LAST week the normally polite and courteous son of a gentleman admiral friend of mine, unable to control his frustration, angrily told me, "You are a sap." [Sap : a foolish and gullible person - abbreviation of dialect 'sapskull' person with a head like sapwood. OED]
When I asked him what he meant, he said, "You are a silly optimist. You keep on writing and you hope things will improve, governments included. It is all a waste of effort. How many read what you write?"
"You for one," said I. "Nothing wrong with trying to move things along. If I can get through even one skull a week we might arrive on the up- road by 2099. The last 52 years have been disastrous, the only major achievement being the loss of half the country. That too with the greatest of ease. A feat unparalleled in modern history. But one must never despair."
Of choice and ignorance Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a despot. It is easy for him, for none of his cabinet ministers talk back to him. Stoically, they maintain that they only speak when asked to do so, and render advice such as he would like, if and when advice is sought. They are incapable of understanding that a cabinet is collectively responsible for the life and liberty, the health and welfare of 140 million people, each minister being responsible in proportion to his capability.
Nawaz Sharif has no opposition. The rightly discredited opposition parties, greedy and envious, remain disunited and at odds with each other. Even the traditional 'common enemy' cannot bind them together. They are incapable of following a coherent and sustained agenda. The one-point agenda is to get rid of Nawaz Sharif so that they can get into the act, which will not help us one iota. Jinnah's prophesy that each successive government of Pakistan will be worse than its predecessor still holds good.
We have to tolerate all that is heaped upon us. We would be somewhat better off were our leaders to realize that Pakistan is akin to a patient in a hospital's intensive care unit, with feeding pipes and tubes stuck up every possible orifice , breathing and living on a supply of oxygen, and that it is imprudent, if not fatal, to play tricks or to try to delude those who control the nourishment and oxygen supply.
To live, people need money, for which we must have a sound economy, to generate which needs investment. Neither local nor foreign investors are interested in this country. We have had no substantial fresh investments during the past few years, and now we hear rumblings about a couple of multinationals closing up shop and moving out. The mutinationals are here principally for their own good. They are prepared to suffer, up to a point, insecurity, maladministration, high taxes, and the impossibility of getting a fair decision from the law courts, as long as they can make a decent profit. To pull out is no difficult task. Many have budgets larger than that of this country. All they have to do is pull out their company flag from the world map hanging in their board rooms.
Case in point : General Motors. They were well established in this country, and were prepared to expand, in what we now call the good old days, the days when we were thriving and progressing under Ayub Khan. But even those days were intolerable for GM. They sold out and moved on to greener pastures.
Now, who can tell Nawaz Sharif and how that it is time to stop talking about Kargil, about how he did so and so, and said so and so to so thus achieving victory and triumph and international plaudits, and get on with rebuilding the credibility and economy of the country. But it seems that he and his government's concerns are now concentrated on stifling dissenting voices, such as those of Najam Sethi and Hussain Haqqani, both incapable of toppling or even shaking his wobbly government.
Haqqani was jailed for 77 days and was finally released on bail without anything having been proved against him. His body still bears the marks of the torture inflicted on him. Following form, various government agencies and courts will harass him in one way or another for months to come.
Sethi was in for a shorter period as luckily for him he had international support. The charges against him were heavy - sedition, treason, etc - but all were withdrawn as they could not be made to stick. But his harassment continues. The latest government move is a petition filed before the Chief Election Commissioner by Syed Zafar Ali Shah, a member of the National Assembly. MNA Shah is one of those who offer themselves up on a platter to Nawaz Sharif as willing tools to do his every bidding. Shah was one of the hecklers in former Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah's courtroom the day prior to the storming of that honourable institution by the government goons.
Shah's petition "involves the jurisdiction of the Chief Election Commissioner for the following reliefs:
"1) Firstly, the religious status of the Respondent No.1 be determined on the touchstone of the definition of 'Muslim' and 'non-Muslim' given in Article 260(3).
"2) Secondly, his name be struck off from the voter list to a Muslim seat of any Assembly if he is so listed and does not fulfil the requiremnents of a Muslim as given by the Constitution.
"3) Thirdly, his name be struck off from the electoral rolls to a non-Muslim seat as well since he has violated Article 63(1)(g) and Article 62(h). "
Absurd, said many of us, including my senior counsel, Jadoogar of Jeddah, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada: the Chief Election Commissioner, an independent-minded man, will throw the petition out in limine. The CEC ruled otherwise and held a hearing on July 28. Present in Islamabad before him that day were not just members of the press and public but representatives of the diplomatic corps of First World countries who believe that religion is solely a matter between a man and his God, who were keen to observe how God is invoked in the courts of Pakistan and how the seeds of a religious inquisition are being sown. The hearing was adjourned to a date in October.
Sharifuddin's opinion is that the CEC has no jurisdiction to go into the question as to whether Sethi is a Muslim or not, particularly after Sethi's public pronouncement that he is a Sunni Muslim. He told me how, when he was law minister a question arose about the elevation of a judge to the Supreme Court as an allegation had been made that he was an Ahmadi. The judge concerned wrote a letter to the law minister stating that he was a practising Muslim and the matter ended there. All concerned were satisfied and the judge was duly elevated to the Supreme Court.
Sethi is also being savaged by the hounds of the income tax department. His home has been attached and some 90 old settled cases have been reopened and queries raised and charges levied. I sympathize with him.
Twenty-three years ago I was thrown in the mill in the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during which a special income tax harassment cell was set up and a man with sadistic tendencies found and appointed to head it. This man, Anwar Shaukat, was given an office in the Central Board of Revenue premises in Islamabad and unlimited power. Each week I had to fly up and sit for hours reading in his waiting room, which reassembled the ante-room of the Chamber of Commerce President, filled with businessmen of all grades and shades. When I was summoned into his office, I would take my book in and place it on his table with the spine facing him. One day it would be 'The Last Days of Hitler' by Hugh Trevor-Roper, the next 'The Last Hundred Days' by John Toland, and the next 'Hitler: The Last Ten Days' by Warren Tute. The titles succeeded in unnerving Shaukat who would angrily ask me each time why it was that I read such books. I explained that they were all relevant.Were Sethi to follow this example, he may have a problem as the man now harassing him is quite likely to have never heard of Hitler. And he may not be as lucky as we were. Our assessment order finally arrived on July 4 1977, ordering payment of a huge unpayable sum within a week. By dawn the next morning Zia had taken over. Anwar Shaukat and his hounds were untraceable.
But Sethi must not despair.