London: “Emergency is being imposed in Pakistan ”. There was an element of finality in the news that had spread like a wild prairie fire last week. Every TV channel was busy outdoing the other in scoring the point of breaking it. Some who wanted to sound more authentic than the others went on to say that they have been privy to the Presidential cahier signed in ink and blotted dry by him. Even eminent Barrister Atezaz Ahsan was attributed by media to have said something to that effect.
Many calls left me amused with the sense of timing of the callers in London who rang me much past one a.m. PST to confide to me that emergency is being imposed by 12 that midnight ! And as Mirza Ghalib once versed a similar situation in words—“there was too much of noise but the show was not held”.
Good for the nation. Firstly, we must bow our heads in our most humble sublimation to Allah, the Most Wise, for averting such an ignominious eventuality—especially just days ahead of the 60th Independence Day of the country. Had the state of emergency come than we would have been left with the option of not to celebrate the Independence Day but to prepare for the worst.
The manner emergency blitzkrieg was launched by the powerful minions of the state had left no doubt that it was just a few hours away. It was being mentioned by the high functionaries as a sure contraceptive to nip the birth of new democracy in the womb of free and fair elections ensured by the mounting pressure of international community in support of electoral transparency and level playing field for all. The opening of the floodgates of change by a proactive apex judiciary that has catapulted itself in hitherto unknown strength to counter the illegal and extra-constitutional acts of an excessive executive has perhaps been the finest thing to have happened to the nation in the last sixty years.
The wresting of its real power by the judiciary from the stranglehold of an oppressive executive, indeed, is the harbinger of hope that Pakistan still has a chance to revert back to Quaid’s vision of secular, democratic and egalitarian Pakistan where religion had nothing to do with the business of the state, where all its citizens were to be equal and the state was never to be theocratic. Pakistan’s secular and liberal political leadership that had been carrying on single-handedly its crusade for democracy, rule of law, restoration of 1973 Constitution in its original shape as of its inception, fundamental rights and reverting back to Mr Jinnah’s Pakistan will find itself not alone now in its final shown down with the establishment in cahoots with the Mullahs to establish its dream of a garrison state.
Notwithstanding the fact that most of the time we are critical of the American administration for going out of its way to support a military regime in Pakistan while it does not stop singing paeans in praise of democracy as a global phenomenon to ensure freedom for all, Washington deserves to be credited for acting wisely and in support of Pakistani people’s democratic aspirations.
After many years of misperceptions about Pakistan and what the people think, by intervening just in time to stop Islamabad take the suicidal course of emergency, Washington has definitely converted many among those who were wary of its support to undemocratic dispensation. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s timely intervention has saved the country from being injected anaesthetic emergency to knock people’s aspiration to a democratic change through transparent elections in 2007 into a state of comma. Though I am not privy to anything, there is some meat in the observation of those in New York and Washington who believe that Mahatma Benazir Bhutto who is currently in the United States, had also something to do with it to stop it half way. Incidentally she was the first to know of it and to welcome its prevention as well.
Besides Ms Bhutto’s positive role, sources in Islamabad say that there was a division in regime’s rank and file too. Some of those in uniform who would have been actively involved in its execution also opposed it. Only support to it came from Shujaat Husain & Company who have been clamouring for the postponement of elections since long. Its imposition was also backed by the new attorney general–the infamous NAB judge who had earned international notoriety and the Supreme Court strictures for wrongfully convicting Ms Bhutto and Senator Asif Zardari on a telephonic order by ex-Senator Saifur Rahman.
Its movers have got exposed by Senator Mushahid Husain who came on record on the TV that emergency was proposed by those ill-thinking dimwits who had advised GPM to file reference against the Chief Justice. Among its prime movers of course were Shaukat Aziz and the Choudhries. Shaukat had not forgiven the CJ for having punctured the deal of his life time related to the Pakistan Steel Mills sale for peanuts.
However, his statement on return from Afghan jirga that the imposition of emergency has been postponed for the time being keeps it dangling as a sword. While the emergency rumour had put the whole country in a limbo, brought the stock market crumbling down, American intervention seemed to have nipped it in the bud only to be given hope to those who were looking to be saved by it by Shaukat Aziz’s latest foot-in-the mouth utterance.
The impact of the emergency rumour was inconceivable. The number of telephone calls I received from Pakistan and other places between 4 p.m. London time and 12 midnight was an unending flow. Both my landline and mobile phone kept ringing without respite as if skies had fallen on Pakistan or it was hit by Sunami-like tragedy.
This sort of traumatic reaction was altogether new for me since I have been through such eventualities—and much worse– before too. Starting from the first martial law in 1958 followed by1969’s, fall of Dhaka and separation of East Pakistan, humiliating defeat of Pakistan army, martyred Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s over throw, Zia’s ruthless martial law, his cold blooded execution of ZAB, his own divine fall from the skies and General Pervez Musharraf’s coup in October 1999.
The reasons for the enormous shock can be analysed in different contexts. With general elections around the corner, the nation could not bear the numbing affliction of being cheated out of voting in a government of its choice through transparent ballot, denying re-election to the President by this Parliament and its non-acceptability of him in uniform. Their traumatic reaction was as if they were made to lose everything—their last chance to exercise their right to vote and to save the country from becoming a failed or a talibanised state.
Personally speaking, ever since the judicial crisis and the head on collision between the military (backed by none other than its hangers on politicians, sunshine patriots and summer soldiers) and the Chief Justice of Pakistan backed by the judges, by the lawyers, masses, the political parties and the entire civil society) transforming into an overly conflict between institutions—I have been of the view that these were sure signs of an inevitable change in the country. The fact that people were not afraid to lay down their lives for the great cause—as shown by PPP martyrs and others in Islamabad and Karachi massacred by the hired goons—carried the strongest message as ever—that the defining moment has come.
Coming back to analytical x-ray of the emergency rumour, one need not waste time in getting to know who started it off. It is so obvious. What needs to be seen is if it had come about what would have happened to the country especially when we still have the sword hanging on the head as per Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s latest and Shujaat’s reminder, that its imposition has been put off for the time being.
To understand what emergency means is to know that its proclamation –as analysed by veteran journalist and human rights crusader I.A. Rehman–is only an enabling measure that makes it possible for the executive to assume certain powers that it normally does not have. What Islamabad would like to do under the cover of emergency is to suspend those provisions of the constitution that guarantee fundamental rights to the citizens. However, in the new circumstances of resurging judicial activism its imposition to act as it pleases under such a proclamation has been reduced substantially. It can no more get away now with many of its high-handedness that it was used to some years ago.
The emergency rumour leak—notwithstanding what it meant actually to achieve–has definitely alerted the nation and the judiciary. The spontaneous crescendo of opposition to such a move must have given sleepless nights to those elements behind it, it has put the nation and the entire civil society on all time vigil. Rather, quite a number of them are learnt to have got down to planning how to counter it both in the street and the court of law in case it was imposed at some later stage as indicated by Shaukat Aziz and his party chief.
General Musharraf would do right to listen to his wise enemies rather than treading onto a path that even angels will fear to tread on the advice of his dimwit self-serving political and other friends who surround him and influence his decisions to save their own skins. The right course—rather the only course—for him now is to call for free and fair elections, allowing even playing field to all including Mahatma Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif, give up his uniform and seek his own re-election from the next parliament as a civilian candidate. There is no other exit route from the current mess threatening the very existence of the country.
w.hasan@virgin.net
* Wajid Shamsul Hasan was Pakistan’s High Commissioner at the UK. He is an advisor to Mrs Benazir Bhutto.