The state of hopelessness in Pakistan is born from injustice. While the subject we, in Pakistan, are focusing on is corruption, it is essential to identify the fact that corruption can only flourish if injustice exists. Over the years, our judicial system has been eroding. The days when our judiciary boasted of eminent jurists are long gone. Our police system was suborned by the British deliberately during their rule. The British ensured that policemen had unlimited authority in their jurisdiction but were paid minimum wages. Moreover, they always showed their preference for the military: a lethal combination that was intended to and succeeded in nurturing corruption in our police services.
Consequently, police personnel knew nothing of forensics or crime scene investigation, and relied on the most rudimentary of police procedures. They also knew of only one method of extracting confessions: through torture. Extracted by force, confessions would have been thrown out of any worthwhile court of law. But, with no alternatives, the judiciary began accepting even those. With no knowledge of constitutional policing duties, police functioning was bound to become farcical. But over time the judiciary became equally so.
As if this is not enough, our culture bred elitism and, while there were always rural feudal lords, we bred their counterparts in cities as well. People so powerful and influential that they considered themselves, and were treated as being, above the law. They could all purchase “injustice.” Where they couldn’t, they could coerce. If a judge was not frightened of losing his life, he was bound to crumble when his family was under threat. It was inevitable, therefore, that even among equals, injustice would become a purchasable commodity or one that could be obtained by coercion.
In this environment, as lower courts became increasingly inept and pro-injustice, the only hope lay with the superior judiciary: the high courts and the Supreme Court.
Abraham Lincoln, the US president who fought a civil war to retain the union, was considered an immensely honest man. The story goes that soldiers were being conscripted for the civil war, and among the conscripts was the young son of an extremely rich man who was a bosom pal of Lincoln. Lincoln kept refusing to oblige his friend and permit the young conscript to any special privileges, but at one point, Lincoln shouted to his secretary to come to his aid “before this man reaches my price.”
Every man has his price, either in money or coercion.
However, despite everything, at least among the superior judiciary, there was a smattering of individuals who remained jurists and continued to serve in accordance with their conscience.
These are dwindling and are fast being outnumbered, outgunned, and outvoted by the more corrupt.
Political hopelessness stems from the fact that on the political horizon there is no figure on whom people can pin their hopes. Imran Khan briefly offered hope to the gullible, but has been steadfastly proving his ineptitude and cowardice. His most recent defence of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s donation to Sami-ul-Haq’s (I refuse to refer to him as maulana), Darul Uloom Haqqania, is absolutely stupefying. Haq’s seminary has churned out terrorists in thousands. He has boasted of his influence not only over the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, but also over the Afghan Taliban. This donation appears to be a defiance of everything that Zarb-e-Azb stands for.
It has been years since the Lal Masjid fiasco, and we are still being entertained by that Aziz fellow, another self-styled maulana (religious scholar) who continues to spew venom from his pulpit in Islamabad. The best excuse we have from the relatively less cowardly minister of our current dispensation — Chaudhry Nisar — is that he “has no proof.” No proof? Every media outlet reported how Aziz was inciting hate, and Nisar has no proof.
Well, at least we are now being even-handed. If these bigots can shout from their pulpits in Punjab, now Sami-ul-Haq and his ilk can entertain us with noise from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Maybe we can follow this sterling example with a similar donation to seminaries of “celebrity” Taliban in Sindh and Balochistan, just to equalise matters.
An old tale goes like this. There was a grave thief residing in a village. Being a village, everyone knew who was who and all despised the grave thief. The grave thief died and his son inherited his father’s occupation. The son had a twisted sense of humor, and after stealing from the grave, he turned the corpse over to stick a wooden peg up its back side. Thereafter, the villagers began referring to the elder grave thief in Punjabi as “Piyo bahishtee bara nek see,” (the father, God bless him, was a very pious man) because he did not desecrate his victims.
At times like this, I begin to recall with great affection, allegedly the most corrupt of corrupt political governments in Pakistan: the last PPP government. That government was anything but certainly less cowardly in its approach towards the Taliban.
So there is no hope on the political horizon so far. We are destined to pick from cowardly, inept, and corrupt leaders. Not that there are no competent and honest individuals among our political leaders; people like Raza Rabbani, Ahsan Iqbal, and Asad Omer, to name a few, are all there. But, they will never be prime minister in Pakistan. However, if we can’t do anything about politicians, maybe we can redress the prevalent injustice in our country.
Due to the prevalent injustice in Pakistan, the JuD and ASWJ have set up a parallel judicial system; the Shariah courts function far and wide in Punjab. They do so boldly and unchecked.
And no one even dare speak of them. How can we hope to get rid of terrorists when those who give birth to them are the only true source of justice for the poor? Their decisions are implemented, even by the police, and even upon the highest and mightiest whom no other court of law dare bring to trial, let alone punish.
While we are focused on the war on terror and have expanded it to corruption that has an impact on terrorism, we are failing to address the root cause that gave birth to all the evil we face today: injustice.
So where am I going with all this?
The writer is a retired brigadier. He is also former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute