Of matters past

Bygones be not bygones

A majority of readers and viewers have a gripe with us analysts who write in the press and speak on the airwaves. They say that analysts don’t pay enough attention to public problems but rather pontificate on issues the public have little direct concern with. I can’t speak on the behalf of everybody but can certainly do so for myself.

As far as the problems of the publics are concerned, one of their major causes is increase in population. The rates of growth of population and resources are not commensurate. Even if they were, our standard of living would not improve. It’s a simple rule of economics: the faster resources grow than population, the more progress there is. In our case, the reverse is happening. The population is growing at a much faster rate than resources are. The result: a significant portion of the population drops below the poverty line each year. We are now one of the five poorest countries in the world. In such a situation, even if angels outfit the government, we will not be able to eliminate hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment and crime.

Another reason for our current predicament is the way we lead our life – the principle on which we base our actions. We tend to live a big part of our life in the throes of the past and consider our future to be the hereafter. Who can improve the lot of a nation that operates on such a worldview? If we look at our collective activities for the past two three years, it will become clear that we have spent a great part of our time dwelling on matters past.

We have been busy trying to remake our oft-violated constitution and are again debating new amendments. Our political parties have yet not been able to ascertain what the respective duties of the government and the opposition are. The opposition is forever ambulant trying to undercut the government and ensuring that it will not be able to get votes the next time around and the government is constantly busy in trying to ward of this relentless onslaught from the opposition. These days, since we have a coalition government, the government not only has to deal with the opposition but with the tantrums of its smaller, more excitable coalition partners. As the opposition cranks up the pressure, these flaky partners too start weighing their options and try to squeeze as much they can out of the government in its time of stress.

These power games in the parliament aside, there is also the not-so-slight matter of dealing with cases against the government in the SC. That’s how our government whiles away its 9 to 5 hours: appearing in court. It seems as if the law minister and attorney general are permanently camped in the SC premises and the people back at their office are on tenterhooks awaiting their orders. The state of affairs is such that ministers are often summoned at as much as a notice of half an hour and they have to scurry to the courts. No government has had to face as many cases as the current one. Consequently, the ministers spend their days in courts and their nights preparing for their days in courts.

This is not the end. Democracy has not strengthened itself enough to shake off the mindsets that have entrenched themselves during protracted periods of military rule. The government quarters are frustrated when they see the COAS struggling in the courts about the matter of his date of birth. The DOB of the Indian COAS was mistakenly written as 1950 whereas he claims it is 1951. In fact, this is a ‘clerkish’ mistake. As per Indian regulations, the DOB on your school certificate is the one used officially. The army chief was constantly asking the defence ministry to correct his DOB but his request was rejected. He, thus, moved the court. The court said that the ministry of defence has the requisite authority so the COAS should ask them and the SC would not intervene.

Even our government is an elected one and we also claim that democracy has been restored. But the way matters are conducted here is decidedly different than how the matter of the Indian COAS was dealt with. Over here, the SC asks the president and prime minister have to put in writing that they do not intend to sack the COAS and DG-ISI , even though they had given statements to the same effect.

One cannot find examples anywhere of the kind of cases the Pakistani government is embroiled in. For instance, the memo case. It is a one-of-its-kind case and the way its investigation is being conducted is also one-of-a-kind. It is not yet clear who the petitioner is in this sub-judice case and our honourable justices are now waiting for the testimony of an ordinary American citizen and our subject to his whims. They give a certain date and the witness says I’ll come on that one. On the third such instance, the justices had to wait an entire day to find out what date the witness would give next. He kept levying conditions for his arrival and consequent testimony and they were accepted by the commission. Despite that, the witness did not give a final word. Has anybody seen a court being held by the caprices of one witness?

Another such instance is the case of presidential immunity. For more than two and a half years, the president has not been able to get the judiciary to accept this as his right. It is written clearly in our constitution that the president of the country and the governors of the four provinces have immunity and no criminal proceedings can be initiated against them while they occupy their respective posts. This immunity is accorded to the post and not the person and whoever occupies the post has it by default. A retired judge who had on an occasion himself deemed so while presiding over a larger bench said on television the other day that “The president would have to claim immunity by appearing in court himself. Otherwise, every other person would claim immunity while sitting at home.” This retired judge ignored the fact while making this statement that only five people occupying certain posts could have this immunity. Why would any Tom, Dick and Harry claim it?

Hence, a government that has to face such cases, that has to face the kind of aforementioned opposition and also has to face the constant spectre of a military takeover, what can one expect of such a government? This is a government that has to see an institution of the state itself give written statements to the state that if it went through with certain actions, it would have to face ‘grievous consequences’.

You must have noted that all the problems that I said afflicted the government were also things that had roots in the past. The cases in the courts pertain to matters past. The tension between the opposition and the government has deep roots and the tension between the military and the civilian setups has even deeper roots. Hence, the government is busy squaring off the debts of the past. How can it look to the future when the demons of the past won’t leave it alone? As I said earlier, we spend our present days in the throes of the pasts and leave our future to the hereafter.

We don’t have time to deal with today. We are too busy dealing with yesterday.

The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.