Daily Times

Countless people took to the social media to express their condolences over the demise of leading human rights activist Asma Jahangir. In a typical social media style, they prayed that may the deceased lady rest in peace, or RIP.

I understand the meaning and purpose of the prayers. But it also makes me wonder if Asma’s soul will ever be at rest. Was her mission confined to the worldly life and ended at her death? I think, perhaps not.

As a humanist, Asma was aware of the fact that it takes a long arduous evolutionary journey — and not a revolution — for democracy to sustain. This shrewdness and political sagacity was the compelling force behind her bold and strong stands against every violation that marred this evolutionary process.

She knew that giving equal rights to non-Muslims was essential for pluralism and inclusive democracy. Therefore, she wanted the Pakistani constitution to be amended and made in line with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Many of her critics — advertently and inadvertently — criticise her for supporting political dispensations and being critical of the intrigues of the establishment against the system. Some also went to the extent of issuing the edict that she was not a good Muslim or that she has pandered to the Indian agenda against Pakistan. They would attack her for meeting Shiv Sena leaders.

Let me take the last allegation first. These people forgot that as a humanist and a human rights activist, she met all kinds of people and without doing that, she could not come to the right conclusion about the state of human rights violations in any country. These critics should also refer to the Asma Jahangir report on the violations of human rights in Indian-held Kashmir, which has scathing observations against the Indian government’s excesses.

She was ruthlessly criticised by the co-evolutionists of the war economy for taking the Memogate brief to defend Hussain Haqqani, the bad boy of Pakistan. In the first place, being a lawyer, she had the right to defend anybody who was accused of even murder. But in this case, she saw that the whole Memogate scandal was a sting operation by the then ISI chief General Shuja Pasha. Even one of the most upright police officials, Tariq Khosa, declined to head the Memogate commission as he considered it ‘a hatchet job’. In his recently published collection of articles titled The Faltering State: Pakistan’s Internal Security Landscape, he has dealt with this issue in more detail. The Memogate case has now been resurrected by the superior judiciary once again. I wonder whether the superior judiciary will ever take up the case against the people who accepted before the Parliament the intelligence and security failure when Osama bin Laden was taken out by the US marines.

She was also lashed at by the Islamic militants for defending people who were tried under the controversial blasphemy laws. In this case, she was threatened with dire consequences but as a secularist, she stood steadfast on her beliefs and defended the accused. Here, I am reminded of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan martyr Rashid Rehman, who had the courage to defend a blasphemy case in Multan. Tragically, he had to sacrifice his life for it. After his brutal death, no lawyer in Multan was willing to defend the person accused of blasphemy as there were pamphlets distributed in the bar that whoever defends the accused, would face the same fate. Asma was extremely worried about this situation. She managed to arrange a lawyer for the accused and provided him with protection.

The executive and the judiciary did not take action against the killers of Rashid Rehman. There are many people who are languishing in jails and some are even killed by extremists. As long as people do not have freedom of expression, Asma’s soul cannot rest in peace.

She is also being vilified for speaking up against the July 28 judgement of the Supreme Court in which the sitting prime minister was disqualified. She was not alone in criticising the merits of the judgement; even some leading lawyers such as Dr Pervez Hasan are on record in writing that the judgement was flawed. The definition of ‘receivable’ was not according to the income tax laws. Further, the appointment of a supervisory judge of the highest court or the NAB trial of the Sharif family was not a good precedent to set. My good friend Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed used to say, the judges do not only need to be independent of the executive but also of each other, in order to apply their mind without any influence while remaining within the remit of the laid down laws.

But very few lawyers have the courage to speak up in the media against any judgement of the superior courts because they have to keep the honourable judges humoured. But Asma never hesitated in speaking her mind, whether it was against the civil or military government or judicial excesses.

As a humanist, Asma was aware of the fact that it takes a long arduous evolutionary journey — and not a revolution — to achieve a sustainable democracy. This shrewdness and political sagacity was the driving force behind her bold and strong stands against every violation that could mar this evolutionary process

Some TV journalists had also an issue with her good relations with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid. Little do they understand that she first became famous because of the Asma Jillani case in which the Supreme Court declared General Muhammad Yahya Khan a usurper. (But even after Yahya Khan was removed after an internal coup by General Gul Hasan, the court could not muster the courage to give any punishment to the usurper.) She first filed this case in the Lahore High Court, challenging the arrest of her illustrious father Malik Ghulam Jillani. The charge against him was that he opposed military action in the then East Pakistan. The high court did not give him the relief but after Yahya Khan was overthrown, the appeal was entertained by the Supreme Court and, as mentioned above, martial law was declared illegal.

All conscientious people in Pakistan are of the view that Bangladesh struggled for independence after suffering 24 years of injustice. Most recently, Nawaz Sharif called for introspection to analyse honestly why Bangladesh fought the war of liberation. He is also now dubbed by some hyper-nationalists as Mujeebur Rehman of Punjab.

Her belief in the freedom of expression and human rights’ values was so strong that she even stood up against the ban on Altaf Hussain’s speeches. She also took up the cases of the enforced disappearances of some of the right-wing militant groups. All this was done by her inspite of having political differences with MQM or the groups like JuD. That shows that she was a strong believer of the principle ‘I may disagree with what you say but I will defend till death your right to say it.’

To all hyper-nationalist journalists, I say that the profession requires us to rise above our national, religious, ethnic caste and creed to be honest, pro-people analysts. Asma — though she was not a journalist — had risen above all these prejudices and that is the reason she was The Asma Jahangir.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, February 25^th 2018.