Fate’s bell keeps tolling, for people, places and politics
When a person of consequence dies, memories long past come visiting, flooding the mind. When a young person like Arfa Karim passes away, thoughts of what could have been, of possible achievement unachieved, tickle the imagination, leaving behind the sweet pain of regret. With the older goes the living past; with the younger the death of a bright future. So it is with the sad passing of our lawyer-jurist extraordinaire and one of Pakistan’s best minds, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada. Born on February 24, 1935, he was the third generation of lawyer-politicians from his Sindhi family. May God rest his soul in peace!
Thus on the 50th anniversary of India’s second war against Pakistan, my heart is heavy when it should be rejoicing at our unity and patriotism during the war and the valour of our armed forces.
Hafeez was made in the mould of great lawyers past – erudite, razor sharp intellect, rich knowledge bank and a presence that demanded attention in courtrooms, councils and gatherings. His entry was electric; it changed the atmosphere of court and drawing room alike. It was impossible to ignore him. Judges were in awe; people hanging on to his every word. His articulation was beyond measure – not just empty loquacity but with heavy substance. In another life he could have been a great Thespian. I see none from my passing generation to replace Hafeez the lawyer, but I know that many of our young lawyers, some of whom have learned at Pirzada’s feet, will rise to his level or even exceed it.
No one is indispensable. Many of us feel a sense of great loss for there is none left with whom one can cogitate: a session with Hafeez left one with something new. It gave the mind clarity. One was never bored in his company. He was free of bombast: his achievements spoke for him. Though we didn’t meet often, both of us being very busy doing our own things, I feel a great sense of intellectual loss at his passing and for the country too. I shall miss him. Pity Hafeez didn’t write his autobiography. It would have made very compelling and enlightening reading.
If the Supreme Court has any character left, it should hold a reference for Hafeez Pirzada. If the government has even a modicum of character left, it should bestow Pakistan’s highest civil award Nishan-e-Imtiaz on him, considering that many who deserve only a kick in the pants have got it. And his wife and children should gather his papers and print them as an archive for future generations, as I have done my father’s papers.
Therein lies the tale of the rigging of the 1977 elections. Mr Bhutto, still bent upon converting to a presidential system (but also still bent on gathering yet more power), wanted a two-thirds majority in parliament to amend the constitution: thus the rigging. Afflicted by alienation that bedevils dictatorial power, Bhutto hadn’t an inkling that the feudal-tribal were ready to pounce and the military and judges were thirsting for revenge for his role in the dismemberment of Pakistan and later its economy
The milestones and achievements of Hafeez Pirzada’s life are too well-known to be repeated here, but one demands recalling: his pivotal role in the making of the 1973 Constitution, piloting it through parliament such that it passed with consensus. Hafeez came upon this role by happenstance when the head of the Constitution Committee, Mian Mahmud Kasuri, another great lawyer of an earlier generation, parted ways with Mr Bhutto over the latter wanting to gather too much power in the prime minister’s office and turning it into a constitutional dictatorship. In the event Bhutto managed it and paid the price. Pakistan continues paying a heavy price. Bhutto changed horses midstream but Hafeez was up to the task.
Hafeez told me more than once that Mr Bhutto wanted a presidential system but could not get it due to the constraints of self-interest raised by primitive tribal chieftains and feudal robber barons.
Pakistan had just disintegrated after India, breaking all international conventions, invaded and broke East Pakistan away to make Bangladesh. Fascist Indian Prime Minister Modi said as much on a visit to Dhaka recently. The country was in disarray, people were dejected and Mr Bhutto understandably wanted a consensus constitution to gather the pieces of our broken hearts.
But Bhutto could not get that consensus without every province agreeing, and our tribal chieftains and feudal lords plus the still mentally colonised urban wanted the British parliamentary system that is cast for a unitary state and foisted it on a federation that cries out for separation and independence of parliament — legislature from the executive. The parliamentary system harks back to the old king-judge, caliph-qazi nexus, keeps power in the hands of the primitive and denies progress. Since the executive is drawn from parliament, checks and balance go out the window while the levers of power automatically fall into the hands of feudal-tribal robber barons who don’t encourage either industrialisation or education lest the people get to know their rights and demand them.
Sadly, circumstances forced Mr Bhutto to bend to the primitive and accept a system he didn’t want. He paid for it with his life and the country has suffered for 42 years since. The Constitution piloted by Hafeez Pirzada has been mutilated beyond recognition, one that even he wouldn’t recognise. The mutilation has been done more by politicians than generals for most of their mutilation has been reversed. Today the 1973 Constitution is a mishmash concoction of inept chefs who couldn’t tell between an egg and an oyster. Bhutto also had to pander to religious pressure groups who again forced him to call Pakistan an ‘Islamic Republic’ without explaining what this wooly phrase means, except for get-out repugnancy phrases and symbolism.
In a true modern Islamic welfare state primitive tribal-feudal gangsters would be wiped out. Bhutto too had to ignore Mr Jinnah’s vision and injunction in our real Social Contract that envisaged a revolutionary Islamic welfare state, the only meaningful purpose an Islamic state can have. Later, the odious ‘Objectives Resolution’ replaced Jinnah’s Social Contract and was added to the Constitution by General Zia, making confusion worse compounded.
The irony is that with the passage of the 18th amendment the death knell of the Constitution was rung by the hand of a constituency-less senator and bogus lawyer who once worked in the chambers of Hafeez Pirzada, the man who not only largely wrote the Constitution but was also a founding member of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Wondrous how the Fates play with us. Today this man rejoices in the office of Senate Chairman, bestowed on him for his pains by rapacious politicians who will benefit from devolution that they don’t have the capacity to handle but can certainly get great personal financial gain from. The charade of democracy that these odious politicians created for their benefit is now unravelling fast, endangering many an illegitimate fief.
Therein lies the tale of the rigging of the 1977 elections. Mr Bhutto, still bent upon converting to a presidential system (but also still bent on gathering yet more power), wanted a two-thirds majority in parliament to amend the constitution: thus the rigging. Afflicted by alienation that bedevils dictatorial power, Bhutto hadn’t an inkling that the feudal-tribal were ready to pounce and the military and judges were thirsting for revenge for his role in the dismemberment of Pakistan and later its economy. His intelligence agencies told him (whether wrongly as usual or deliberately is moot) that the opposition was disunited and elections would catch them with their pants down. In reality, nine parties had created the mirage of disunity but were secretly united as the Pakistan National Alliance or PNA. They caught him with his pants down. Followed the dark demonic primitive era of General Zia: Bhutto lost power and his life.
After the 1977 assemblies were sworn in Bhutto imported Prof Lesley Wolf Phillips, a constitutional jurist from the London School of Economics, to write the new presidential constitution. Hafeez Pirzada had a copy, so did my father Altaf Gauhar because Lesley was a friend and colleague. However, like Mahmud Ali Kasuri, Lesley also left prematurely because Bhutto wanted to gather too much power in the president’s office. Worse, while he had earlier foisted the British parliamentary system on a federation that requires a presidential system with full separation of powers, now he wanted to turn Pakistan into a unitary state with no provinces and foist a presidential system on it when it would have required a parliamentary system. The power-gathering impulse causes such contradictions.
It took five months of countrywide well-funded agitation by the PNA to pave the way for the army to remove him. Bhutto had many enemies but his ego and hubris that are products of a split personality, now feudal, now urbane, now primitive, now modern, were his worst enemies, else the pygmy politicians of the PNA were no match. It was patently obvious that the United States looked on Bhutto’s fall with approval: they couldn’t abide his nuclear programme and his efforts to bring Muslim states on one platform.
But Bhutto had built a party that though revolving around his name with the disease of dynasticism, didn’t evaporate with his departure. His ministers, once mocked, look like giants in comparison to the ministers that followed: all small men and women. Ayub Khan’s ministers, of whom Bhutto was one, were respected. Bhutto’s ministers were feared. Today’s ministers are disrespected, not taken seriously, regarded as jokers peddling lies, defending the indefensible, hardly presentable on any national or international forum. They are God’s punishment on us the people for our follies and foibles.
Ayub Khan’s ministers, of whom Bhutto was one, were respected. Bhutto’s ministers were feared. Today’s ministers are disrespected, not taken seriously, regarded as jokers peddling lies, defending the indefensible, hardly presentable on any national or international forum. They are God’s punishment on us the people for our follies and foibles
Bhutto’s original message – Islamic Socialism and the slogan roti, kapra aur makaan – ‘bread, clothing and shelter’ – fired the imagination of the people and is still as compelling today as it was then. If any party that is regarded by the people as clean and honest, led by a person of similar charisma and oratory as Bhutto but with intellectual integrity, were to pick up the flag that he and his followers dropped, it would fire the imagination of the people once again and attract a larger countrywide following because people are in straits more dire: the majority deprived and youth without hope. Imran Khan tried and can still do it if he can unravel the knots of confusion in his mind, not knowing whether he is a revolutionary or a traditional politician, torn between the present rapacious system and a new revolutionary one, letting shouldn’t I bear heavy upon should I.
So ardent and committed were Bhutto’s followers that many self-immolated during his ‘trial’. Many still raised the ‘V’ sign after inhumane lashings, like Jahangir Badr did. Be fair, my friends, and give credit where it is due. Is there who would do the same for the party or Asif Zardari? You’ve got to be joking.
When Benazir thankfully grabbed Bhutto’s mantle from her mother, she got rid of ‘uncles’ like Pirzada and made her own team of small people, sycophants all. Big mistake, but her gravest was her marriage to a down-and-out uneducated semi-literate Sindhi boy from an inconsequential background called Asif Ali Zardari. Bhutto loathed Asif’s father and would have writhed in his grave. He nearly arrested Hakim Ali Zardari once, but for the intervention of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi. If Zardari had sent a marriage proposal in Mr Bhutto lifetime, he would have met a horrible death.
Benazir’s husband suffered the hunger of generations gnawing at his vitals such that it had turned to avarice. He went about methodically stealing billions from the public exchequer. Rascals, charlatans and freebooters graced his court. When Benazir was assassinated in December 2007, an event still clouded in murk, Zardari hijacked the PPP after producing a ‘Will’ that many doubt. Since the name Zardari evokes no respect even in Sindh, he had to place his young son on the throne but ‘selflessly’ appointed himself regent and in effect dictatorial leader. He in turn got rid of Benazir’s loyalists and surrounded himself with crooks and front men. Followed mindboggling loot and plunder that dwarfs the imagination. Five years in power and he reduced Bhutto’s PPP to a sub-provincial party, if that. With Fate’s bell tolling now for the corrupt and for our odious political system, the truth may finally out, which is why political criminals are quaking and quacking gibberish, their impotent threats betraying total hysteria.
Hafeez Pirzada saw this decline with disgust. Perhaps he died of a broken heart. But he can rest in peace knowing that he did his job better than any before or after him.
Stanley Wolpert said of Mr Jinnah that he was one of very few men who liberated his people, changed the course of history and created a new state all at the same time. In a perverse way Mr Bhutto did just that: he helped liberate East Pakistan’s Bengalis, changed the course of history and helped create two new states called Bangladesh and ‘New Pakistan’. What jokes the Fates play on us.
