In the firmament of our judiciary, as Justice Amir Farooq continues to stand as a black hole from which no ray of justice escapes, Justice Babar Sattar has stunned the stygian gloom with light. Ruling on the detention of Shandana Gulzar and Shehryar Afridi under MPO rules, which is a convenient tool to dispense malice, he has ordered both to be presented at the court Aug 16.
How Justice Amir Farooq slipped and marked this case to be heard by Justice Sattar, has proved to be a slip from which a little bit of hope has escaped to lift up the expectations of a thoroughly demoralized people.
Sometimes the shackled wheels of history are set in motion by the release of steam by a single incident. What follows can be of incredible consequence.
Recall Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination by Gavrilo Princip on June 28 1914, which led to the First World War; or the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Lt Khalid Islambouli on Oct 6,1981 which stopped in its tracks the recognition of Israel by other Arab states; or the self- immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in Tunis on Dec 17, 2010 which unleashed the Arab Spring.
Justice Sattar’s ruling may or may not usher in a change which millions are hoping for, but the tinder is dry; the repression complete; poverty grinding; and the loathing for the authorities among a crushed populace is at a bursting point. All it needs is just one spark to get the conflagration going.
The optimism which needs to be spread among an entire people to keep them buoyant has been sucked out of them, and this now resides primarily in the breast of Gen Asim Munir, on the side not covered by his medals.
He is the Atlas fully resolved to keep the entire weight of Pakistan on his shoulders. I do not know him but try and follow his speeches. He either knows something which none of us do, or someone has taken on the successful task of keeping him pumped up. Sycophancy has huge power to delude.
I remember his speech at Khanewal on Jul 24, 2023, at the inauguration of Green Pakistan Initiative. Its blend of verses from the Holy Book and Allama Iqbal was pretty neat. Even neater though was the speech of Mr Tariq Bashir Cheema who declared that the army had always responded to the nation’s time of hardship, and that he was a trifle ashamed that now it had to be called in to give a boost to the country’s agriculture as well!
If Mr Cheema’s tongue was in his cheek when he made this declaration, I could not tell, as his cheeks are pretty puffed up anyhow. But if his tongue was not there, this had to be plain sycophancy. And how good it must have made the general feel!
On Aug 7, 2023, the Gen met tribal elders in Peshawar. And one paper described his speech as “electrifying”. If this was a pun on homes kept dark because people can’t bear the cost of electricity, it was a smart one. But how this must have been reported to the General by his staff, is quite another matter.
And then came his midnight speech of Aug 13, for which the cadets at the Pakistan Military Academy had to be woken up. The most stirring sentence of this speech had been borrowed from the Quaid: “no power on earth can undo Pakistan.”
When the Quaid said these words, he could have been referring to the traitors within, or to our enemies across our borders. It must have been beyond his wildest nightmare to imagine that a day would come when the traitors within would join our enemies abroad to bring down his Pakistan. It is our cursed destiny that we had to live in an era such as this.
For the rest, the parade that the General addressed was magnificent. The last such parade I attended in PMA was on Nov 13, 1971, on the occasion of the passing out of 47nth PMA Long Course. The Generals strutting about, who attended, looked resplendent in their bemedalled uniforms. And between his bouts of stupor and groggy waking hours, our President, Gen Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, the military genius of his day, was sleeping a blissfully secure sleep.
Yet a mere five weeks later, on Dec 16, 1971, our army surrendered in East Pakistan, and our country was halved. This has happened to every general, whether awake or asleep, who knew all there was to know, and was averse to speaking the truth to himself.