That ‘Soon’ on the arrival of which the country would be set free from the practice of usury seems to never dawn, or at least until the sun rises from the west. In Article 37 of the Constitution of 1973, it is unambiguously stated, ‘Riba will be eliminated as soon as possible from the country.’ But what remains to be the fact is that it is still alive and kicking in the country, and to no one’s incredulity, it has now crept into every sphere of national life, becoming too formidable to do away with. This article is not a solitary example of unfulfilled pledges; the Constitution is swamped with them.
Though a ‘Constitution’ by its terminological meaning is a document that contains rules by which a people are willing to be governed and which aims to facilitate their lives, it is, however, quite grotesque that Pakistan’s Constitution has little contributed in this direction of facilitating populace but has rather tormented them and largely served the vested interests of ‘Powerful’. In Pakistan, things out of this sacred book have been starkly contrary to the ones mentioned in it. Owing to such glaring differences in ground reality and scripture, it will, in no sense, be wrong to humoredly equate the Constitution of Pakistan with the letters exchanged between two lovers, which carry a lot of pledges, but that prove to be mere rhetoric and largely go unfulfilled.
Commendably, the 1973 Constitution has already witnessed the celebration of its golden jubilee, but what it would have ecstatically cherished to witness was the honouring of pledges made in it, exercising restraint to use it for vested interests, and ensuring its supremacy above everything else in the country.
Article 25A of the Constitution, which says that the government will provide free education to all children aged between 5-16 years, remains a far-fetched ambition.
Article 25A of the Constitution, which says that the government will provide free education to all children aged between 5-16 years, has remained a far-fetched ambition so far as the recent report by the Economic Survey of Pakistan reveals that the country has around 26 million out-of-school children (OOSC), making it the second largest in the world. It is an alarming figure, painting a dismal picture of the country’s problem-riddled future. Maybe the state is not keen enough to iron out the OOSC conundrum, perhaps taking the words of former President Ayub Khan deep to heart. Once, Ayub Khan said, “All the trouble in the world is caused by those who read books,” a point of view that wholly contradicts the spirit of the very first revelation, which descended at the ‘Cave of Hira’. The question is, what in the world could such a mammoth number of children possibly be doing when they are not going to school? The answer is fairly simple: labour work, which is a flagrant transgression of the Constitution’s Article 11, i.e., about the prevention of child labour.
It is immensely commendable that the Constitution was produced with almost complete unanimity, but the father of the Constitution, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), himself subjected it to seven amendments, which enormously undermined its efficacy and rendered it to great damage that was eventually seen in later years. Other than the first two amendments, the rest of the five were perhaps unneeded. Even the very first is seen through a sceptical prism, owing to its subsequent use to subdue political opponents. With its aid, ZAB managed to ban ANP, the party of his adversary, Wali Khan. Likewise, the 6th amendment was made to increase the retirement age of judges; ZAB brought this amendment to the constitution to benefit his retiring cronies. While the 7th Amendment had no other concrete purpose but to enable ZAB to insulate his rule from potential hazards, considering the unrest that ensued in the country in the aftermath of the 1977 elections, it came to benefit the dictators.
The incorporation of Article 6 which said, before its revision, that any act to abrogate the constitution would amount to high treason, was richly applauded by all and sundry as a deterrent to future martial laws. Even Mr. Bhutto himself patted himself by saying that with this provision he had shut the doors for the undemocratic players from holding the country’s reigns forever. However, within merely four years, Zia-ul-Haq laughed off this provision by setting off the third undemocratic era after suspending the constitution, cashing in on the lacuna present in the said article. Walking in the footsteps of Zia-ul-Haq, Parvez Musharaf also embarked on the journey of yet another martial law after putting in abeyance the constitution. These acts comprehensively live up to the words of Lord Acton, who said, ‘Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
There were several occasions where the guardian of the constitution, the judiciary, was found incapacitated and powerless, or maybe willfully inclined towards influential people to serve their interests. With only the exception of 1993, when the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed the government of Nawaz Sharif and dissolved the assemblies, the Apex Court reinstated the government, terming the act ‘unconstitutional’. On all other occasions, however, it miserably failed to uphold the constitution, so much so that it even had to hide its inability under the pretext of the so-called ‘Doctrine of Necessity’, which graciously has been struck down by the CJP Ch Iftikhar Ahmed.
While the judiciary is entitled to the responsibility to uphold and preserve the constitution, it is disheartening to find that there are only 7 women among the 126 superior court judges, highlighting the menace of gender inequality entrenched even in the judicial system of the country, which is a glaring derision of Article 34 of the constitution, which is about the promotion of gender equality in all spheres of life.
The Constitution has copiously served as a tool for the mighty, for whom it is merely a hallowed joke, to achieve their interests. Nothing would describe the essence of our Constitution in more clear words than those of Jonathan Swift, who said, ‘Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
The writer is pursuing an MBA at Sukkur IBA University.