’ we were told that “nobody in the Board of Investment — a federal agency responsible for investment promotion — is ready to discuss or defend the project. Senior officials contacted by Dawn said the whole file on the Daimler-Chrysler project was not available with the BoI. A senior officer said : ‘The file is in the personal custody of Minister of State Umar Ghumman,’ who has been in the United States for more than a month where he has family business interests.”
The fact is that Mercedes (Daimler-Chrysler) has made no commitment.
The farmers cannot trust the government or its statements — nor will they, nor should they. They must approach the courts of law which mercifully are still functioning. And we are fortunate in having the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who can see and who can hear what the government selectively cannot, require the land in question, and who can also order. The farmers should request him to take suo motu notice of their plight and restrain the land grabbers from grabbing what little they own.
One judgment to be relied upon is the case of Brig. Muhammad Bashir versus Abdul Karim and Others, Civil Appeal No.30/99 (PLD 2004 Supreme Court 271) which deals with the allotment of disputed land which was allegedly not available for allotment. One passage quoted by the learned judges in their judgment : “There is no cavil with the proposition that ‘so long as statutory bodies and executive authorities act without fraud and bona fide within the powers conferred on them by the Statute, the judiciary cannot interfere with them.
There is ample power vested in the High Court to issue directions to an executive authority when such an authority is not exercising its power bona fide for the purpose contemplated by the law or is influenced by extraneous and irrelevant considerations.
When a statutory functionary acts mala fide or in a partial, unjust and oppressive manner, the High Court in the exercise of its writ jurisdiction has ample power to grant relief to the aggrieved party’.” The quote is taken from PLD 1958 SC (Pak) 41 East & West Steamship Co. v. Pakistan).
Strangely enough, the East & West Steamship Co. was our family partnership which, along with other privately owned companies, entities and industries, was grabbed, or ‘nationalized,’ by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974.
Not strangely, Pakistan is now the only country in the whole wide world which has a coastline of a thousand kilometers opening on to one of the most important and strategic sea lanes of the world which does not have a single ocean-going vessel owned by the private sector. Our rulers always were and remain poorly endowed in their upper stories. Such is our luck.
To end, something for the little farmers and the big land grabbers, a passage written by that fighter for the underdog, author John Ernst Steinbeck (Nobel Prize for Literature 1962). This passage is taken from his ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and was quoted by the learned judges in their judgment (PLD 2004 SC 271) on the allotment of land which could not be allotted :
“And the great owners who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact : when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact : when a majority of people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history : repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.
The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.”
To this, the judges added their own comment : “It is high time we learn from history. What will happen otherwise needs no comments.”
E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk