Daily Times

The coronavirus crisis has exposed many a national weakness of the country that include the uncoordinated and, sometimes, glaringly self defeating moves by the federal and provincial authorities for the containment of the covid-19; the opposition’s relentless malicious propaganda; the negative projection of the PTI regime particularly the hostile coverage of Prime Minister Imran Khan by a section of the print and electronic media; the unfounded, hostile and venomous posts against the national security apparatus on the social media, and the apathy displayed by the concerned official agencies to counter the flow of such abhorrent material.

All this toxicity and maliciousness is being injected in the society without fear of law and censure by any governmental authority for the last two years especially after the accountability process against the former ruling elite was speeded up and further expanded in scope and scale. Interestingly, this is being done in the name of provincial autonomy, the freedom of speech, the freedom of press and publication and the privilege of the opposition. It seems there are certain forces which want to rend asunder the polity, create wedge between the national security agencies and the populace and spread despair.

In a challenging crisis, the higher judiciary of any country keeps steady nerves and guards against the violation of the constitutional rights of the populace and adjudges not by the pure letter of the law but by the logic and spirit of the law following the concept of ‘clear and present danger’. As enunciated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, when any individual misuses his freedom of speech and endangers others, the application of justice follows the logic behind the law. What the logical course of justice should be is to recognize the ‘clear and present danger’ and restrain the individual relying more on logic and spirit of the law. This way, the judiciary monitors the right to expression to bring sanity in the society.

The objective of the judicial verdicts is the health of the polity and the ultimate wellbeing of the populace. This concept of justice could be stretched and applied to every matter that critically concerns the writ of the state, administration of state affairs and the enforcement of the fundamental rights of the citizenry as enunciated by the basic law of the land. The judicial verdicts should aim at clearing the muddle and ambiguity. The autocracy being the beneficiary of the current rotten system has come out in solemn fraternity to fail the state and the country manipulating the law of the land to the peril of the underprivileged. The hapless populace faces the coercive power of the executive and the callousness of the police and judiciary watching in wonderment the convicted prisoners walk away from jail barracks for the medical intervention of their choice in the country and abroad while the lesser mortals die of tuberculosis and cirrhosis of lever spitting blood in narrow, airless and overcrowded barracks. Isn’t it shameful?

The coronavirus has further sharpened this divide. The posh areas are getting disinfecting splashes while the neighborhoods of the underprivileged and slums have been left to fend for themselves. The wily autocracy took the High Courts’ decisions as Godsend opportunity to ensure the release of their acolytes jailed by accountability courts. The opposition representing the ruling elite has the sole issue to resolve before veering to constructive politics – that is to reverse the process of accountability. Instead of showing the grace to fight their cases in the courts, they have been engaged in a continuous sinister campaign of vilification against the PTI regime. They created awful, deceitful, dramatic and scary scenes feigning as dying victims of vindictiveness and wretchedness for permission to fly abroad for medical intervention. Again, all this has been done in the name of human rights – reserved only for the autocracy and unknown to the lesser mortals. Shamelessness is thy name.

The posh areas are getting disinfecting splashes while the neighborhoods of the underprivileged and slums have been left to fend for themselves

Both the print and electronic media has lost much of the professional integrity in presenting to their audience unbiased, unencumbered, balanced and honest reports. It seems the media has become too commercial to be free. Though so particular and so jealous about their right to expression, they are too encumbered by their own prejudices and vested interests to tell the truth. One discerns a sharp line dividing the media in pro-government or anti government sections with the editors, senior journalists and anchors following faithfully the policy of their paper and channel voicing the demands and concerns of the elite without bothering about the rest of the populace. There is a sort of ambiguity about the national policies, priorities, successes and failures – all disseminated by the media without any restrain.

The most dangerous is the onslaught of articles, videos, live talk shows and posts on the social media – all trying to widen the gulf between the federation and the second big province of the country bringing in a number of sensitive issues. The differences between the PTI regime and the Government of Sindh (GoS) on how to tackle the coronavirus epidemic have fueled this campaign which is quite ominous for the national harmony. Prime Minister Imran Khan should restrain his party Ministers from locking horns with the GoS. He should, instead, concentrate on tackling the covid-19 crisis, poverty alleviation, speeding up the process of accountability and the economic rehabilitation in the post covide-19 years.

There has been a surge in the locally infected patients in Larkana and other towns of Sindh adding to the nervousness of the GoS. The compromise reached by the federal regime with the clergy stands in sharp contrast with the strategy of the GoS for containment of the killer virus. The entire Muslim world has restrained the prayer gatherings in the Mosques. Here our clergy is adamant to defy the writ of the state. They are more concerned with their collection of religious donations than the health of the faithful. There should have been no compromise on the writ of the state in a crisis of this magnitude.

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books