Leave Aitzaz alone

A lawyer’s unwarranted media trial

There is something gratifying about humiliated celebrities – Veena Malik’s bitter black mascara tears, Salman Butt going to jail, or VJ Mathira embarrassed by a caller live on TV. When they deviate from the role they have been assigned, they must be punished. And the higher they had risen, the harder they will fall. To our morbid delight.

Pakistan’s news media had made Aitzaz Ahsan more popular than the chief justice he was fighting for, two years ago. And now they have put him in the dock.

“A friend of the government is a traitor, a traitor!” (Govt ka jo yaar hai, ghaddar ghaddar hai) according to very passionate lawyers trying to muffle Aitzaz’s voice as he talked to reporters after representing the prime minister in the Supreme Court. And then they grinned at the TV cameras.

The slogan indicates that the overwhelming criticism of Aitzaz by a large number of reporters, televanalysts, and lawyers is not legal, but moral.

Reports on TV channels claim he has changed his stance. Aitzaz appears on each of those channels and explains his legal position. Anchors nod like they understand. In the next news bulletin usually a few minutes later, there are more references to a “u-turn”. His legal justifications are irrelevant.

The news media always refer to lawyers as “the lawyers’ community”, indicating they are not individuals in the legal profession but a group that acts collectively. Aitzaz was part of the community and has now abandoned it. That is his crime.

Pakistani morals are not based on the codified law that Aitzaz Ahsan is an expert in, but kinship rituals. A significant amount of national, regional and family politics in Pakistan revolve around who came to whose wedding and whose funeral, and what gifts or alms were exchanged and how they were reciprocated.

Most Pakistanis do not identify with a social contract or legal documents that form the basis of their nation state. Their identity, loyalty, and social organisation have been based on community rituals, tribes and castes, and family lineage for centuries.

Many believe in a normative, semi-codified religious law that came with Muslim intruders from the West and continued during the Mughal rule. Aurangzeb Alamgir, the last of the great Mughal emperors, is believed to be the first Muslim king to have put together a uniform legal code.

Queen Victoria gave the Indian subcontinent a comprehensive system of laws that was based on abstract, universal, scientific principles in line with the character of Victorian England. For a large number of Pakistanis, this does not add to its value. Many still believe an uncodified Sharia law would be better for them.

There is one aspect of Victorian ethics that old people love to appreciate. “Victorian ethics of ‘honour, decency, truthfulness and running a good show’ persisted in India to a quite remarkable degree,” British writer and historian Charles Allen said in his book Plain Tales from the Raj. “’I would have no hesitation in saying that during the years I was in India, bribery and corruption were unknown among the British in India’ asserts John Morris, one of the fiercest critics of the moral codes of the Raj… ‘Such attitudes created an administration that was ‘probably the most incorruptible ever known’.”

There is no way this claim can be verified, but is clear we did not adopt these morals. The Victorian models we did adopt include public prudence that contradicts our private behaviour, sexual restraint, and strict adherence to the social codes of conduct. Pakistan’s upper-class ethical ideals are predominantly Victorian, and the violation of Victorian codes of conduct by ‘the general public’ is seen as the end of the last remnants of the British Raj in Pakistan.

Our news media do claim to espouse their responsibility of being a watchdog, but they do not agree on what they are watching over and what are the standards that they measure the society against.

While news reports focus on Aitzaz Ahsan’s decision to abandon his community (for legal reasons that they cannot and don’t want to comprehend), morning shows by housewives and for housewives are watching over people who violate Victorian morals.

TV host Maya Khan goes date-busting in a video clip that has caused anger all over Pakistan last week. “Leave those kids alone,” someone says in a YouTube comment. I also think we should leave Aitzaz Ahsan alone.

The writer is a media and culture critic and works at The Friday Times. He tweets @paagalinsaan and gets email at [email protected]