Four critical issues

[Beskar]

Four critical issues

By Kunwar Idris
Sunday, 16 Aug, 2009


More challenging is the Baloch discontent that is now reaching a point of despair.

DAWN.COM | Provinces | Four critical issues
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The air is thick with questions and speculations that are critical and weird at the same time. Should Pervez Musharraf be tried for high treason?

Is Baitullah Mehsud dead, dying or in hiding, waiting to strike again? Will the grief and shame of the Gojra tragedy induce legislators and clerics alike to abolish or at least reform the blasphemy and desecration laws?

Then, on another plane, the question of whether the district governments, Gen Musharraf’s brainchild, should stay or go is causing a commotion. Out of this national cacophony, will there emerge a stable democratic order or will the crisis deepen? Every citizen has his own view. The irony is that the issues and the protagonists who had no place in the scheme of Pakistan before or after independence now threateningly appear as arbiters of the country’s destiny.

A simple reading of Article 6 of the constitution indicates that Pervez Musharraf is indeed guilty of high treason and so are the persons who aided or abetted his forced take-over in 1999 and then the ‘second coup’ of Nov 3, 2007. Those who were with him would include military commanders, television producers and politicians who joined or bolstered his administration. A thought, however outlandish, arises: can the judges who validated Musharraf’s two coups also be arraigned for abetment?

All the 12 judges of the 1999 bench took oath under Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order. The five judges who did not — Saeeduzzaman Siddiqi, Wajihuddin Ahmad, Kamal Mansur Alam, Nasir Aslam Zahid, Mamun Kazi — went unsung into oblivion. Their defiance is hardly ever mentioned.

The only surviving judge of that bench, Iftikhar Chaudhry, as chief justice became the author of the judgment that struck down Musharraf’s second PCO and held all decrees issued under it as unconstitutional. The doctrine of state necessity and the principle of salus populi suprema lex (welfare of the people is the supreme law) propounded in the judgment of May 12, 2000, to which Justice Chaudhry was a party, however, still hold the field.

The point to note here is that the treason trial may not be of Musharraf alone. All the abettors will also be inevitably drawn in. Who they are shall have to be decided by a subordinate as the offence of high treason is triable in a sessions court. It would be surely unprecedented for a sessions judge to decide whether the Supreme Court judges who validated both of Musharraf’s extra-constitutional measures were in fact abetting high treason.

The lawyers can argue on this point endlessly to keep the judiciary at the centre of Pakistan’s political storm. It is better left to the people to pass a lasting judgment on Musharraf’s coup and his emergency rule. Court rulings have been changing.

If the issue of Musharraf’s trial is distracting attention from more crucial public concerns, Baitullah Mehsud’s death has become an issue that is larger than that of the administration of the tribal areas. Baitullah’s network of terror has to be tackled at one level. The status of the tribes in the constitutional scheme of the country is to be decided on a higher policy plane. Once the government succeeds in putting its relations with the tribes on a time-tested conventional footing, dealing with the terrorists led by Baitullah and others would become an easier task.

The grief of the Christians of Gojra has been enormous and so has been the remorse of Muslims all over the country. For the first time since the 1980s when Ziaul Haq enacted the blasphemy and desecration laws the people and the politicians alike have come to realise that these laws have only fostered hatred that has led to mistrust and killings. The honour of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and sanctity of the Holy Quran were never at stake and never will be.

Prime Minister Gilani has promptly spoken of the need to review the laws. Amnesty International has asked for the abolition of not just the blasphemy laws but also of Ahmadi-specific laws which keep taking their own toll. All political parties and religious schools of thought must help the prime minister in restoring Pakistan’s liberal and tolerant image before reactionary elements muster their forces once again.

Separate from the complex issues of Musharraf’s trial, Baitullah’s death and the blasphemy law is a straightforward issue — the place of local councils in the administration of the province. This issue too has fallen victim to politics. In dispute is not the role of the local government but the powers of the nazims who have come to exercise full control over the districts to the exclusion of the provincial government.

A ready answer to this problem would be to let each province decide for itself the functions to be assigned to the districts and the tiers below and how the nazims are to be made accountable to the councils. Uniformity is not necessary, nor advisable. Conditions and preferences in each province differ. The president should permit the provinces to get down to it straightaway instead of letting the problem fester till the end of the year when the constitutional embargo on the power of the provinces expires.

The division of powers between the province and the district, however, poses some difficulties peculiar to Sindh where MQM through its party nazims exercises control over the urban areas — Karachi in particular — and which it would be most unwilling to share with the PPP-dominated provincial government. The two parties are allies and bitter contenders at the same time. The Sindh politicians have to show both ingenuity and forbearance. That should not, however, stall settlement elsewhere.

Discussed here are just four problems which must be put out of the way before public administration finds its normal rhythm. More challenging, however, is the Baloch discontent that is now reaching a point of despair. General amnesty for rebellious youth and a full review of the problems peculiar to Balochistan at a forum of sardars and other representative interests should help put an end to the recurring sabotage and murders.

The final solution, however, lies in provincial autonomy which will remain a hostage to constitutional uncertainty as long as it lasts.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com