The three novels; 1984, Animal Farm and The Trial, bear relevance to the times we live in as never before. The realities set out in them ring true as never before. It is high time we went through them, pondered them, digested them and juxtaposed them with the ironic times we are passing through.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) wrote two great masterpiece novels; Animal Farm and 1984, each etching an indelible mark on English literature. These two novels have become modern classics. While these were written about the totalitarian state, the USSR, the realities delineated in them still hold true.
In Animal Farm, Orwell brought animal characters into play to paint the utopian state. In other words, it’s a satirical political allegory.
The novel starts from how the 12-year-old Major (Karl Marx) dreamed about the song “Beasts of England”, the manifesto of the rebellion, and how the animals in the farm had staged a revolution against humans and the prevalent system (capitalism) to translate the dream into a reality. In the wake of the revolution, the pigs took up the reins of the government. Napoleon plays the role of Joseph Stalin, while Squealer (the propaganda minister) serves as second-in-command to Napoleon. They put their best foot forward in exploiting their rule. Pigs, the rulers, became all-powerful. Their authority could not be questioned. No one could point an accusing finger at them. They were rather treated as “sacred cows”, who were beyond any sort of accountability. To put it otherwise, they became law unto themselves. They took pleasure in every materialistic act, erstwhile condemned wholesale. In a word, they end up doing the same things done by the humans. Though humans were replaced by the animals with pigs in the saddle, the tyranny of the few had become more deep-seated than ever before.
Snowball (Leo Trotsky) drew up seven commandments. All these commandments were then ultimately removed only to include one commandment that read “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. Nor is this all, the original “Beasts of England” was replaced by “Comrade Napoleon”.
One cannot help appreciating the way Orwell deftly paints the inherent contradictions lying at the heart of the Russian revolution. It was supposed to bring about an egalitarian system. Rather, it ended up breeding inequality, alienation and injustice.
When it comes to 1984, Orwell came up with another dystopian plot. In this novel, the despotic regime employed skulduggery to carry out a severe kind of surveillance of its people. To this end, the “Thought Police” was launched to persecute people for thinking critically and independently. “Big Brother is watching you”, a phrase that reminded people that they were being constantly watched. They were dealt with, with an iron hands in case they had been found indulging in so-called unlawful activities.
Next comes The Trial by Franz Kafka. He wrote this incomplete novel back in 1914-1915. It was published after his death. This novel centres round a person named “Joseph K.” From the word go, the trial conducted against him was shrouded in mystery. He faced cooked-up charges. He was kept in the dark about everything. In chapter 3, he says “This court [tries innocent] people…without letting them know what’s going on”. In Chapter 9, the prison chaplain says to K. “Provisionally, at least, your guilt is seen as proven” to convey that being accused is an indication of the guilt, contrary to the well-entrenched criminal jurisprudence.
Lamentable as it is, the themes of these three novels are on full display in Naya Pakistan.
Selective accountability is like a sword of Damocles, which hangs over the political opponents. Sham, ridiculous and wholly trumped-up charges are being framed to silence the political rivals, trampling upon fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, thereby making a mockery of the law of the land, and travesty of justice. The sorry state of affairs makes people question the judiciary’s silence about it. One ventures to say, it is as if the Constitution had been held in abeyance in Pakistan or a de facto emergency had been in force, and as such the fundamental rights were suspended.
PPP co-Chairman Asif Zardari’s interview with Hamid Mir was pulled off air, in a flagrant and blatant disregard of Articles 19 and 19-A of the Constitution. The fundamental rights enshrined in these articles grant the freedom to citizens to express their views freely. No doubt, these rights are subject to ‘reasonable restriction’. However, in the name of restriction, these rights are being curtailed and suppressed unreasonably, with the result that they are being rendered illusory.
Opposition leaders are being put behind the bars. The way they are nabbed, gives away the unmistakable impression as if the die had been cast and the arrests were presented to the public as faits accomplis.
It is a rudimentary and longstanding principle of criminal jurisprudence that no one shall be presumed guilty until proven otherwise beyond any shadow of doubt. There is a clear presumption of law in favour of the accused. In other words, an accused is the favourite child of the law. Even otherwise, Article 4, read with Article 10-A of the Constitution, mandates substantive and procedural due process of law. However, the iron-clad guarantees ingrained in these two articles are being honoured more in the breach than in the observance. In other words, they are being reduced to a farce.
Lastly, the jurisprudence of Supreme Court in terms of Article 184(3) had witnessed a paradigm shift, when the sitting CJP took oath. Previously, hyper-judicial activism was the motto of the Supreme Court, and now total judicial restraint has become the norm. In both cases, the jurisprudence swayed like a pendulum between two poles: from one extreme to another. No balance has been struck between the two extremes. The power vested in the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution now lies safely like a sword in the scabbard, as if the fundamental rights were not being trampled.
