Daily Times

Back in 2014 Shahid Khan Afridi, one of our former cricket captains, courted controversy when expressing views on women’s cricket that underscored how the patriarchy was still very much un-smashed in the field of sports. Though the interviewer should not be spared complete liability seeing as he should have called out Afridi for his misogyny. Yet the latter is a mere sportsman. What if it had been the Chief Justice of Pakistan or a military general casting pearls of unsolicited ‘wisdom’ resulting in erasing the recorded existence of various religious and ethnic communities?

Those who are the custodians of state institutions such as the judiciary and the military cannot afford to have such an openly laissez-faire attitude — given the firm grip they have on both state and society. Yet CJP Justice Saqib Nisar apparently didn’t get the memo. Meaning that over the past fortnight he passed remarks on the Two-Nation Theory and the Pakistan Movement. Unable to bring himself to mention our neighbour either by name or majority religious affiliation — he simply referred to one nation as being a Muslim homeland before proceeding to confess that he couldn’t even utter the word when it came to the ‘other’. Similarly, Director General Sindh Rangers Major General Muhammad Saeed chose the occasion of Pakistan’s Independence Day to issue Karachiites an ultimatum of sorts. If they wanted to see peace and order restored to their city — which has been plagued by targeted killings and gangland warfare for more than three decades now — they must surrender ethnic, sectarian and religious identities in favour of a singular Pakistani one.

The custodians of state institutions such as the judiciary and the military cannot afford to have an openly laissez-faire attitude — given the firm grip they have on both state and society

Naturally, these aforementioned politicised statements from non-political figures did not go unnoticed and drew ire from many quarters. And that is how it should be.

For these indicate just how little the military-civil bureaucracy, judiciary included, understand prevailing societal dynamics — not just in this country but also in the region. Yet this set-up still appears intent on monopolising the nation building narrative. Bluntly put, it must be suffering a prolonged bout of selective amnesia given how it has cost this country dearly, most notably in terms of losing its eastern wing.

Lest we forget, the civil bureaucracy was, at least until the country’s first military coup in 1958, under the stewardship of then President Iskandar Mirza and Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, the latter fulfilling this role until 1955. Yet between them they treated the political leadership from both East and West Pakistan as extras when it came to running the country, to be disposed of at will. In 1954, when the Constituent Assembly attempted to introduce a system of checks and balances to curb the powers of the Governor General, Ghulam Muhammad hesitated not for once second before dismissing the Assembly. While the Sindh High Court ruled this to be unlawful — it was the highest court in the land that chose to legitimise the act, with the then CJP Muhammad Munir citing the ‘doctrine of necessity’. The latter has, of course, been relentless in its devouring of Parliament’s sovereignty.

And as if that were not enough there is the not small matter of the competing systems of justice that battle it out here in Pakistan; to say nothing of the socio-political ramifications that this brings with it. One such instance is the Federal Shariat Court’s decision to abolish the (alternative) sentence of life imprisonment for blasphemy in favour of the death penalty only. The move has simply served to strengthen those radical forces that stand against sectarian coexistence, the very same that incite mass lynching of Christians and Hindus and other minorities here in Pakistan.

Yet this is not to place the blame for the systematic failure of safeguarding democratic norms squarely and solely on the shoulders of successive civilian leaderships. The country’s military establishment must share the blame, not least by abrogating the Constitution over a period totalling some three decades. Thus much of the citizenry finds it ironically hard to swallow the fact that they are treated to a lecture on patriotism from a representative of an institution that views the Constitution as a hindrance to its own monopoly of power; an institution that many subsequently feel owes this country some kind of reparations for having interrupted democracy time and again.

Pakistan is a country home to a multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian population. And to have someone in a position of power say that he cannot bring himself to name a particular community or else urge citizens to erase their varied identities shows nothing but a lack of understanding of his own society. Or do these gentlemen forget that Sindhis or Punjabis have existed for thousands of years? In addition, if these distinct identities were so abominable it does rather beg the question as to why the Pakistan Army itself boasts separate provincial regiments.

But then this is la-la land. And folk here believe that a position of power means a free pass to have all fingers in all pies without a second thought for cleaning up the ensuing mess or, indeed, accountability of any kind. A better path towards patriotism would be to restrict the generals to delivering on national defence alone and to have the judges only speak by way of their timely and just decisions.

The writer is a sociologist with interest in history and politics. He tweets @ZulfiRao1

Published in Daily Times, August 25^th 2017.