Tailored to new realities Yeh
Woh elections
“Maulvis in our
society are powerful people” Sceptic’s
Diary
issue Mohammed Bilal
Mengal, 59, works as an honorary journalist in Noshki. In 2009, he was a
correspondent for a newspaper called Independent that came out of Quetta,
Gawadar and Islamabad. It’s one of those newspapers that you are not really
likely to find on a news stand. Bilal Mengal studied till Class Six and he
could read and write in Urdu. Independent didn’t pay
him a salary, of course. He was usually paid by the subjects he covered. He
is an honest worker. He refers to his work as “making news”. “Usually
NGOs pay about a thousand rupees for making one news. Sometimes you cover a
press conference and they pay about five hundred. It also depends on how many
journalists are there, because obviously they have to distribute the money
properly.” Bilal also covered the
Pakistan day ceremonies organised by the Pakistan Army unit stationed at Qila
Noshki. “I used to cover August 14 and March 23 ceremonies. If ten
journalists turned up, we made seven hundred rupees each.” Although the
army didn’t pay as much as the NGOs did, Bilal Mengal made friends in the
Noshki Fort. A kind-hearted Colonel asked him if he could be of any help.
Anything, Bilal said. Bilal landed a contract for stitching uniforms for the
unit in November 2009.
One might think that going
from being a reporter to a uniform tailoring contractor is a drastic career
move but Bilal had nine children to feed. Noshki is not really an NGO-rich
district, press conferences were few and far between and Pakistan day gigs
came around only twice a year. Bilal Mengal’s elder brother was a
professional tailor, so he did have some background in tailoring. The
contract offer made perfect sense to Bilal Mengal and he embarked upon a new
career, not knowing that it’ll take away his favourite son from him. Bilal Mengal set up a shop
inside the fort. He was contracted to stitch 3,300 uniforms every year. He
was paid 70 rupees per uniform. The Army unit supplied the material. Bilal
was expected to stitch civilian dresses for some officers but he was happy
with the arrangement. He roped in his 22 year old son Khalid Bilal Mengal to
help out. That probably was a
mistake. Because his contract lasted
only four months; Khalid Mengal has been missing for the past one and a half
year. Bilal knows that his son is in the army custody. Bilal Mengal saw the
army and FC vehicles carrying Khalid drive into the Noshki Fort. The local
SHO chased the army jeeps to the gates of Noshki Fort. There is a certain
boundary that the bravest SHO in the land can’t cross. Khalid Bilal Mengal is on
the list of the Baloch missing persons, but since he didn’t belong to any
political organisation, didn’t have a beard, his name gets frequently
ignored in the protests and petitions. But Bilal Mengal has a stack of papers
and numerous eyewitnesses to prove that his son was picked up by his former
employers: the Pakistan army. During the four months that
Bilal Mengal worked in his tailoring shop in the fort, the soldiers and
officers posted in Fort Noshki had standing orders they couldn’t leave the
premises without written permission from the Fort authorities. And because of
the risk of attacks in Noshki town, this permission wasn’t easy to come by.
But one day, Naib Subedar Ramzan left the fortress without permission, went
into the town and was injured in a firing incident. Bilal Mengal first insists
that he had no clue why Naib Subedar Ramazn went out without permission but
later speculates: “May be he had a date in the city. It was most probably a
woman. Otherwise why would anyone take such a risk?” Bilal Mengal and his son
Murtaza were accused of the attack. Initially, the case was
filed against an unknown assailant who, according to the FIR, had long hair
and blue eyes. “Look at me,” says Bilal Mengal, pointing to his short
hair, long beard and charcoal eyes. “I can cut my hair, I can grow a beard
but can I change the colour of my eyes?” Bilal Mengal was the first
one who was arrested on the suspicion of the attack. “The attack happened
at 6:30 in the evening. That is recorded in the FIR. According to the Fort
Guardroom, we left the fort at 7:15. So when the attack happened, my son and
I were both inside the fort, doing our work.” Bilal Mengal was often sent
off to the city to run officers’ personal errands because they themselves
couldn’t go. “But that day I didn’t leave the fort. There were no
errands.” Later, Bilal Mengal was to
find out the truth when the staff officer to IG FC told him bluntly. “What
did you expect them to do? Their man was ambushed in the city, what were they
supposed to do. Sit quietly and tell their bosses they didn’t know who
attacked their man?” The FC high command
demanded results or ‘recovery’ as Bilal Mengal puts it so the Noshki
Command, already working in an area so hostile that you needed written
permission from the highest level to even step out, went ahead and
apprehended the first people they could. Those people happened to be their
own tailoring contractor and his son. “They kept us in the fort
for four days and then handed us over to the local police,” says Bilal
Mengal. They booked them on terrorism charges and their case was transferred
to an Anti Terrorist court in Quetta. The case went on for ten months. From
February 2010 to December 2010, the father and the son were in jail. “They
couldn’t prove anything and at the end we were released honourably.” This
was December 2010. While Bilal and his son
Murtaza were still in jail facing the trial, his son Khalid was picked up by
Noshki police while he was in Quetta to attend his hearing. Bilal heard about
his son’s arrest through other prisoners who happened to be in the court.
“Khalid was the breadwinner in the house. He had started doing my reporting
job, while I was in jail. Other prisoners who were present in the court told
me that your son was picked up from the court premises. At my next hearing, I
pleaded with the judge that my son has been picked up from your court, please
do something.” Khalid came back home after
twenty five days. Bilal Mengal was relieved. But he knew that his family’s
ordeal wasn’t over. He asked the Noshki police to provide security. They
refused. On the night of May 16,
2011, there was a raid on his house. After being acquitted, Bilal and his son
Murtza had been home for five months. “There were lots of double door
vehicles, men with their faces covered. They were accompanied by some FC
jawans in uniform. They broke into my house at 2 am.” They left at 2:15 am
along with two of his sons Khalid and Murtza. Bilal called up the local SHO
and pleaded with him to follow the kidnappers. He himself climbed on to the
roof of the house from where he could see the vehicles’ movement. “They
were going towards the Fort’s Gate No 1. The SHO followed them till the
gate but he was not allowed to go in. Three vehicles went in and the door was
shut.” His son Murtaza was thrown out of a moving vehicle and walked back
home. Bilal filed an FIR in the
morning and then went and started a hunger strike in front of the Noshki
Press Club. Bilal Mengal followed a path which almost everyone with a missing
family member has followed in Balochistan: You follow the law, you file an
FIR, you file a petition even though you know that the law wouldn’t do
anything. Then you start protesting and hope that someone will notice. The members of Noshki’s
Bazar Committee intervened saying they will speak to the military authorities
in the Fort and, if his son is not released, they’ll all go on hunger
strike together. His son wasn’t released. Nobody from the Bazar Committee
joined him in his protest. Like many others, Bilal
Mengal filed a petition in High Court and started to appear at missing
persons’ families’ protests. He kept trying to use his past goodwill in
the Army to get his son released. The high point of his efforts came when he
managed to wrangle a meeting with the personal staff officer of Quetta’s
Corps Commander. “We don’t pick up people and we don’t dump bodies,”
he was told in clear terms. He also managed to meet the
personal staff officer of IG FC where he was told something about himself he
had never heard. “This major looked in a file and then looked at me and
said: but you have been sentenced to twenty five years imprisonment; you
should be in jail. What are you doing here?” “I am standing here, in
front of you. You registered a false case against me, and I was
exonerated.” The meeting ended at this note of confusion, with the Major
insisting that he should be in jail and Bilal arguing that he was a free man. Bilal Mengal has been
appearing in the Supreme Court hearings started by the Chief Justice but
doesn’t seem to have much faith. “Chief Justice comes here only to keep
up appearances. He is only concerned about saving his own face. Nothing has
changed, nothing will change.” What about Mengal’s own
politics? Does he support the insurgency in Balochistan? “I was a member of
Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi’s National People’s Party (NPP). He was the last
decent politician in the country and I supported him. Since then I have never
supported any political party.” Anyone who has even cursory knowledge of
Pakistan’s political history can tell you that NPP is as far away as you
can get from any nationalist struggle or anything to do with an armed
struggle for people’s rights. Bilal Mengal now works for
a newspaper called Khabardaar. His last journalistic assignment was for an
NGO called Mercy Corps. They paid him seven hundred rupees. The story is part of a
study conducted by the writer on missing Baloch published by HRCP.
One party that
generates a lot of interest in Elections 2013 is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
It is the first time that the PTI is contesting a general election with its
full might and is being considered a serious contender. While some analysts
note the apparent lull in its popularity graph, saying that it has reached a
saturation point, others predict it will see a major spurt come the month of
March. So what exactly is
happening in the party that claims to have elected ‘tailors’ and ‘cab
drivers’ as its office-bearers. PTI has recently held its
all Pakistan union council level intra-party elections, also conducted
through accepting vote via SMS. This will be followed by district level
elections scheduled for the last week of this month. The elected office bearers
at UC level will elect their district leadership which will further choose
the representatives at regional and provincial level. The election was
conducted in Punjab’s 3,308 union councils last week with four million
registered members of the party in the most populated province of the
country.
“The rat race of
‘electables’ joining the PTI has appeared as the biggest challenge for
the party. There are intra-party rifts and groupings in grabbing the key and
decision-making positions at different levels. This has disgruntled the
veterans who were struggling with their leader for the almost 17 years,”
says a party insider. The October 2011 Lahore
rally of the party stunned the old players on the country’s political
ground, urging the floating politicians to decide their future political
career. “The PTI’s major
success was the October 2011 rally. This encouraged the politically alienated
personalities in other parties to join it and give a boost to the party,”
views political analyst Hasan Askari-Rizvi. However, it also created a
problem within as PTI started looking like any other political party with
emerging conflicts between the new comers and old guards. He says that intra-party
elections and their mechanism, in future, also might add to these problems,
intensifying grouping. The party graph seems to have declined in the past six
to eight months but it is still a credible political faction. Recent intra-party
elections have given a public level boost to the party inviting people from
all walks of life to contest the party elections. Imran Khan has planned a
Lahore-style big show in Peshawar in the first week of March. This will be
followed by a gathering of around 70,000 elected office bearers of the party
at all levels again at Minar-e-Pakistan likely on March 23 with the
possibilities of also launching manifesto of the PTI for the 2013 general
elections. Punjab and KP are the main
political battlefields of the party in the next general elections, insiders
view. With its populist anti-US,
anti-drone and anti-corruption slogans, the party has been unable to come up
with some practically viable slogans or agenda to attract masses like
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s. “The party is becoming popular but it
seems to have failed to give practical solutions to the issues of poor. There
is no slogan directly related to masses like ‘Roti, Kapra aur Makan’,”
views a member of the steering committee of the party. “There are serious
problems which have made the PTI somehow static,” Rizvi expresses, adding,
“Imran Khan’s thinking is still considered naive and simplistic while its
advisors are seen as realistic and down-to-earth.” He says there is also a
conflict within the party top leadership and the advisors in terms of
agreeing on certain issues. The medium is different, he adds. The biggest challenge for
the PTI will be to bring its youth out of homes to the ballot boxes. But no
one would risk giving an estimation of the number of seats it is going to
win. “The PTI has emerged as a credible political party. However, it is not
going to sweep the polls. It can get some seats in the urban Punjab and urban
KP,” says Rizvi.
Yeh
Woh More than 10
million adult citizens have, in the past year or so, ensured that their vote
is registered and that their details held with Election Commission of
Pakistan (ECP) are correct and up to date. That leaves only 80 million or so
eligible voters who haven’t. The figures quoted here are
rounded to the nearest million, but even these inexact numbers tell the story
of ‘Pakistani approach to democracy’ more exactly than a 100-page
academic paper. There are three characters in this story: The election
commission that has done its job by heavily advertising the SMS number that
any CNIC holder can use to find and confirm or amend their voter records, the
eligible voter who has made this enquiry, and the eligible voter who hasn’t
bothered to.
The ECP has traditionally
been a toy in the hands of the ruling elite; they buy it, play with it, and
break it when they get bored. It has watched helplessly — and played on the
side of the devil when it did play a part — as election after election has
been rigged before, during and after the polling day. The 2008 election was
termed the cleanest by observers and cynics, but when the afterglow of
consummation with democracy faded, we learnt that the electoral rolls used
for the ‘transparent’ elections contained tens of millions of bogus
votes. To fix this problem ECP has
been adding and deleting millions of votes every few months, adding confusion
to the distrust the citizens hold towards democracy and the institutions
meant to sustain and strengthen democracy. The ECP is headed by a
retired judge whose integrity and reputation is held in high esteem by ruling
and opposition parties. His appointment in July last year, was hailed as a
victory for democracy and an assurance the elections under his watch will be
free and fair. Then we heard the commission he heads is unconstitutional
because due process was not followed in the appointment of four brother
members on the commission, representing, and leading ECP operations in the
provinces. The upholders of electoral laws are now in the dock of procedural
law. To its credit the commission has shown independence in its decisions and
innovation in its outreach efforts. Offering electoral
information and dispute resolution through SMS is a smart tool to nudge
citizens towards democracy, and a brilliantly simple solution to a mass
communication problem. Why isn’t it working then? The second character of the
story, the potential voter who has verified their voter details, plays the
part of a dutiful citizen. They are normal, common, average people like you
and me. And they are one ninth of the total. It does not make them any less
important as voters, but the eight million as yet unverified votes will
eventually decide our next leaders. And that brings us to the third
character. Why this character can’t
be persuaded to perform an easy, cheap and routine action on their mobile
phone to make a big contribution in the country’s march towards democracy,
can be due to three factors. One, they don’t care because they have given
up on the will and ability of political parties to bring any change, except
in the personal wealth and influence of a few. Two, they don’t owe their
vote to a country, or a system, or an ideology. Their vote is for the
candidate who has influence over them through relation, loyalty, or coercion.
Adding and checking voter details is their responsibility, and so is
transporting them to the polling station and back. And three, they can’t
afford it. A text message on average
costs 50 paisas. But that’s only on paper. In practice, stiff competition
has brought the unit price down to the absolute low, a paisa, as in mass SMS
packages being offered by telecom operators. How can then a citizen not
afford sending a text message? It’s because this particular SMS costs Rs 2.
It is a premium-rate service used by businesses to offer audio or text based
information to the public, at a price. So the ECP, instead of
offering a toll free number, chooses to make a neat profit from those
enquiring about their voter status. Still, it’s only two
rupees. Surely it’s not too heavy a price to pay in discharging a national
duty? Telecom industry reckons a good 60 per cent of mobile phone users in
Pakistan maintain a balance of less than a rupee. That is, they use their
phone to receive calls and to SMS people asking them to call back. And this
majority of mobile phone users is excluded from the ECP’s initiative, by
its very design. masudalam@yahoo.com
elections There are 342 seats
in the National Assembly, but NA-1 Peshawar is considered important and
prestigious because it is listed ahead of the rest and the winner from this
constituency is the first to be called on the inaugural day of the House
after the general election for putting signature on the attendance register
or subsequently for voting purposes. Some of the well-known
winners from NA-1 have been the late Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan and Yousaf
Khattak, both Muslim Leaguers and Unis Elahi Sethi and Syed Zafar Ali Shah.
Those still alive who won this seat include Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, Aftab
Sherpao and Jamaat-i-Islami’s Shabbir Ahmad Khan. The famous losers from
the constituency include Benazir Bhutto and Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan. NA-1 is easy to remember
and thus the most known constituency not only in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), but
also in the rest of the country. Comprising the densely populated inner and
old city localities, it is one of the four National Assembly constituencies
in the district of Peshawar, which happens to be one of the oldest cities in
the subcontinent. The population in the constituency is largely urban and,
therefore, better educated and affluent compared with those living in the
rural areas of the province. Some suburban villages in rural Peshawar are
part of NA-1, but the outcome of the election is decided by the urban voters,
who mostly vote on the basis of their political orientation.
Political parties always
had a strong presence in the constituency. The Awami National Party (ANP) and
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have been dominating the electoral politics
in NA-1. A significant segment of
the population in Peshawar is Hindko-speaking, though many among them have
become bilingual as they are able to speak Pashto. The Pashtuns have grown
rapidly in numbers due to migration from all over KP and Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). In particular, the Pashtun tribe of Mohmand
has a visible and politically strong presence in the city. Kashmiri settlers
have a visible presence in Peshawar, its most famous son being Maqbool Butt
who was hanged in the Tihar jail in New Delhi for waging armed struggle
against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. The ANP, which champions
Pashtun rights, has greater support in the Pashto-speaking population while
the PPP has strong following among the Hindko-speakers. However, other
political parties have stepped up to challenge the ANP and PPP. The religio-political
parties, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) won
election from NA-1 in 2002 from the platform of the six-party alliance,
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), which had benefited from the anti-US and
pro-Taliban sentiment following the US invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan
to sweep the polls in KP and Fata and make gains in Balochistan and even in
parts of the other provinces. The winner with 37,179 votes was JI’s Shabbir
Ahmad Khan, who originally belongs to Swabi district, and the loser was
ANP’s Usman Bashir Bilour, the young son of Bashir Ahmad Bilour, who was
recently killed in a suicide attack claimed by the outlawed militant group,
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Usman Bashir, who polled 23,002 votes, was
fielded by the Bilour family because his uncle Ghulam Ahmad Bilour being a
non-graduate couldn’t contest the election. However, the depleted and
disunited MMA due to the boycott of the 2008 general election by the JI
lagged far behind in the third place as its candidate Abdul Jalil Jan,
belonging to the JUI-F, could get 4,103 votes only compared to the winner,
ANP’s Ghulam Bilour, who polled 44,210 and the runner-up, PPP’s Ayub Shah
with 37,682 votes. There won’t be any chance of victory for candidate of a
religio-political party in NA-1 in case the MMA isn’t revived in its
original shape as it appears at this stage and its main components, JUI-F and
JI, opt for separate electoral alliance or seat adjustment with other
parties, including the PML-N and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Even
otherwise, the original MMA too would not have been in any position to repeat
its 2002 electoral triumph in view of its unsatisfactory performance in power
and also on account of the changed political situation in Pakistan. One party worth watching
would be Imran Khan’s PTI, which according to the two 2012 public opinion
surveys by the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI) is
consistently at the top in KP. The last survey showed the PTI with 32 percent
public support followed by the PML-N with 12 percent only and the PPP and JUI-F
placed third at five and ANP at three percent. Most parties and many analysts
have challenged the IRI findings, but the gap between the PTI and others in
KP is so big that it won’t be easy to dismiss the figures outright. There
has been talk in the PTI circles of fielding Imran Khan as a candidate in
NA-1 even though the names of Mohammad Salim Jan, grandson of late Khudai
Khidmatgar leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan) and cousin of ANP head
Asfandyar Wali Khan and businessman Ghulam Sarwar Mohmand as likely
candidates have also been mentioned. Imran Khan’s candidature would raise
the stakes for PTI and make the NA-1 contest absorbing. The wealthy Bilour family
and its patriarch Ghulam Bilour have dominated electoral politics in NA-1.
Ghulam Bilour, presently federal minister for Railways, won the seat thrice
in 1990 when he defeated Benazir Bhutto, again in 1997 against PPP’s Syed
Qamar Abbas and in 2008 by beating PPP’s Syed Ayub Shah. He lost in 1988 to
Aftab Sherpao and in 1993 to Syed Zafar Ali Shah, both PPP candidates.
Despite being 75 years old and the subject of a controversy after having been
denounced by some of his party colleagues for announcing $100,000 head-money
for the Egyptian-American film-maker of an anti-Islam movie, Ghulam Bilour is
unlikely to stay out of the 2013 general election. The ANP too cannot afford
annoying the Bilour family by not giving the party ticket to Ghulam Bilour,
who is a proven vote-getter. In fact, the Bilours would be expecting tickets
for not only NA-1 but also two provincial assembly seats from Peshawar, PK-2
and PK-3, as was the case in 2008. On that occasion, Bashir Bilour had won
the PK-3 seat while his son, Haroon Bilour, lost from PK-2 to PPP’s Syed
Zahir Ali Shah. The Bilours were shattered by the loss of Bashir Bilour, who
knew the tricks of the trade while contesting elections and catered to the
needs and demands of the electorate in Peshawar city. Haroon Bilour has now
taken his place and his brother, Usman Bashir Bilour, and cousins would be by
his side as the Ghulam Bilour-led family tries to retain its NA-1 and PK-3
seats in Peshawar. The PPP could field its
former provincial president Syed Zahir Ali Shah, presently health minister,
as its candidate from NA-1 even though he is interested more in contesting
and retaining his KP assembly seat, PK-2. His late father, Syed Zafar Ali
Shah, had defeated Ghulam Bilour in NA-1 in 1988 and PPP activists believe he
is the only party candidate capable of beating him again. Though the PPP has
solid vote-bank in NA-1, the poor performance of its government after the
2008 polls would affect the chances of its candidate in the coming election.
The same holds true for the ruling ANP, which being the dominant partner in
its coalition government with the PPP in KP is facing accusations of
corruption. This would create an opening for other parties, notably the PTI,
JUI-F, JI and PML-N. A joint candidate of some of these parties could even
spring a surprise and defeat the ANP and PPP candidates as was the case in
2002.
“Maulvis in our
society are powerful people” Ashrafi, who belongs to a
well-known Deobandi religious family of Lahore, was among the first to
condemn the murder of Governor Salmaan Taseer and the attacks on Malala
Yousufzai and anti-polio workers in Pakistan. He also served as adviser to
the Punjab government during the Musharraf regime. He claims to have brought
back more than 3,100 Pakistani detainees from Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
A former active member of
defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba, where he rose to the rank of central information
secretary, Ashrafi now talks about sectarian harmony. Several quarters
suspect his intention; they maintain he played a role in the release of Malik
Ishaq. But Ashrafi dissociates himself from this. There seems a gap between
what Ashrafi says and does. On one hand he favours Pakistan-India peace
talks, on the other he is an active member of the Pakistan Defense Council
which is against the peace process with India. On one hand, he talks about
human rights and girls’ education, on the other he’s a staunch supporter
of Mullah Omer who banned girls’ education in Afghanistan. TNS met him in Islamabad
last week to talk about these contradictions and discuss his views on issues
concerning Pakistan.
By Aoun Sahi The News on Sunday (TNS):
It is said that most of the terrorist activities in Pakistan were carried out
by people belonging to the ‘Deobandi’ school of thought. Do you agree
with this argument? Tahir Ashrafi (TA): No. I
don’t think Deobandi youth is involved in terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Unfortunately, there is no one in the ‘Deobandi’ network who’d sift
through the myth and reality, and present their side of the story
effectively. When the government of Mullah Omer was toppled in Afghanistan,
Deobandi youth considered it unjust. The government of Pakistan arrested key
Deobandi jihadi leadership, leaving no one behind to direct and guide the
Deobandi youth. This religiously-motivated youth became cat’s paw in the
hands of foreign Mujahdeen. No one really tried to bring Deobandi youth on
the right track. Our security agencies
apprehended some suspect individuals and kept them locked in torture cells,
where they developed a terrorist mindset. I think Deobandis were
suppressed, and in reaction, they retaliated. Extremism gained momentum
in Pakistan after the Iranian Revolution, when some elements attempted to
initiate a similar revolution in Pakistan, which led to the killing of scores
of ulema in Pakistan. TNS: So, you don’t think
the Saudis played a role in promoting an extremist mindset in Pakistan? TA: I think Saudis have
nothing to do with it. TNS: Then who’s
responsible for promoting Taqfeeri in Pakistan? TA: Saudis are not
Taqfeeris. This thinking has come from Algeria and even they consider Osama
Bin Laden an infidel. As they participated in the foreign jihadi
organisations and al-Qaeda, our mujahdeen got in touch with them during
Afghan jihad. The Taqfeeris use the mindset of Deobandi youth for their
advantage. The problem is the ulema
didn’t rescue the youth from the dark alleys and influence their thinking. TNS: The Deobandi jihadis
want to impose Shariah on gunpoint. A majority of them consider Shias
infidels, who deserve to be killed. What are your comments? TA: The Deobandi ulema have
never done Takfeer (apostatising) of Shia Muslims. No eminent Deobandi
scholar has ever demanded that Shia Muslims be banned from visiting Makkah
and Madinah. This in itself is a proof Deobandis consider Shia sect to be a
part of Islam. I strongly believe that both Shia and Sunnis will have to live
harmoniously in this country. Sunnis cannot eliminate Shias from Pakistan and
vice versa. TNS: What is your
relationship with Malik Ishaq? You welcomed him the day he was released from
jail. TA: I have met Malik Ishaq
four times in my entire life. I was not a signatory of any agreement
pertaining to his release. I held meeting with Saqlain Naqvi in jail but no
one objected to that. I met with Ishaq in jail
and asked him that he created a lot of problems for his friends and followers
during his 15-year-long imprisonment, and that now when independent judiciary
was releasing him, he should consider living a peaceful life. He promised me
to spend his life according to law and constitution. I have his words in
writing which were published in my magazine Al-Hurrya. Later, I developed
disagreement with him on different ideas and disassociated from him. If
someone considers me his aide, for being photographed with him, then I also
have pictures with Allama Sajid Naqvi that I can show them. I have no links
with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi but we value peace and for peace we can engage with
any organisation. TNS: If Tahir Ashrafi
comments bluntly on blasphemy laws, no one bothers, if Salmaan Taseer
comments on them, he gets murdered. What’s the difference between Salmaan
Taseer and Tahir Ashrafi? TA: I don’t think that
Salmaan Taseer was murdered for this reason. I was the first one to have
raised this question as to why Salmaan Taseer was murdered. He was a blunt
person who spoke his mind. He was liberal and the thinking that was
ideologically opposed to him punished him. I think that there is no
ambiguity or loophole in blasphemy laws but the issue is different from other
criminal cases. If someone is charged under blasphemy laws, others don’t
spare him and feel proud to have killed the accused even if he or she is
freed by the court of law. So, the procedure of registering the FIR under
blasphemy law should be monitored carefully. The recent case of Rimsha Masih
has proved it. This is a sensitive issue and ulema should come forward to
devise mechanism for registering of FIR under Blasphemy Law. After Rimsha’s Case,
eight cases of such nature have been withdrawn. TNS: You talked about
Rimsha and played an important role in her release. But no one condemned the
action of Maulvi Khalid Jadoon who manipulated the case. Why? TA: Khalid Jadoon was
arrested on my call. The Interior Minister has promised that Jadoon will be
punished. But because he is a maulvi no one is ready to punish him. TNS: So, maulvis in our
society indeed are powerful people. TA: I think being a maulvi
is an esteemed job. In the name of religion, mafias have made maulvis so
strong that even capitalists, feudals and industrialists have made alliances
with them. TNS: You talk about
sectarian harmony as member of Islamic Ideology Council among different sects
of Islam in Pakistan, but what about bridging gulfs between Deobandis and
Brelvis? Brelvis accuse Deobandis of occupying their mosques by force. TA: We are focusing on this
issue as well. A board will soon be established to check the affairs of
mosques and seminaries. This should be the government’s responsibility to
ensure such arrangements. We can only suggest some remedies. The government
is really the implementing authority. TNS: On one hand, Hafiz
Tahir Ashrafi talks about human rights, Rimsha Masih and Malala Yousufzai,
while on the other, he supports Mullah Omer, who had banned girls’
education in Afghanistan. TA: I urged Mullah Omer to
allow women education as women have equal rights to education as men. Taliban
acknowledge they made mistakes. Time has made them wiser. At the same time,
our political parties, establishment and ulema should acknowledge the reality
that Afghanistan is not our fifth province. I can’t tolerate the
interference of Mullah Omer in Pakistan and oppose Pakistan’s interference
in the affairs of Afghanistan. TNS: Your views on the
suicide attacks owned by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. TA: Shariah doesn’t
allow any sort of killing of innocent people. Attacks on military
installations, carried out by TTP or others, will benefit only India. A lot
is being done in the name of TTP. TNS: You have been involved
in peace process in Afghanistan and have held meeting with Afghan ulema in
Pakistan last week. Do you think Pakistan and Afghanistan are reaching a
common ground in the peace process? TA: America is disturbing
the peace process. They didn’t fulfill their promises. They have not yet
released the Guantanamo Bay detainees. But these dialogues held in Dubai,
Paris and Germany have provided an opportunity to Taliban to give their
message to the world. Without the participation
of Afghan Taliban, no peace talks can be successful. Similarly, ulema of
Pakistan and Afghanistan, instead of indulging in attestation of the Karzai
regime, should focus their attention on the Islamic World. The issues can
only be settled with consent from the US and Mullah Omer. We can be the
bridge between the two stakeholders. While the law
promises everyone the right to try and have his/her day in court, the law
does not make any promises about outcomes. To his detriment, Dr
Tahir-Ul-Qadri had to learn this the hard way. Appearances can be deceptive
— that goes for Dr Qadri and he might say the same about other quarters
right now too. So, for the time being Dr
Qadri has lost. Many in Pakistan saw his recent actions as part of a larger
clandestine move against democracy. Now that his petition has been rebuffed
by the apex court, should we celebrate the outcome? The positive way of looking
at this is to say that the Supreme Court made it clear that it will not
entertain frivolous petitions meant to delay the upcoming elections.
Maintainability standards should be clear and must always be satisfied before
jurisdiction of an apex court can be invoked. Viewed from one angle, this
is a good result. But that isn’t the only issue here. Focusing only on the result
should not allow us to ignore how we got to the result. Firstly, there is the
issue of consistency as far as the Supreme Court is concerned. If you adopt a
myopic consequence based form of reasoning then the result will consume you
— at your own peril for the future. The apex court didn’t seem keen to
assume quo warranto jurisdiction. But it has in the past displaced heads of
bodies like OGRA. This isn’t meant to
suggest that the court should have interfered with the composition of the
Election Commission; this is just meant to put in perspective its earlier
actions — maybe if the court had been more careful in interfering with
matters within the prerogative of the Executive, such petitions would be
deterred from a distance. It is clear that dual
nationals are not eligible for membership of our legislatures. But there was
discourse regarding dual nationals during oral arguments that seemed
unfortunate. As the short order of the apex court rightly notes, dual
nationals are of course voters in this country too. So their interest in
matters affecting this country cannot be discounted. Now whether that
“interest” can be defined so broadly as to demand dissolution and
reconstitution of election commission is a separate question. I don’t think
that can or should be done — the Supreme Court is the last body that should
be indulging in such matters. Dual nationality cannot and should not mean
that we doubt the loyalty of people who are our citizens. People could be holding
dual nationality for a number of reasons — some may see it as an
investment, a guarantee of more rights or a promise of a better future (for
themselves, their parents or children). None of that should be held against
individuals. No one has the right to judge their fidelity to obligations of
citizenship of Pakistan on the basis of this fact. And as far as oaths and
declarations go, Dr Qadri wasn’t far from the truth when he hinted that the
Supreme Court’s own record is not particularly flattering. A lot of immensely hard
working Pakistanis who are responsible for significant remittances are dual
nationals. Our officials and institutions should be more worried about
complying with their own obligations under their oaths rather than
questioning oaths which others have taken. Pakistani nationals not following
their oaths have done more damage to this country than any dual national’s
allegiance to a Queen or another flag. The public mood wasn’t
with Dr Qadri either. So in one sense I think he missed a trick. Maybe if he
had approached the apex court when he was causing titillations in the public
imagination, without receiving hostility, he might have found a more
receptive audience in the Supreme Court. This of course presumes
that courts sway with public opinion and I am willing to say, on most days,
that they do. Some senior leaders in the
various bar associations of the country have also raised demands that Dr
Qadri be declared guilty of contempt of court. Apart from the fact that these
demands are smartly calculated to ingratiate these bar leaders with the
court, the claim is amusing to say the least. If we want a strong judiciary
then surely that judiciary cannot be expected to act like a pigeon confronted
with a cat. It cannot close its eyes to its past and our discourse should not
allow them to. If they made mistakes,
those mistakes must be mentioned openly and criticised. In fact confronting
its difficult past is the only way that the apex court can build an enduring
reputation. The court should therefore welcome unabashed criticism of its
actions including individual judges in the past. I say this only because I
want to see an apex court that commands respect and is not weighed down by
the historical burden of guilt. We may not have seen the
last of Dr Qadri. He gambled on a few things and was surprisingly successful
at the beginning. Then people started asking questions — about his motives,
about his past and his version of democracy for this country. When people
finally decided they don’t really agree with him he began slipping. A man
seen for a short while as a revolutionary then looked ineffective, desperate
and the victim of his own uncalculated ambition. Now the Supreme Court has
added to his woes. But Dr Qadri did throw some questions at the apex court
too — not in his petition but during oral argument. The court didn’t
exactly handle his questions or his petition well. The interesting question
is this: will someday this Supreme Court be remembered the way Dr Qadri is
too? Revolutionary at first, high on populism, then the questions started
coming — particularly about the past. You get the point. The writer is a practicing
lawyer. He can be reached at wmir.rma@gmail.com or on Twitter @wordoflaw |
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