For years the generals of our army have decided our fate and our judges have been most obliging to them. Whenever the generals felt the need to step in and flex their muscles on a larger stage, the judges felt the need to fall in step. They bowed low, and invited them in on bended knees. And the two have worked seamlessly together.
But for some weeks now there is a scent of judicial rebellion in the air, and this well-oiled machine seems to be experiencing its first creaks. Every judicial finding which goes against the high command is applauded by the people at large and gives a boost to their slender reserves of hope. And what is rising with this hope, is the tenuous but quite perceptible support of the people for their judiciary. They have begun to dare to hope that this military junta can be thrown off their backs without the need of having to confront their bayonets in the streets.
The divide between light and darkness in the judiciary is symbolized by justices Babar Sattar and Amir Farooq. This is a divide between courage and cravenness; between someone who is looked up to and one who is looked down upon; between respectability and sleaze; and between esteem for one and derision for the other.
These two justices, who symbolize the two camps in which the judiciary is divided, hold court in the capital. But the arena where this battle will most likely be decided has shifted beyond the Indus, to Peshawar. This is the land of the relatively free because it was spared the experience of centuries of soul-destroying feudalism, and so its people managed to retain enough pride to stand up straighter than the rest. And its judges, drawn from the same pool of people, are daily exhibiting this pride by refusing the dictates of tin soldiers being issued from Rawalpindi. This has opened up political space for PTI which is being hounded like a pack of animals in all other parts of the country.
It is thus in the Frontier that the cloud of redemption is likely to rise, and from where salvation promises to come. All that is needed to convert this cloud into a cloudburst is JUST ONE really mammoth and well-organized political rally by the PTI, with the judiciary in the Frontier making certain that this party gets the same field of play as the rest. When this happens not all the king’s men will be able to contain the flood that will follow. And as the lay of the land suggests, from the Frontier this flood will flow into the Punjab, bypassing or drowning Rawalpindi.
That is the time the shudders will set in, and emergency conferences begin.
And that is also the time when the fate of Pakistan may be decided by the top Judge confronting the top General. In this setting, each may try and stare the other down. The issue will be decided when one of the two loses his nerve as well as his pants by wetting them.
It would be in the fitness of things, though, that both should soil their trousers. These two despicable men have brought to their high offices little but disrepute, but have done so in equal measure. They deserve therefore to go out in equal ignominy with each holding his soiled pants in his hands.
In small packages like these Pakistan may be able to get rid of the rot it has accumulated.
It may be a cruel irony that the Almighty thought it fit to have placed our destiny into the hands of two such wicked men as these. Cruel irony indeed, but entirely congruous with the state to which we have allowed ourselves to fall!