A Voice Of Reason
By Abid Ullah Jan
“Go Musharraf.” “Stay Musharraf.” His “going” would let the greedy politicians complete their agenda of devouring the remaining assets of a helpless nation, and his “staying” would let the US complete its unfinished agenda. Confused between the two extremes, all we hear, from too many citizens, is: “The whole thing is hopeless and out of our hands. There’s no way to get politicians to do what’s needed to save the country.”
The despair now cuts two ways. It pushes some voters into an apolitical lethargy, in which they turn their backs on national concerns and some into approving the wrong means with a hope to reach the right end. Instead of protesting, they silently approve tyranny, because they do not see any alternative. Protests from leaders of political and religious parties sound like a chorus of lambs, showing no direction, having no agenda and proposing no alternative system to replace the so far experienced unbridled, fruitless democracy and pure dictatorships – whitewashed with referendums and shame elections.
The hallmark of Pakistani politics is thus repeated ballot and barrel escapades to sweep out failed systems and create new ones. The overall result, however, remains the same for having little difference between the two. The chain of mini ballot and barrel revolutions may no longer occur. Feared and mostly hated by most of the citizenry, “Permanent Dictatorship” has dug in. Everyone realizes the need that our ruling system must be purged and revitalized. Everyone looks forward to blue-print of a system, not to one-man-reforms revolving around giving one federal institution permanent role in politics, just because it has guns and tanks and the other institutions have not.
Last week, Dr. Israr Ahmad, came up with a unique skeleton of a governing model for political upheaval in the light of Islam. It is naïve on our part to assume that Islam gives us no guidelines for governance at a time when it is so concerned about guiding us on apparently petty matters, such as on how to brush our teeth. Dr. Israr puts Islamabad on notice by sounding a reason amid the chorus of the lambs for immediate action, offering us a wide variety of remedies – some quasi-revolutionary, others more moderate, but all sure to be controversial due to our lack of understanding.
Unlike Kunwar Idris in April 28 edition of Dawn, let’s look at Dr. Israr’s blueprint without any preconceived ideas about his personality, thoughts and “means to advertise his views.” An objective analysis reveals that awareness of the re-emerging relevance of Dr. Israr’s warnings and of Pakistan’s need to reawaken the radical spirit of the Objectives Resolution has grown in the last few years. The overriding question of the day, with politics and government in such disarray, is elemental: can the nation rise to the challenge? Will future historians view the early 21st century Pakistanis as angry but helpless in the face of political, religious and military tyrants’ dug in interests and the increasing inadequacy of the sham democracy? Or will the public, responding to the mystic chords of ancient Islamic governments and shrugging off the unnerving precedent of Khilafah’s decline, somehow build the frame-work of yet another national renewal – a political and governmental update of the 1947 revolution for the independence of Pakistan.
Let’s stop criticizing dictatorship because any other federal institution could behave like armed forces if they had tanks and guns. Let’s stop criticizing politicians because any human being can be tempted to exploit weaknesses of the system as an opportunity. Let us stop criticizing leaders of religious parties because they failed to fulfill their responsibility as religious leaders. To avoid risking the vote bank, leaders of the religious parties focused less on the problems in the society and more on trying to find faults with the government in a bid to make some space for themselves in the game of musical chair for power. Let’s give all of them a final break and debate the proposed system for reaching a consensus.
Let’s open the dirty doors of our perceptions. Let’s not avoid meaningful debate about an Islamic system by giving a quick reference to the Taliban’s government. Of course, it was an Islamic government, for Islamic Shariah was supreme law of the land. Nevertheless, for many reasons they could not establish a complete political, economic and social system according to Islamic injunctions – let alone harmonizing them with the demands of modern times. They could achieve that as well, provided they had time to build on the initial work. Therefore, linking any discussion about Islamic system with the Taliban would be useless and irrelevant.
Let us debate if it is wrong to propose that:
a. At the government level, sovereignty should belongs to Allah and Qur’an and Sunnah should guide a model democratic system in which Parliament should have the right to Ijthihad for legislation and Supreme Court should decide in case the parliament crosses the limits of Ijthihad. Issues like federal or unitary, presidential or parliamentary system, two or one houses of national assembly and rights or authority among the provinces should be settled with consensus through a referendum. Political parties should be part of the proposed system but they should not be allowed to have any article in their constitution that may violate Islamic principles. Every adult should have the right to vote but candidates for elections should be properly screened to ensure their piousness.
b. At the economic level, a new system of market economy, based on ownership and open competition, should be established after abolishing interests. For justice and equality in the field of agriculture feudalism and absentee landlordism should be abolished. If agricultural land in Pakistan is Khiraji (common property), then it should be distributed among the farmers and tax should be collected to generate huge revenue and give public some relief from unnatural taxes. If this land is Ushri (private ownership), then according to Imam Shafi, Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa’s unanimous fatwa, Mazari’at (absentee landlordism) should be declared haram (forbidden) and land beyond one’s tilling capacity should be distributed among landless. For social security, a complete system of Zakat should be established for providing basic necessities to deserving Muslim and non-Muslim citizens.
c. At the social level, women should be provided equal but separate opportunities in education, economy, health and other sectors. Education up to primary level should be totally handed over to women workforce. Women only industrial units, markets and hospitals, etc. should be established where women would supervise and provide services to women alone.
d. All religious parties should stop struggling for power, withdraw from politics and as a single group get engaged only in inviting people to good and forbidding from wrong. Their only demands should be: 1. Article 227 should be made part of the Objectives Resolution as article 2b to avoid making Islamic articles of the constitution ineffective;** all restrictions on the functioning of Federal Shariat Court (FSC) should be removed, and terms of service and ranks of its judges be revised according to the status of High Court judges; Islamic Ideological Council should be abolished and its members should be inducted in the FSC for smooth transition to the Islamic law.** 2. Interest and gambling-based programs within the country should be abolished with immediate effect and the interest free schemes should be launched, as improvements can be made with the passage of time.
Serious national revolutions are usually about politics, government, privilege, unresponsiveness, and anger. This is exactly what is simmering – and periodically boiling – in Pakistan but the people see no alternative. This country’s unique creation and traditions may make successful changes possible according to the above mentioned skeletal framework of an alternative system if religious leaders stop looking for power and army men stop playing with the national institutions and sentiments – sometimes in the name of Islam and sometimes in the name of secularism. Establishing an Islamic state is raison d’etre of Pakistan, if the capacity of its establishment is no longer there, then what else could we expect to work better? And for that question there is no answer.
Concluded
April 29, 2002.
Abid Ullah Jan is a columnist for The Statesman, The Nation, and the Pakistan Observer (Pakistan). He is also sub-editor for the Tribune International (Sydney, Australia), and is the Executive Director of the Integrated Regional Support Programme (IRSP). He can be reached at [EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected]
NOTE BY DR. AMIR ALI: I would like to add one more item for the minorities: (e) Minority religious communities, such as Christians, Sikhs and Hindus, will have the freedom of religion, establishing their temples, religious schools and courts for trying their respective religious personnel, civil and criminal cases according to their own religious or secular laws as long as no Muslim is a party. When a Muslim is a party in a dispute such cases will be tried in Islamic courts. Non-Muslims will be allowed to contest in elections to represent their communities but they will be ineligible to contest for presidency, heading legislature or Shari’ah courts.
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