Daily Times

It is not every day that one runs into a quote that is tailor-made for a particular situation or incident. I hit the jackpot when I came across a quote that says: “Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way”.

A befitting example of this maybe a televangelist ‘doctor’ who is not actually a doctor, neither a medical or homeopathic one nor an academic one! In fact, he claimed that he is called ‘Dr’ out of love, and amazingly this ‘love’ is being perpetuated and spread by a particular media group to the innocent and gullible viewers who take the doctor’s word as gospel truth. Come to think of it, in rural areas in Pakistan, dispensers and quacks have always been referred to as ‘doctors’!

Among his manifold accomplishments, the Dr claimed on a television programme that he makes the best nihari in the entire subcontinent! I am more than impressed by this particular achievement and more so by the fact that the Dr had the time and resources to go into every single nihari-making household and establishment in the entire subcontinent to sample their wares — a feat that should ideally be reflected in Ripley’s Believe It or Not or the Guinness Book of World Records — and then give himself this extraordinary achievement award! Maybe the Pakistani nation would have been better off if he had just stuck to being ‘Dr Nihari’ instead of a self-proclaimed religious ‘scholar’! While most of us are humbled by our own vast limitations but it is not so for Dr Nihari, who forgets that the Quran forbids treating people with arrogance, or walking haughtily on earth for God does not love anyone who acts proudly and boastfully. Dr Nihari while chastising his critics forgets that Allah commands men to be modest in their bearings and to lower their voices- for the ugliest sound is the donkey’s braying.

Language is a funny thing; a single word can mean so many different things in different contexts, the tone and tenor conveying the intention of the speaker. One word that comes to my mind as I write today is ‘shameful’. As Pakistan completed its 66 years of ‘existence’, I have been contemplating. Could it be possible that we have become so morally decrepit that we have started giving away babies — living flesh and blood — on television shows to enhance ratings and profits? Shameful indeed. Dr Nihari and his sponsors actually did this during Ramazan, with babies being provided by a welfare association called Chhipa.

Pakistan’s Constitution requires all laws to be in accordance with the Quran. Since the concept of adoption is repugnant to Islam, there is no law that legalises adoption. The only legal remedy is to become the guardian of the child whom one desires to adopt. A petition for guardianship has to be moved to the concerned court, which has the power to appoint guardians of ‘person’ and ‘property’. However, this process cannot be termed as ‘adoption’, as it is a mere transfer of custody at best. There is one anomaly in the law: the Stamp Act recognises the adoption deed as a document on which stamp duty is payable. An adoption deed is any document (other than a will) that records an adoption or confers or purports to confer an authority to adopt. Under Islamic law, although adoption is not recognised, in India and Pakistan, in areas where custom is given priority by legislation over general Mohammedan law, a special family or tribal custom of adoption will, if proved, prevail. There was a recent Supreme Court judgement whereby an adoption deed dated July 11, 1928, registered in Sialkot, was recognised as proving relationship. However, this does not mean that people of other religions cannot adopt in Pakistan.

Dr Nihari while castigating his opponents by claiming that they had used profanities against his mother failed to justify how his repeated references to the ‘kachra’ (garbage) babies and handing them over on television where their identities were known to the entire world would save them from the same profanities and stigmatisation? If the purpose of this exercise was to create awareness and compassion should not the focus have been on dead and mutilated babies instead of living ones? And why is it assumed that all babies found in this manner are illegitimate? Is it not possible that some could be ones abducted from hospitals, etc? Are the babies when found reported to the police? Is an attempt made to search for the real parents? Is a guardianship certificate obtained from the court before handing them over? And who ensures that the adoptive/foster parents continue to treat the child well? Are there social welfare officers involved in such ‘adoption’ cases and their follow-ups?

Organisations like the Edhi Foundation have been providing exemplary humanitarian services since long, and even though Edhi has a programme for abandoned babies, the foundation has never gone on media for a publicity stunt. The Chhipa website urges people to “throw the newborn child in Chhipa cradle (Palna)” and claims that there is no dearth of childless couples who “gladly want to adopt the discarded newborn infant” and that “During the last few years, Mr Chhipa got practical experience by handing over dozens of newly born unwanted children to enthusiastic learned childless married couples for adoption” (the italics are mine). Again the choice of language appearing on the website, using words like ‘throw’ and ‘discarded’ instead of ‘place’ and ‘abandoned’ is poor at best, but one hopes not a reflection of the true intention of the organization, whose handing over of infants through Dr Nihari, brings to mind Tariq Aziz’s Nilam Ghar and his “Yeh Rahbar water-cooler aap ka hua” in response to a correct answer to the question asked. There is a huge difference between a real live infant and a water cooler, one that the media group promoting such insensitive actions conveniently forgot. Mr Chhipa would do well to take a page out of Edhi’s book, who has placed over 21,320 abandoned children in foster/adoptive care. More disheartening is the fact that the guardian laws in our country rest firmly upon the notion of ‘welfare of the minor’, with the courts acting ‘in loco parentis’, but sadly no action was taken. It pains me to think that perhaps Atiqa Oddo’s alcoholic beverages merited more than the welfare of abandoned infants, maybe Chhipa is right in using the terminology ‘discarded’.

We persistently teach our children about Hazrat Umar roaming the streets to check on his people yet fail to give any examples from our ruling elite. Norway’s Prime Minister took to driving a taxi for a day, recently to hear the views of his people. Shameful for us indeed! Someone needs to teach the PM that being a PM means sitting in bullet and bomb proof vehicles and abodes, and being escorted by at least a score of vehicles and again taking no notice of infants being given away on television shows- while the federal and provincial governments and the regulatory bodies sit and twiddle their thumbs, if even that.

I am not insensitive to the plight of abandoned babies. I advocate their welfare, legal rights, protection and discretion. The promise of further such stupid incidents has prompted me to suggest that perhaps,we should seek a loan from the morally solvent to sustain us through this ‘shameful’ period of moral bankruptcy while we let the arrogant Dr Nihari, and his huge ego, give away babies like water-coolers?

The writer is an advocate of the High Court