Daily Times

Our elites become emotional while discussing the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). It is interesting that they justify their emotionalism and that too not by involving logic but by using more emotionalism. In this regard, the most expressive example is an article written by a retired judge of the Supreme Court, which appeared in a daily newspaper 18 months ago when the NRO crisis’s first phase started. The honourable judge wrote, “I am a beneficiary of Pakistan. Whatever I have achieved or acquired is because of Pakistan. Therefore, if I sound jazbaati or emotional, you will please excuse me…Constitution is the ‘rooh (spirit) of a nation’ and an independent judiciary is its heart.”

All of us are unhappy, though for different reasons, over the situation we are in. However, not all of us are emotional. Not all who (instantly) became Pakistanis due to a stroke of history’s pen became beneficiaries of Pakistan. The wiser amongst the non-beneficiaries appear rational when they tell their side of the story. The Sindhis, Baloch and Pukhtoon did not benefit from the emergence of Pakistan; they would have been living a better life in India where feudalism and tribalism were abolished and democracy was adopted as a governing system. The common mohajirs and Punjabis too would have been far better without the partition; they would not have faced the torture that our self-righteous, anti-democracy elites inflict on them on a daily basis. Nor would have they lived with fatal social diseases and political uncertainty. Speaking sadly, while a majority of the Indian Muslims demanded Pakistan, only the elites of Pakistan are the beneficiaries of Pakistan.

The partition was the best thing that happened to India. It saved the Indians from an identity crisis and any big social disorder that the elites of a big minority might have caused. The emergence of Pakistan could also have been the best thing that happened to the western periphery of India, where Muslims were in a majority, if political power and economic resources were shared with the provinces and the common people. Only politicians could do it, but the elites — the generals, the bureaucrats, the judges, the rich and the media lords, who had all political and economic power in their sacred hands — made certain that politics would not emerge. And, if it somehow emerged, it was crushed, sometimes through force and so-called legal means and sometimes through poisonous propaganda and intrigues.

The honourable judges’ assertions on the president’s immunity are not different from those of the pro-Right lawyers, media persons and engineered opinion managers. He wrote, “The National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) judgment must be implemented in letter and spirit unconditionally. All that is required is that action be taken in terms of the judgment, namely, the government must commence actions within the country and in relation to cases pending abroad, forward a copy of the Supreme Court judgment with a request that the cases, if closed, may be reopened. It is up to the foreign courts then to take action permissible under the laws in force in that country. In so far as the cases within Pakistan are concerned, unless President Zardari waives immunity, he will have protection under Article 248, but in so far as foreign courts are concerned, his request, if any, will be dealt with in accordance with the laws in force in that country.”

The above quoted part forms the core of the honourable judge’s write up. Three decades earlier, when the generals and the judges wanted to hang Bhutto, eight out of 10 articles used to deliver a similar message: ‘The judgment must be implemented to establish all are equal before the law of the land.’

No sir, in the land of the pure, some people are more equal than the rest. They talk and act like gods. The law of the land is not meant for them. They are here to punish or pardon only. We respect them even if they abrogate the constitution, the supreme law of the land, the soul of a nation. On the other hand, we humiliate, hate and even attempt to crush those who are the creators of constitutionalism.

True, the constitution is the rooh of a nation and an independent judiciary is its heart. What we do not know is that politics is the brain of a nation. No one is worried about the brain. No one realises that if politics is weakened, the nation too will be weakened; and if politics is killed, the nation too will die.

We faced half-death when East Pakistan separated from us. Only a political bond could keep us together. The Bengalis should be thankful to our generals, judges, bureaucrats and journalists, who did not allow such a bond to appear. Today, Bangladesh is safe because it is a secular, social-democratic state. Today, Bangladesh is safe because it is in safe (political) hands.

Yesterday we were, again, a terribly divided people. The assassination of Bugti, the march of the Taliban towards Swat and stopping the deposed chief justice from entering Karachi are three of the numerous examples that show the intensity of the then divide. Today, Pakistan is not perfectly united but it is not terribly divided either. Today, the Chief Justice can go wherever he likes and the COAS can visit the front lines with pride and without fear. It all happened because a resilient political system, whose nucleus is none other than the president of Pakistan, is in place.

The COAS, the Chief Justice and the mufti-e-azam(s) of Pakistan can help strengthen or weaken the political system; but they cannot create it. If we can bury the past of our generals and judges, which is sinful given their treatment of the constitution, why cannot we bury the past, which is not even, so far, proven sinful, of the politicians.

Emotionalism is very much a human quality, but it is of little use in seeking solutions of national problems. What is required is to use wisdom. And wisdom is a thing that is a function of the brain. Never before were we as wise as we are today, because never before was politics as strong as it is today. This is why, never before was resistance to the emergence of politics as open as it is today.

Our elites are not looking for solutions; they want to humiliate the nation’s brain, the political institutions, by attacking the brain’s nucleus — the president. They do not want to share political power and economic resources with the provinces and the people. They will do their best to bring in again the kind of political uncertainty that existed earlier. It is certain that this time they will not succeed. This is the story that our politicians are telling. They tell more: the enemies (of Pakistan) are within.

The writer is a freelance columnist