March 23 - Dream and Reality

March 23: then and now
By Qazi Faez Isa
Dawn, March 23, 2007

THE Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) stole the title of our great leader but regretfully disregarded his principles and teachings. The All India Muslim League on March 23, 1940, passed a resolution at Lahore deciding that it was no longer possible to live in thrall to the British or under a domineering Hindu majority. The Congress dubbed the resolution ‘Pakistan Resolution’ and the name stuck.

Leading constitutional lawyer, barrister and president of the All India Muslim League, M. A. Jinnah, in a statement (reported in Dawn, February 4, 1947, reproduced in Jinnah Papers, published by the National Archives of Pakistan, 1993 ) on the Punjab situation (prevailing before the adoption of the Lahore resolution) stated, “Section 144 and various other methods are adopted for gagging the legitimate constitutional expression of the public opinion and criticism of the government by banning meetings and processions… and other executive methods by which the police and the administration are used not only to gag the free expression of opinion and criticism, which are the elementary rights of the citizens, but … have destroyed all semblance of civil liberties and have, by various methods, chloroformed the press.”

It is unbearable that 66 years after the Pakistan Resolution and 60 years after independence, “the elementary rights of the citizens” and the “civil liberties” that Quaid spoke of before Independence, are being assailed under a cloud of tear-gas and a shower of rubber bullets, batons and stones. The official media stays “chloroformed”. The private media, for the first time in this great nation’s history, has received the literal boot.

The Quaid also instructed us to struggle against oppression. “Every citizen, whatever may be his community, should support the Muslim League, for the issue which they are fighting for affects all, i.e. the restoration of civil liberties.” “You are struggling and fighting on an issue which is just and right … and whatever sufferings or sacrifice you may have to go through will not go in vain” (Jinnah Papers).After police brutality in Punjab before independence, the Committee of Action of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League issued a statement, “As the public is very well aware, the past general elections in the Punjab were held under circumstances of indescribable oppression, when the coercive machinery of the government was prostituted and perverted to harass, victimise and suppress the Muslim League. Methods of violence and illegal interference were employed which have no parallel outside the darkest chapters of the Fascist gangsterism” (Dawn, January 30, 1947, reproduced in Jinnah Papers).

It is one thing to be brutalised under foreign rule and occupation, but quite another by one’s own. The taxpayers of this free country pay for the police and those enjoying government positions. Yet they are subjected to brazen callousness. The Punjab and Islamabad police and bureaucracy have demonstrated that they are nothing if not the long arm of the political party in power.

After the establishment of Pakistan the Quaid addressed the gazetted officers at Chittagong on March 25, 1948. He did not ask them to support the Muslim League but on the contrary advised them to stay clear of politics. “You have to do your duty as servants; you are not concerned with this political or that political party; that is not your business. You are civil servants. Whichever gets the majority will form the government and your duty is to serve that government for the time being as servants not as politicians.” “You are not rulers. You do not belong to the ruling class; you belong to the servants. Make the people feel that you are their servants and friends, maintain the highest standard of honour, integrity, justice and fair play.”

Should we only shed tears for lawyers whose skulls were cracked open in Lahore and Islamabad or also hang our heads in shame that the Quaid is disobeyed in his own country?

On April 14, 1948, the Quaid addressed the civil officers in Peshawar, “Maybe some of you may fall victim for not satisfying the whims of ministers. I hope it does not happen, but you may even be put to trouble not because you are doing anything wrong but because you are doing right. Sacrifices have to be made and I appeal to you, if need be, to come forward and make the sacrifice and face the position of being put on the black list or being otherwise worried or troubled.”

Pakistan stands alone in the comity of nations in having a two-in-one president-cum-chief of army. The Quaid addressed the officers of the Staff College, Quetta on June 14, 1948, “During my talks with one or two very high-ranking officers I discovered that they did not know the implications of the oath taken by the troops of Pakistan.

“Of course, an oath is only a matter of form; what is more important is true spirit and heart. But it is an important form and I would like to take the opportunity of refreshing your memory by reading the prescribed oath to you: ‘I solemnly affirm, in the presence of Almighty God, that I owe allegiance to the Constitution and the Dominion of Pakistan and that I will be duty bound honestly and faithfully serve…’”

He went on to say, “As I have said just now, the spirit is what really matters. I should like you to study the Constitution which is in force in Pakistan at present and understand its true constitutional and legal implications…” (Jinnah, Speeches and Statement 1947-1948, Oxford University Press, 2000).

Did our military president act on the Quaid’s advice and study the Constitution before dispatching the chief justice of Pakistan? Did he realise that the chief justice cannot be made ‘non-functional’? General Musharraf has taken an oath prescribed for the members of the armed forces (under Article 244 of the Constitution of Pakistan, Third Schedule) and also of the president (under Article 42).

The oath for the members of the armed forces states, “I, —do hereby solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan and uphold the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embodies the will of the people, that I will not engage myself in any political activities whatsoever and that I will honestly and faithfully serve Pakistan in the Pakistan army by and under the law.”

The text of the presidential oath is longer and includes, “That I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions. That I will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

The oath of the armed forces does categorically prescribe, “not engage myself in any political activities whatsoever”. Yet even during the present constitutional crisis we saw General Musharraf addressing public rallies arranged by the political party in power, first in Gujranwala and then in Pakpattan, justifying the reference against the chief justice. If the president sent the reference, on the advice of the prime minster, and then justifies the reference publicly he demonstrates his partisanship.

The people that followed the Quaid hung on to every word he uttered and applied it and resultantly we achieved Pakistan. These words require telling and re-telling till they sink into the hearts and minds of the government party that parodies his title.

“…the people…resent the continual slavish conditions which prevail in this country… Is this the method by which you can continue governing people?...I say this is a short-sighted, mistaken policy – it is a blunder and the sooner you realise it the better for you” (at the All India Muslim League Session at Calcutta, December 1917).

“Well, Sir, are you going to keep millions and millions of people trodden under your feet for fear that they may demand more rights; are you going to keep them in ignorance and darkness for ever and for all ages to come because they may stand up against you and say that we have certain rights and you must give them to us? Is that the feeling of humanity? Is that the spirit of humanity? (at the Imperial Legislative Council of India in April, 1912).

“I say, Sir, that it is the elementary right of every man to say, if he is wronged, that he is wronged and that he should be righted” (at the Imperial Legislative Council of India in April, 1912).