O P I N I O N S

guest column
Pakistan’s turbulent coming of age
While Pakistanis wait with bated breath for an end to the prolonged political turmoil, many positives have been thrown up. 
Nasim Zehra
Pakistan’s democracy is going through unprecedented convulsions. The acute turbulence promises birth of new content of politics where those in Parliament will no longer be able to ignore peoples’ issues but equally and paradoxically this turbulence is also lending robustness to Pakistan’s democratic set-up.

Touchstones
Shouldn’t matter how you pray, and to whom
All religious texts are a storehouse of knowledge. By declaring them to be dangerous political armoury, we have pushed faith into the hands of a most regressive clergy.
Ira Pande
MY earliest memories are of my mother bathing me and when she poured the last lota over my head we both said a loud, ‘Har har Gange’ to mark the end. When I became a mother, I shouted along with my boisterous trio as they splashed about, adding a ‘Sab bacche nange!’ to their huge amusement. Our neighbours in Lucknow would always say a ‘Bismillah!’ whenever they started their meal and as guests, we joined them.

guest column
Pakistan’s turbulent coming of age
While Pakistanis wait with bated breath for an end to the prolonged political turmoil, many positives have been thrown up.  Nasim Zehra

Pakistan’s democracy is going through unprecedented convulsions. The acute turbulence promises birth of new content of politics where those in Parliament will no longer be able to ignore peoples’ issues but equally and paradoxically this turbulence is also lending robustness to Pakistan’s democratic set-up.

Multiple battlefronts have been opened while new alliances too have been formed. The principals in this battle are Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s federal government, pitted against Pakistan’s third force, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI). The cricketing hero is now positioned on a container since August 14 and has declared nothing less than the Prime Minister’s resignation is acceptable. Sharif, according to the PTI allegations, is corrupt, has wealth stacked outside Pakistan, has family members in key posts, resists pro-people changes, and rejects merit in appointments. Khan holds Sharif and all “dacoits in Parliament” responsible for a range of problems —unemployment, inflation, energy crisis, lack of education, under development. The PTI began its protests against the Sharif government in May, accusing it of resisting investigation of alleged rigging in the 2013 elections that brought Sharif to power. Siding with Imran Khan is the religious scholar Dr Tahirul Qadri who enjoys dual control over Minhaj ul Quran, a religious seminary and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), a political party.

Interestingly, the various parties have not surprisingly dragged the army into the fray, which has largely settled in its Constitutional role. The army remains the ace that most political players like to pull out when confronting each other. Most surprising has been the September 5 assertion by former caretaker Prime Minister and PAT ally, Chaudary Shujaat Hussain, president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. He accused former army chief General Parvez Kayani of being involved in a grand rigging plan! Shujaat, a politician who had provided political cover to General Parvez Musharraf, insisted Kayani and a former Chief Justice of Pakistan were both involved in rigging the 2013 election.

Sharif can no longer afford to be complacent.

The situation appears brittle with no immediate resolution in sight, but with multiple tracks of negotiations between the PTI, government, Opposition and PAT, everyone is convinced that a resolution will be found. The prolonged sense of siege in Islamabad has spread across the nation since all television channels broadcast nationwide Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri’s multiple speeches daily. The psychological and economic costs are colossal. Pakistan’s economic standing has slipped in the Moody’s ratings and its rupee has slipped Rs 5 to the dollar.

While Pakistanis wait with bated breath for an end to this prolonged period of acute, even if Islamabad-specific, political turbulence, many identify the positives it is throwing up. Five are noteworthy.

One, Pakistan’s conventional politics has been challenged. Politicians no longer will be able to put peoples’ rights enshrined in Articles 1 to 40 of the Constitution on the back burner.

Two, Nawaz Sharif’s government has received a well-deserved hit, a rude wake-up call. While in the last 14 months it has focused on development projects, there are major issues of bad governance, nepotism, incompetence, ignoring Parliament, mishandling of civil-military relations.

Three, street power has been effectively used as a tool of democratic agitation. It was the government’s lack of political engagement on the issue of rigging and also Imran Khan’s impatience that pushed him to the road. The prolonged protests forced the government to subsequently agree through constitutional methods on electoral reforms, probe into the rigging, and reconstitution of the Election Commission. All these are critical steps needed to ensure that Pakistan’s future elections are fair and transparent.

Four, through street agitation finally the legal step of instituting an FIR against the suspects involved in the June 17 killings in Model Town, Lahore, has been taken. The police were seen killing PAT supporters. The Chief Minister of Punjab, brother of the Prime Minister, resisted calls that he quit office to ensure a fair inquiry.

Five, a joint parliamentary session called earlier this week demonstrated unprecedented unity among parliamentarians in resisting any unconstitutional demand made by the PAT or PTI. Equally, the parliamentarians have vowed to resist any military intervention. Many parliamentarians recalled military interventions and the role parties played as the military’s B team in the past to subvert elected governments. In the current crisis the military factor was raised by the PTI’s elected president Javed Hashemi. He has resigned from the party complaining that Imran Khan’s politics could damage democracy and blamed Imran for seeking military support in his present agitation. Imran Khan and the military have rejected Hashemi’s assertions.

The crisis may fizzle out but it will have left a deep and positive impact on Pakistani politics. It has jolted all political players out of their complacency. It has also held the non-political players accountable. Democracy will have been left more mature after this turmoil.

The writer is a Pakistan-based columnist and TV anchor.

Touchstones
Shouldn’t matter how you pray, and to whom
All religious texts are a storehouse of knowledge. By declaring them to be dangerous political armoury, we have pushed faith into the hands of a most regressive clergy.
Ira Pande

MY earliest memories are of my mother bathing me and when she poured the last lota over my head we both said a loud, ‘Har har Gange’ to mark the end. When I became a mother, I shouted along with my boisterous trio as they splashed about, adding a ‘Sab bacche nange!’ to their huge amusement. Our neighbours in Lucknow would always say a ‘Bismillah!’ whenever they started their meal and as guests, we joined them. In the catholic convent school I attended, we said a grace before opening our tiffin boxes. What I mean to emphasise is that there was a time when these chants were not considered politically incorrect or offensive assertions of a majoritarianism that threatened the minority community. We heard the chants of India’s many faiths without counting heads or even thinking twice about adding a ‘Hari Om!’ after a burp or a ‘Ram, Ram’ greeting to the neighbourhood lalaji.

An unfortunate offshoot of adopting a politically correct and sanitised public vocabulary has been the erasure of the cultural memory that went along with the forgotten words and phrases. In banishing the public practice of religion, we are guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Rigvedic hymns we heard from our parents and grandparents are salutations to the Nature rather than religious mantras. Even after all these years, I can recall one that is a poetic tribute to our principal rivers: ‘Gange cha, Jamune cha’iva/ Godavari Saraswati/ Narbade, Sindhu, Kaveri / Jale’smin sannidhim kuru’. This was recited as one offered an anjali to the Sun-God, and was a marvellous mnemonic device to remember the principal river systems of this land. Yet not one child is taught these beautiful hymns anymore. 

The Adi Granth, the Old Testament, the Koran and our Vedas and Upanishads are a storehouse of knowledge, and what is more, they are written in a style that makes it easy to remember. In the truest sense of the word, they are the touchstones that test personal morality.

Unfortunately, by declaring them to be dangerous political armoury, we have pushed faith into the hands of a most regressive clergy that has shaved off the sublime philosophy of various religions and made superstition, ritual and obscurantism into a widespread form of religious practice. Recall what happened in Punjab when Bhindranwale took charge of Sikhism or what is happening all over the Muslim world as the Taliban becomes more and more powerful. The flourishing religious trade in India in the akharas and ashrams of the so-called Babas and Gurus is a scandal and several charlatans have been exposed for their sexual deviations and exploitation of widows and orphans. 

The time has come for a healthy public debate on faith and religious practice. In the new climate of reformation ushered in by the Modi sarkar, let religious reformation also be counted. It is only by engaging with the religious leaders of all faiths that the best will be distilled from all religions. Let us not forget that the Hindu religion was reformed by the rise of the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj movements. These organisations spearheaded vigorous public campaigns against malpractices such as widow remarriage, sati and untouchability. If the majority community shows its willingness to clean up its religious practices, I am certain it will inspire other faiths to follow. However, if all the Hindus want is for the other religious communities to reform without making any changes themselves, they will be justly accused of being a militant and intolerant group. The time has come for a citizens’ movement against all religious practices that are exploitative, gender-unjust and intolerant of change. History shows us that neither any parliament nor any court will be willing to touch personal law unless a suitable climate has been created for it by social movements led by concerned citizens. 

Recently, I attended a stimulating discussion on the uniform civil code organised by the redoubtable George Verghese. The speakers were Justice Leila Seth, constitutional expert Rajeev Dhawan, BJP’s Seshadri Chari, political scientist Peter D’Souza and ex-Law Commission Chairman, Prof Tahir Mahmood. After I heard Prof Mahmood, I was forced to review my so-called liberal thoughts on the issue and confront some harsh facts. For instance, I had never reflected on the fact that the tax benefits of the Hindu joint family should also be extended to Muslims as they follow the same pattern of social organisation. Why was Muslim personal law not reformed along with the Hindu Marriage Act to extend the advantages to Muslim women as well? So, as Justice Leila Seth pointed out, is gender, rather than faith, a more acceptable way of promoting the idea of a uniform civil code?

How I wish that instead of the endless slanging matches on Modi’s foreign trips and his Teachers’ Day performance, we could be educated by the likes of Mahmood on what holds back the Muslims from supporting a uniform civil code. Television is a powerful medium of disseminating new thoughts, as Modi has cleverly grasped. So rather than beaming the same tired topics and panellists night after night shouting at each other, let us have some real intellectuals speak to us on subjects that affect all Indians.