MODERNIST FUEDALISM

Zardaris supersede Sharifs with most legislators from same family in Pakistan

Both political families are known for having mostly ruled Pakistan for quite some time

PTI Lahore

Published 30.03.24, 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari (L) Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif

TTO graphic

The Zardaris have overtaken the Sharifs to hold the record for having the most number of lawmakers from a family in Pakistani politics after President Asif Ali Zardari and slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's youngest daughter Aseefa was elected unopposed as a member of Parliament.

Aseefa, who is set to become the First Lady, had filed a nomination for the National Assembly seat NA-207 from the Shaheed Benazirabad (formerly Nawabshah) area of Sindh province for the bye-election scheduled for next month.

According to a notification issued by the Returning Office of the area, Aseefa was elected unopposed after three candidates who had filed papers against her withdrew their names from the contest.

The three candidates were Abdul Rasool Brohi, Amanullah and Mairaj Ahmed

It left her with no challenger and she was declared a winner in her maiden electoral contest Friday. The seat was vacated by her father, Asif Ali Zardari after he was elected as the president.

With her victory, the Zardari family has six lawmakers at the national and provincial levels, breaking the record of the Sharif family as it now comprises the most number of members from the same family in the country’s parliamentary history.

Both political families are known for having mostly ruled Pakistan for quite some time.

Now Zardari himself is the country's president, his daughter Aseefa, son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and brother-in-law Munawar Ali Talpur are Members of the National Assembly, while both sisters Faryal Talpur and Azra Pechuho are members of the provincial assembly in Sindh.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's elder brother Nawaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz Sharif have been elected MNAs, while his niece Maryam Nawaz Sharif is the chief minister of Punjab.

Aseefa, 31, holds a bachelor’s degree in politics and sociology and a master’s in global health and development. She initially served as a goodwill ambassador for the polio eradication campaign in 2012 which made her face familiar among the masses.

PAKISTAN

The winds of change

Tariq Khosa 

DAWN

Published March 7, 2024 


SILENCE is complicity, said the Philippines Nobel laureate journalist Maria Ressa in her 2022 memoir How to Stand Up to a Dictator. Our biggest problems are the results of choices made by those in power. I have seen the rule of law crumble from within. The powerful forces — people, institutions, interests — are the main obstacles to a better future for Pakistan.

There is no doubt that pre-poll and post-poll rigging carried out in the latest national elections was the worst since the break-up of the country in 1971. We must speak truth to power. The string pullers used tried and tested tactics to tame a digital-savvy generation — but could not win.

The voter’s response was defiant. Against all odds, they thronged to the polling stations and their message, as reported by author and journalist Mohammed Hanif for the BBC, was clear: “We may not be able to take you on in the streets, you have your guns, but here’s our stamp on the ballot. Do what you will with it.”

The Feb 8 polls clearly revealed that the winds of change are blowing in Pakistan. Millions of tech-savvy youth participated in the electoral process for the first time in their lives. Pakistan’s youth is a large and growing demographic and an important voting bloc: 44 per cent of the electorate this year was under 35.

Social media was the dominant political campaign tool. Middle-class voters turned out in big numbers. Women and girls were also very actively involved. The distinction between urban, peri urban and rural voters could not be made. People have mostly voted for the mainstream, national parties, instead of narrow-based religious or ethnic political entities.

Three major political forces have emerged: the PTI, PML-N and PPP. The voters of KP have clearly voted big for the PTI, consistently increasing its vote bank in the three previous elections of 2013, 2018 and 2024. Punjab this time has clearly broken the pattern of voting for ‘electables’ — prominent political families relying on patronage politics. People mostly voted on party lines, rejecting the establishment-sponsored parties launched to create a dent in the vote bank of the most popular party.

Sindh remains the stronghold of the PPP, thanks to the Bhutto legacy. The declared results of Karachi do not reflect the reality: the city is not dominated by a single ethnic party. Both the PTI and PPP have a strong following. Balochistan presents a very troubling scenario. The footprints of the establishment muzzling the voices of dissent are writ large. The Baloch nationalist regions and Pakhtun areas are witnessing a rising tide of resentment. The issue of missing persons remains a festering wound.

The politicians have not learnt any lesson from our history of ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ military rule.

Like most of the previous elections, the recent Feb 8 polls were unfortunately rigged massively. On joining government service in 1973, I saw every election rigged by the state institutions. I was part of the elections monitoring cell of the Punjab Police in 1977 when selective rigging and a managed unopposed election of a few prominent politicians resulted in a mass movement by the opposition parties. Their leaders were arrested and detained at Police College Sihala near Rawalpindi.

After their release and the promulgation of martial law in July 1977, we saw Z.A. Bhutto detained and brought to Police College Sihala, the same place of detention but with a change in the status of the prisoner. Such has been our political saga.

Like the US president Franklin Roosevelt, it seemed Mr Bhutto was asking to be judged by the enemies he had made. His trial in the infamous murder case and hanging in April 1979 was fraught with a gory irony: a general low in the seniority list but selected as army chief, based on expected loyalty, was instrumental in the ‘judicial murder’ of his benefactor.

After a sham referendum of 1984, the army chief declared himself president for five years, followed by non-party elections in 1985, wherein people were selected to promote the agenda set by the dictator. Removing that dictator proved to be an uphill task despite the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy launched in protest against a sham democratic façade. The activists and workers of the PPP bore the brunt of brutal state tyranny. We then saw the decent and honest prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, appointed by the military dictator in 1985, sacked by the same general in 1988.

Fate had a violent end written for the tyrant military chief; having completed more than a decade-long reign of decadence, he died in a mysterious plane crash in August 1988. Next followed a decade of political ping-pong between two political parties headed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. The military establishment called the shots and the resultant political instability led to the nation lurching from one crisis to another.

The politicians have not learnt any lesson from our chequered history of ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ military rule. Nawaz Sharif repeated his earlier mistake of selecting an army chief in 2016 who was not the senior-most. The role of the deep state in the elections of 2018 is an open secret. Then it was ironic that prime minister Imran Khan gave a three-year extension to the army chief in 2019, believing in the same-page mantra. The toppling of his government and subsequent political engineering since April 2022 are so widely known. And now the current government installed after the latest highly controversial elections is being dubbed as the “coalition of losers”.

It is little surprise that Pakistan was recently downgraded from a hybrid to authoritarian regime by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The most effective response to authoritarians and autocrats is to echo Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s challenge to “live not by lies”. For how long will we live by lies? To those who wield power today, one can whisper: ‘memento mori’, a reminder of inevitable mortality.

The writer is a former IG police and DG FIA.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024

2 major parties reach power sharing deal to form next gov't in Pakistan

Shehbaz Sharif nominated as prime minister while Asif Ali Zardari will be candidate for presidency

Islam Uddin |21.02.2024 -


ISLAMABAD

After week-long negotiations, two political parties in Pakistan agreed on a power-sharing deal to form the next government.

Announcing the deal, former Foreign Minister and Chairman of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that his party will support former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as candidate for prime minister.

"Our negotiation teams have reached consensus and the numbers of Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have been completed and now we are in a position to form a federal government," he told reporters during a news conference late Tuesday night.

His father and former President Asif Ali Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif accompanied Bilawal.

Bilawal added that the PML-N would support Asif Ali Zardari for president.

He did not give further details about key portfolios in the government.

To form a government with a simple majority, a party requires 134 direct seats, which can be counted as 169 MPs after allocating members to reserved seats for women and religious minorities in the National Assembly.

Although independent candidates backed by jailed ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 93 seats, the highest number of MPs, the party could not form a coalition with other parties to reach a simple majority.

The PTI on Monday announced that its affiliated independent candidates will merge into the Sunni Ittehad Council, a small religiopolitical party, in the National and provincial assemblies to get its share in reserve seats of women and minorities.

On Tuesday, Khan said the "mother of all rigging" took place in the Feb. 8 general elections and demanded that "the real mandate and will of the public should be honored."

In a message through her sister Aleema Khan, who met him at Adiala jail in the northeastern garrison city of Rawalpindi on Tuesday, Khan said that X was blocked in the country to “hide the real results.”

The social media platform has remained restricted in Pakistan since Saturday night. The country's telecommunication regulator has offered no reason for the restriction.

Pakistan Old-Guard Parties to Form Coalition, Thwarting Imran Khan

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari speaks during a press conference in Islamabad on Feb. 13, 2024. 

Aamir Qureshi—AFP/Getty Images

BY ISMAIL DILAWAR AND KAMRAN HAIDER / BLOOMBERG
FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Pakistan’s two old-guard political parties agreed to form a government, a move that breaks an almost two-week deadlock and likely keeps jailed former premier Imran Khan’s party out of government even though it won the most seats in the country’s contentious election.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party will join in a coalition with the Sharif clan’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Bhutto Zardari said at a joint news conference in Islamabad close to midnight on Tuesday. Shehbaz Sharif will be prime minister while Bhutto Zardari’s father, Asif Ali Zardari, will be president.

Read More: Pakistan Can Keep Imran Khan Out of Power, but It Can’t Keep His Popularity Down

“Both the parties have the numbers to form a government,” Bhutto Zardari, 35, the son of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, said, with Sharif next to him.

The announcement will probably end days of uncertainty after the inconclusive Feb. 8 election, in which Khan’s candidates, running as independents, defied the odds by winning the most seats but fell short of clinching an outright majority. Rounds of negotiations followed, culminating in the announcement Tuesday night.

Investors will be watching what this means for Pakistan’s markets, which have been rocked after the polls. The benchmark stock index has fallen for six of eight trading days since Feb. 8.

Questions also remain about how Khan’s supporters will respond. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party held protests across Pakistan over the weekend against alleged vote-rigging. Credence was added to their claims when a Pakistani official said he had manipulated the vote count and the Election Commission of Pakistan was also involved. The ECP, which oversaw the polls, and the interim government of Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, deny allegations of rigging.

Read More: Pakistan’s Military Used Every Trick to Sideline Imran Khan—and Failed. Now What?

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, remained inaccessible for a third day across Pakistan Tuesday, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks, as authorities blocked to thwart the protesters.

A new administration will have to shore up an economy battered by Asia’s fastest inflation, running at 28%, and negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund after the current program expires in April. Shehbaz Sharif has said that will be one of his first priorities if he becomes prime minister.

This isn’t the first time the two old-guard family-controlled parties have come together. They spearheaded a coalition after Khan was ousted in April 2022 and ruled the country for about 16 months. Shehbaz was prime minister, while Bhutto Zardari was his foreign minister.

During that period, Bhutto Zardari’s party appeared to distance itself from the economic reforms carried out by the Sharif government, including raising fuel prices.

For this year’s election, the two parties contested as rivals but later agreed to hold talks to “save the country from political instability,” according to Sharif.

The deadline for holding a parliament session for forming the new government is Feb. 29, Murtaza Solangi, the country’s interim information minister, has said.

Pakistan government grants financial autonomy to its Intelligence Bureau

The IB division will work directly under the Prime Minister with its office to be established in the cabinet division, according to a notification

PTI Islamabad Published 21.02.24,


Pakistan’s caretaker government has fulfilled a longstanding demand of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) by granting it the status of a full-fledged division, allowing it complete financial autonomy, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The decision was taken by Prime Minister Anwaar-ul Haq Kakar on Monday, the reports said. “The IB division will work directly under the Prime Minister with its office to be established in the cabinet division,” according to a notification. The IB director general will be the ex-officio secretary to the division, the Dawn newspaper reported quoting the notification.

“The IB earlier worked under the cabinet division and faced multiple problems, especially in financial and administrative matters. It is believed that the decision will also end interference of other departments and individuals in IB’s working,” it said quoting a senior official of the PM Office.

Before the status change, the secretary of the cabinet division had been notified as the principal accounting officer for the IB and all expenditures of the bureau were scrutinised by the financial adviser of the cabinet division. Similarly, the bureau has been empowered to take its own decision regarding the transfer, posting, and promotion of his officials, the report said.

‘Beheaded’ charge

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Tuesday said that it will initiate criminal proceedings against PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb for her remarks that jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan should have been “beheaded” in 2014 to rid the country of a “fitna” (anarchist). Marriyum said Khan should have been beheaded after they staged a protest in Islamabad in a bid to topple the Nawaz Sharif government.

Hybrid rule 3.0?

Zahid Hussain Published February 21, 2024 




IT is a right royal mess that is hard to clean up. A hung parliament through a controversial election has pushed the country deeper into the mire.

It has been almost two weeks since the general elections were held on Feb 8, but as yet, there is no sign of a new dispensation taking shape. A thick cloud of uncertainty continues to hang over the country’s political landscape.

While the PTI is still not out of the race, the two other major political parties — the PML-N and PPP — are engaged in hard bargaining for the formation of a new coalition arrangement, amid widespread protests against alleged poll rigging. The confession of the Rawalpindi commissioner, who resigned from his post, about his role in vote manipulation has raised more questions about the legitimacy of the entire electoral process.

It is certainly not the outcome of the long-awaited polls one wanted to see. It is the unravelling of the entire political power structure. But re-engineering work is on to prop up the old order already rejected by the electorate. The intermittent shutdown of social media seems to be a part of the effort to stifle opposition voices. One is, however, not sure whether these efforts will bring any political stability to a country in deep turmoil.

With the official result of the elections now almost fully compiled, the PTI-supported independent bloc is clearly ahead of the other political parties in the next National Assembly, despite the alleged electoral manipulation.

The PTI’s latest decision to merge its parliamentary party with the Sunni Ittehad Council in the House is supposed to be part of its tactics to get its share of some 70 reserve seats, thus keeping the group in the race to form the new government.

Re-engineering work is on to prop up the old order already rejected by the electorate.

Moreover, the PTI leadership also seems hopeful of snatching some more seats by challenging some controversial results in court. But it will still be difficult for the party to get the required number to form the government at the centre on its own. The party has already declared it will not enter into any power-sharing arrangement with the PML-N and PPP.

Yet its formidable presence in the National Assembly could present a constant challenge to a prospective PML-N-led coalition government. The PTI’s decision to stay in the game seems to have frustrated the plan that aimed to completely sideline the party.

Notwithstanding the alleged manipulations, the elections have changed the country’s political dynamics making it extremely hard for the ubiquitous security establishment to set its own rules. Its leadership seems to have come out bruised in the process.

It has been a vote against the military’s role in the political powerplay as well as its overarching presence in almost all aspects of state. Yet there is no indication of the generals taking a back seat. Instead, the meddling of the security establishment in politics is likely to be enhanced, given the fragmented electoral mandate. Its reported role in pushing the PML-N and PPP to reach an agreement on the formation of a coalition government has not been denied.

While there appears to be consensus among the PPP and smaller parties to support Shehbaz Sharif, the PML-N nominee for prime minister, there is no agreement yet on the power-sharing formula.

The PPP, whose support is crucial for any future set-up, is playing hard to get on the issue of joining the cabinet, while bargaining for key constitutional positions, including the post of president. The PPP has maintained its control over Sindh and is also poised to lead a coalition government in Balochistan, raising its stakes in the power game.

Past master in the politics of wheeling and dealing, Asif Ali Zardari is trying to extract maximum advantage for his party before finally agreeing to the PPP joining the government. The party has already made it public that Zardari will be a candidate for president. The issue seems to be a sticking point in the ongoing negotiations between the two parties.

Meanwhile, there also seems to be establishment pressure on the party to be a part of the incoming administration rather than supporting it from the outside. If a deal is struck, the future ruling coalition will not be different from the previous Shehbaz Sharif-led hybrid administration, with the security establishment having a significant role in all policy matters.

Most interesting, however, is Nawaz Sharif’s decision to stand down as candidate for prime minister. In fact, the party’s entire election campaign had revolved around his return to power. It seems that his party’s failure to achieve even a simple majority was the main reason for the withdrawal of his candidature. It is apparent that he didn’t want to lead a coalition government that would include the PPP.

So, Shehbaz Sharif, who has worked well with the military as well as other political parties in the past, is considered the right choice to lead the future coalition government. Nawaz Sharif has, however, made sure that the mantle of Punjab chief minister will go to his daughter and heir apparent Maryam Nawaz.

Being the largest single party in the Punjab Assembly, the PML-N may not have any difficulty in forming the government in the province, with the support of some independents not associated with the PTI. Some of them have already jumped onto the PML-N’s bandwagon. Maryam Nawaz’s nomination marks the continuation of the dynastic control of the Sharif family over Punjab.

What is most problematic, however, is the issue of different political parties ruling the provinces. While the Sindh government, led by the PPP, can coexist with the ruling coalition at the centre, it will not be easy for the PTI government in KP to work with the PML-N administration in Islamabad.

These inherent problems would make it extre­mely difficult for a minority government at the center to deliver on the critical problems related to governance, economy and internal security. There is no way the system can work in this atmosphere of confrontation. The future doesn’t look that good for the country, post-election.

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2024

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PAKISTAN 

"Mr Jinnah's actions were secular"

Murtaza Solangi, former DG, Radio Pakistan, speaks about Mr Jinnah’s tapes and his vision for Pakistan.




MAMUN M. ADIL: How did you become involved with the Jinnah tapes?
MURTAZA SOLANGI: I joined Radio Pakistan as Director General in June 2008 and while there, I started going through the archived tapes. Mr Jinnah was a subject of interest to me and I went through most of the analogue tapes of his speeches. Very few were digitised, and I was told that since there was no recording facility in Karachi in 1947, a team of engineers from All India Radio in Delhi had been sent to Karachi to record the June 3, August 11 and 14 speeches. However, I only found the June 3 and August 14 speeches, which dealt with the Partition Plan and Transfer of Power respectively. I initiated the digitisation of the analogue tapes, and had the speeches uploaded on Radio Pakistan’s YouTube channel in 2011, along with about 300 other recordings.

MMA: Given that the June 3 and August 14 speeches were made public two years ago, why have they been in the news recently?
MS: Because All India Radio released the master copies of the tapes recently. The quality of their tapes is better than the ones we had.

MMA: What do you think is the impact of the June 3 speech?
MS: Not too much; the June 3 speech gives clues regarding Mr Jinnah’s central thinking of not creating a theocratic state; the August 14 speech says it better. It is important because Mr Jinnah talks about Akbar the Great and the Prophet (PBUH) during whose time Jews and Christians were accorded the same status and respect as Muslims. However, the August 11 speech is the most important of them all.

MMA: What attempts did you make to retrieve the August 11 speech?
MS: I emailed the BBC in London and they replied that they did not have it, but it is still possible that there is a copy somewhere; All India Radio may have a copy. I am still making an effort to recover it. My suspicion is that somebody destroyed the tape in Pakistan.
In this speech Mr Jinnah said, “You are free to go to your temples…” and that religion has nothing to do with the state. I spoke to many people who worked under Zia-ul-Haq and according to them, as well as several books and reports, the tapes had been taken from the Radio Pakistan archives and destroyed.

MMA: Why would they do that?
MS: Because of the content. In this speech Mr Jinnah said, “You are free to go to your temples…” and that religion has nothing to do with the state. I spoke to many people who worked under Zia-ul-Haq and according to them, as well as several books and reports, the tapes had been taken from the Radio Pakistan archives and destroyed. Mr Jinnah was a secular person. The original speech that he was supposed to read on August 14, during the transfer of power, had religious phrases such as “so help me God” but Mr Jinnah chose not to read out these phrases. His actions were also secular. For example, just before the creation of Pakistan, Mr Jogindernath Mandal, a scheduled cast Hindu from East Pakistan, was inducted into the Constituent Assembly and was given the important portfolio of Minister of Law. If Pakistan was going to be an Islamic, theocratic state how could the ministry of law be headed by a Hindu? That is why I feel that the tape was destroyed – because of its content.

MMA: What would the impact of the August 11 recording be if it was found?
MS: To be honest, even if Mr Jinnah rose from his grave and made the speech it would probably not make much difference today. The powerful religious lobbies and those that have militant wings and the power to coerce people would probably lynch Mr Jinnah today if he was alive. That said, the speech is important because of its historic significance – it would refute the lies by some politicians and historians who project that he wanted a theocratic state. The speech also has historic value. The other day, Geo did an enactment of it in Urdu – and someone asked me if it was authentic and I told them it was originally in English. The speech would definitely help people who believe in Mr Jinnah’s vision of a pluralist and democratic Pakistani state. It would be an important tool for people who believe the founder of their country did not want a theocratic state but one where every citizen is treated equally. I am still searching for it by contacting people in Pakistan and India, and I am also fighting for that vision by raising my voice on various forums.

MMA: Did you come across any other tapes during the digitisation process at Radio Pakistan?
MS: We found Liaquat Ali Khan’s last speech which was made on October 16, 1951. It is a few minutes in length and ends with gunshots being fired. I also found a speech made by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on April 27, 1972, when he laid the foundation stone of the National Broadcasting House of Radio Pakistan in Islamabad. Someone who worked as a technician gave it to us, so miracles do happen. It was very well written and powerful. Mr Bhutto said that radio, as the cheapest and most portable medium, has the capacity to disseminate information, education and empowerment to people and that Radio Pakistan must do so.

MMA: Do you think Radio Pakistan has fulfilled that vision?
MS: No, because consecutive governments have used it as a government rather than a public broadcaster. To an extent, during Mr Bhutto’s time a lot of good public interest programming was developed including Taleem-e-Balighaan. But to turn Radio Pakistan into an institution like the BBC, you need educated people, who are given independence. This was never done. Radio Pakistan was used as a source of government propaganda. People listened to Radio Pakistan because it was the only station at the time; this changed in 2004 when private radio stations started coming up. Now, nobody cares about Radio Pakistan or PTV.

MMA: Why did you leave Radio Pakistan?
MS: On May 3, 2013, I was told that the management was pleased to cancel my contract.

MMA: What plans did you have for the digitised speeches?
MS: I had initiated a project with the help of the US Government to digitise 3.5 million minutes of historical speeches made by several political leaders including Mr Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Mujibur Rahman, Feroz Khan Noon and Zia-ul-Haq. I was planning to create a portal that could be accessed by the general public for free, but would be charged for other broadcasters.

MMA: Why were these digitised archives not publicised?
MS: When I was at Radio Pakistan I didn’t do much on the publicity front. I was running from pillar to post to managing salaries, launching a website (the first bilingual one for a government organisation) and setting up social media accounts for Radio Pakistan. When I left, Radio Pakistan had over 30,000 followers on Twitter (All India Radio had 500). Today All India Radio has more; the babus who came after me drove everything into the ground.

AURORA/ DAWN
Published in Nov-Dec 2013

Mamun M. Adil

Mamun M. Adil is Manager, BD&R, DAWN. mamun.adil@gmail.com

COMMENTS (28) CLOSED

NABEELAUG 16, 2017 04:42AM
Great work Sir! We salute you for this...

SIMBAAUG 16, 2017 04:25PM
It is interesting the way well meaning, educated and capable people are grounded in Pakistan.

K P RAOAUG 16, 2017 06:09PM
Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It was farsightedness of Mr. Jinnah to have appointed Mr, Mandal an eminent personality as Minister of Law. Later-on this very Mr. Mandal was a member of legislative council in India and was a reputed member of Constitution drafting committee under Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar the Architect of Constitution of India and was much admired here.

BRRAUG 17, 2017 03:08AM
Of all the thousands of speeches Jinnah gave where he demanded a seperate state because muslims are a separate nation, people can point to one solitary instant where jinnah acts benevolent towards minorities - and everyone latches on to that single speech to declare jinnah a great secular leader - conveniently ignoring the simple fact that thousands of speeches were given by him where he did just the opposite - demand separation from hindus on religious grounds. If that is not misleading and hypocritical, what is?

M. EMADAUG 17, 2017 01:39PM
Mr. Jinnah did different act at different times.

RAJIV RANJANAUG 17, 2017 09:51PM
Even Donald Trump talks nice things sometimes.

AFMAUG 18, 2017 12:21AM
If we want to make this great state of Pakistan happy and prosperous we must concentrate wholly and solely on the well being of the people, You are free. Free to go to your Mosques, free to go to your temples, or any other place of worship in the state of Pakistan. My guiding principles well be #Justice and fair play without any Prejudice or ill well, without any partiality or favouritism. We must root out the poison of Corruption and Nepotism our inspiration will be the golden principles of the Holy Prophet Peace be upon him and I know that with your support and cooperation, I can look forward to the day when Pakistan becomes one of the greatest nations of the world.

AKRAMAUG 18, 2017 10:43AM
One day the fact that during the last days of Jinnah he had expressed his regret on creation of Pakistan will come to light. Which deep inside every Pakistani might already be feeling.

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:50AM
@k p rao . Thanks for sharing your information !

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:51AM
@BRR . You nailed it sir !!

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:52AM
@M. Emad . I agree.You are absolutely correct.

PAKISTANIAUG 18, 2017 05:50PM
@SIMBA .Why is it interesting?

DARVINAUG 18, 2017 09:45PM
A person Jinnah and Nehru divided a country on the basis of religion but you still thought he was secular. He demanded special privilege in India to Muslims or separate country. His party started riots in 1946 in West Bengal, which gulp 1 million people at the time of partition. He decided Pakistan as Islamic Republic of Pakistan but you still feel by single speech that he was secular.

ALIAUG 18, 2017 10:32PM
Jinnah was always secular. Jinnah's speeches before partition did demand a separate state based on religion as the muslims of India were marginalized and discriminated against. After partition, he promoted secularism has he didn't want the minorities in newly created Pakistan to suffer the same marginalization and discrimination that the muslims went thru before partition. That would have lost the essence of why he wanted Pakistan. The Pakistan of today is not Jinnah's Pakistan.

UZAIR AHMEDAUG 20, 2017 06:14AM
well! poor try to change mindset about Jinnah. cheapest way to get famous @ Murtaza Solangi. Go get a life!!

READERAUG 20, 2017 08:51AM
If Mr. Jinnah was secular why did he fight for a separate state for muslims of India?

RAFIAUG 20, 2017 09:34AM
@Akram there is no regret sir. Couldn't be more proud of being a Pakistani. Not sure if I can even imagine walking around in India with my head down as a second class citizen. Muslims in India are still having to prove their loyalty. We totally should be grateful for not having to deal with that today. Thank God and Quaid-e-Azam, for Pakistan.

ASEEMAUG 21, 2017 12:17PM
@AFM "You are free. Free to go to your Mosques, free to go to your temples, or any other place of worship" Sounds more like lip service. Present day's Pakistan is exactly opposite of what was presumably promised. Even Ahmediya's are relegated to third class, leave aside other minority religions. Talking about freedom to visit places of worship, neither their lives, nor property are safe.

RICHARDAUG 22, 2017 12:28AM
i really believe had Jinnah lived long enough relationship with India would have more positive.

SANDIPAUG 22, 2017 01:04AM
@Rafi Aren't you having to prove your loyalty to Pakistan all the time as well? Just say something criticizing the khakhis and then see how your life is reduced to living hell.

KHANAUG 22, 2017 09:40AM
I was annoyed by Solangi the former director of Radio Pakistan how he addressed Qaid Azam as Mr. Jinnah. I hate people who get high post and not learned to pick words .

AFNAN GHUMMANAUG 24, 2017 07:18AM
Actually you wanted to prove him secular so you didn't overlook the entire history... You just took what you had to... Once quaid offered his used water to a hindu in a gathering he refused to drink that by saying that why should he dirnk that water which is used by a muslim... Then he offered it to a man(muslim) with turkish cap on his head he drank the water without any question.... Then quaid explained This is the difference between muslim and hindu I can live with muslim but can't with a hindu....

AKBAR AHMEDSEP 12, 2017 11:25AM
@Sandip . Please survey( even briefly) the reality of the very diverse electronic media in Pakistan you may find reality quite different.

RAZVISEP 12, 2017 11:57AM
@BRR It will be a great favour to many like me if you can forward the links to just a few hundreds of these thousands of these speeches. At the same time you will do a great favour to yourself by reading an unconsecrated biography of the Quid.

OMARSEP 12, 2017 12:43PM
Great work sir

DIGGER DOWN UNDERSEP 12, 2017 02:58PM
Thank you Mr Solangi for your contribution to the literature about Mr Jinnah. Destroying a historical record is like demolishing a heritage building, structure, a church, temple or a mosque. Whoever was responsible for destroying Mr Jinnah's speech committed a serious crime and must be awarded punishment, even after their death.

JAAMSEP 12, 2017 02:59PM
Mullah-establishment duo would have killed Jinnah if he were to say " not a theocratic state"! This is a new Pakistan invented by top brass and sacrosanct mullahs. What a tragedy!

ABLSEP 12, 2017 03:54PM
Pakistan's biggest loss was the passing away of the Quaid during its infancy year. The whole logic behind the creation of Pakistan was not translated into the diverse society, which Pakistan inherited. The institutional development was left to those leaders, who had no idea of secular governance. Since then, and until now after 70 years, the direction is not correct. People who come forward with Jinnah's ideology are blamed with various names and we continue to struggle and continue to search the real meaning of Pakistan.

Remembering Benazir

SIXTEEN years ago this day, Benazir Bhutto became the highest-profile victim of terrorism. The wound inflicted by the assassination of one of Pakistan’s most charismatic leaders has not yet healed.

Zahid Hussain 

DAWN

Published December 27, 2023

With the country facing what is perhaps the most difficult and testing time in its history, the loss of Benazir Bhutto is felt more than ever. The long shadow of despotism is hanging over the country yet again.

Benazir galvanised a people wary of a long period of authoritarian rule and gave voice to the dispossessed and disenfranchised masses. Even her bitterest political opponents gave her credit for her courage and defiance, which may have ultimately cost her her life.

The controversy over how Benazir was killed exposed the chasm of trust between the Pakistani state and its people. It is still not known who plotted her assassination.

Benazir undoubtedly had her weak points but her sincerity to the cause of democracy was beyond doubt. I was a witness to the era that marked her epic struggle. As a journalist, I was privileged to be with her at various stages of her political struggle.

During that period, I had numerous on- and off-the-record conversations with her, giving me a rare insight into her political evolution. She was a fighter all the way.

She began her political career as the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but turned out to be a leader in her own right. She had the intellectual capacity to engage with even her strongest critics, a quality rarely found in our political leaders. Her loss is more than that of a political leader. She came to symbolise the unity of an uneasy federation. Her death exacerbated political divisions and polarisation.

Benazir served twice as prime minister but both her terms were short-lived. Her first stint came after the PPP swept the polls in 1988 following the death of Gen Zia in an air crash. It was apparent that the generals conceded reluctantly to the people’s verdict. The handing over of power to the PPP was not unconditional.

Sixteen years after the death of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan once again finds itself at a crossroads.

It was fairly obvious that the powerful generals had never reconciled with the idea of a Bhutto government. But she accepted the challenge. “I am a fighter and fighters don’t give up,” she told me in her first interview as prime minister. And that she was.

The generals waited for an opportune moment to strike. After just one and a half years in power, the PPP government was removed in August 1990 in what was described as a constitutional coup.

Benazir was implicated in a number of cases. Every effort was made to rig the elections. Against this backdrop, the 1990 election results did not come as much of a surprise. “Elections have been stolen,” a shocked Benazir said as the elections results were being announced on television. She was in tears.

That was darkest period for Benazir. She spent her time going from one court to another. It was, perhaps, the most testing of times for the former prime minister with demoralisation gripping her party. There was also a move to disqualify her and force her to leave the country. However, all that failed to break her determination.

Her triumphant return to power in November 1993 marked the culmination of another period of struggle. With a majority in the National Assembly and a president from her own party, she felt comfortable. She also seemed to have learnt from her past mistakes and was much more chastened. She wanted to move forward and leave behind the treatment meted out to her.

There was a much better environment for her new government to function in. She was more familiar with the system of government. But the challenges were no less. Despite an extremely favourable political situation, the second Benazir government started floundering midway through her term.

The fate of her fledgling government was sealed when her brother Murtaza Bhutto was killed in September 1996 at a police shootout outside his house. The tragedy shook Benazir. She believed that her brother’s murder was the result of a larger conspiracy to destabilise her government.

It summarily brought to an end the three-year-long second Benazir Bhutto government. There was a sense of déjà vu as an elected prime minister was sent packing yet again. She was implicated once more in multiple cases and she left the country to escape persecution.

Benazir finally returned to Pakistan on Oct 18, 2007. As her procession proceeded, suddenly, in quick succession, two huge blasts struck her truck. Mayhem ensued, with mutilated bodies littering the street. It was the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history. Benazir survived. But the assassins pursued her. On Dec 27, 2007, a second attack on Benazir in Rawalpindi succeeded. She became a victim of the same terrorism she had vowed to fight.

Pakistan is once again standing at a crossroads as it observes the 16th anniversary of her death today. It is a nation maimed, its very existence threatened by growing internal fissures and rising extremism. Social and cultural divides have become more pronounced, with growing economic disparity, and increasing discontent in the ranks of the new underclass.

A major question before us now is whether the country can continue on a democratic path or whether it will be ruled by the forces of authoritarianism. The country needs political reconciliation. It needs another charter of democracy on the lines of the 2006 document that Benazir Bhutto signed with her arch-rival and another former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. There has to be a charter of economy to take the country out of the present crisis as well as a new social contract recognising the democratic rights of all nationalities in order to keep the country united under a federal system.

But the main question is whether such reconciliation is possible with the widening political divide. The security establishment is now far more deeply entrenched in all aspects of the country’s power structure, turning Pakistan into a quasi-military dispensation. The challenge to democracy today is no less than what it was when Benazir was alive.

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com

X:@hidhussain

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2023

PPP’s path

Editorial 

DAWN

Published December 27, 2023 


ON this day in 2007, Benazir Bhutto was killed at a time when her party needed her most. For the PPP, as it gears up for general elections next February, the trajectory it has taken since Ms Bhutto’s untimely death should be of particular concern. Arguably, even in 2008, its popularity was not at its zenith — the kind witnessed under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and during the Zia era when the party, then led by Ms Bhutto, was directly targeted. There were reasons for this, not least among them the corruption alleged during the 1990s when the party was in and out of power and the rise of political rivals. However, it remained a national party. Today, while its ethos still draws supporters from across the country, this has not translated into the numbers needed for a government at the centre. The memory of Ms Bhutto’s populist appeal has not been enough to cancel out the unpopularity of the present leadership: without her charisma and knack for populist politics, the party’s top tier under Asif Ali Zardari has grown disconnected from both party workers and ordinary people. The PPP was nearly wiped out in Punjab after the 2013 elections, and has since found itself limited to its stronghold of Sindh.

Yet, the PPP did pull off some major achievements after Ms Bhutto. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the renaming of NWFP, the creation of a legislative assembly in Gilgit-Baltistan, and the introduction of the Balochistan Package were all laudatory moves — though implementation was scant. In provincial politics too, the PPP government in Sindh garnered plaudits for progressive pro-women, children and minority policies and legislation, the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act and the Sindh Protection of Communal Properties of Minorities Act amongst others — but again, poorly enforced. Moreover, as the ruling party in Sindh, the PPP has been shying away from empowering local bodies, resulting in strengthening the provincial government’s hold on civic bodies. It is no surprise then that Sindh has become unlivable. There is rampant street crime, a corrupt police force, unemployment, illegal contracts, unscrupulous land dealings, poor sanitation and healthcare, broken roads, abysmal schooling, shoddy building control, encroachments and the like. Today, the party faces a moment of truth: it must either rectify its mistakes or resign itself to a diminishing role in national politics.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2023

Eyes wide open

Muna Khan 

Published October 22, 2023

WHILE at college in the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of attending a guest lecture by Edward Said. As a teenager whose schooling was through a Western lens with little exposure to scholars from the Global South, I was thrilled to hear him. He spoke about how he wrote Orientalism because he didn’t find realistic representations of the East in the media. He said he wrote Covering Islam in response to how Palestine was seen in the media as terrorists wanting to kill Jews and how little is done to a) counter that or b) report on what Israel’s role is in the displacement of millions of Palestinians. The media’s focus is just on violence and terrorism in that region and if that is all the audience sees, it equates people from there as extremist, threatening, etc.

I wonder how Mr Said would have reacted to the news last week of the backlash to a letter written by 34 student organisations at Harvard, holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in Gaza. The reaction to the letter has been furious — from alums to former US officials condemning the statement. CEOs have reportedly asked for the signatories to be identified so they can be ‘blacklisted’ for jobs. On Wednesday, NBC reported the law firm Davis Polk has rescinded job offers for three law students at Harvard and Columbia “who signed on to organisational statements about Israel”.

It doesn’t end there.

The British perfumer Jo Malone’s son, Josh Wilcox, has been reported as being an organiser of the letter, a claim he denied, saying he hasn’t even been on campus this semester. But because Wilcox has written strong editorials in the school paper about “the brutal oppression of Palestinians” by “an apartheid regime” and criticised Harvard for giving a fellowship to an ex-Israeli army officer Amos Yadlin, his role remains unclear, says the media. I chose to write about a white, rich man to illustrate how the silencing, doxxing, attacks spare no one.

Students hold the power to drive change.

The conservative non-profit, Accuracy in Media, organised a van to drive through Harvard featuring the names and faces of some of the signatories and labelled them as anti-Semites. “No one who supports terrorist groups like Hamas should be able to hide in the shadows,” AIM said. Some students have withdrawn their names from the letter following the backlash while others have expressed fear for their safety and insist none of them are siding with terrorists by signing that letter.

Harvard isn’t the only university in the US feeling the heat for not “condemning anti-Semitism” on their campuses, a reference ostensibly to students’ protests denouncing Israel’s attack on Gaza. Columbia University — where Mr Said taught from 1963 to 2003 — shut its doors to the public on Oct 12 as pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian student groups clashed. Students of colour said they were spat on by classmates.

My own alma mater, SOAS, where I learned what solidarity for Palestine should look like, temporarily suspended some students on Oct 9 “for their conduct at a pro-Gaza rally”. It appears videos of students chanting “resistance is justified when people are colonised” and “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution” goes against “venue protocols”.

These are just a few examples of the silencing taking place on campuses in the West which is supposedly a bastion of freedom of speech. My disappointment remains in the media coverage of these as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘pro-Hamas’ rallies.

Student demonstrations have led to larger civil rights movements like the demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in the US in the 1960s. Benazir Bhutto wrote about attending anti-Vietnam war protests when she was at Harvard. Students in South Africa organised anti-apartheid protests and were joined by students around the world. Students in China led protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Students in Thailand led protests demanding reforms in the monarchy in 2020. Our students also protest across campuses but their issues do not interest the media.

Students have proven they hold the power to drive change. Pro-Palestine demonstrators are showing up on campuses across the world, despite the consequences. Any media that participates in silencing their voices to make space for the oppressors’ will soon have no audience left. People recognise who gets killed and who is reported dead in headlines. They’re trying to outwit shadowbanning attempts, too.

People will look back at this moment and ask who stood by the side of the oppressed and who shilled for their employers’ corporate or military interests. Profit-driven media are failing the public’s right to know. We need public media to tell stories fairly and accurately if we want journalism to stay relevant. Al Jazeera may provide many answers to how it can be done right.

The writer is an instructor in journalism.
X (formerly Twitter): @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023

 

Timeline of former prime ministers arrested in Pakistan

Pakistan has a long history of incarcerating individuals who have held the country's top executive office.

Areesha Rehan Published August 6, 2023

Former prime minister and PTI chief Imran Khan was arrested by Punjab police on Saturday afternoon from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore. The arrest came shortly after an Islamabad trial court declared him guilty of “corrupt practices” in the Toshakhana case.

This is the second time that the former premier has been arrested in just under three months. Earlier on May 9, Imran was detained in Islamabad from the high court’s premises in the Al-Qadir Trust case.

But Imran isn’t the first former premier to be arrested or to even face legal charges. Pakistan has a long history of incarcerating individuals who have held the country’s top executive office.

Here, Dawn.com presents a timeline of former prime ministers of Pakistan who at one point or another spent time in custody.

1960s

Jan 1962: Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was the fifth prime minister of Pakistan (Sept 1956-Oct 1957). He refused to endorse Gen Ayub Khan’s seizure of government. Through the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (Ebdo), he was banned from politics and was later accused of violating the Ebdo in July 1960. In Jan 1962, he was arrested and put in solitary confinement in the Central Jail of Karachi without trial on concocted charges of “anti-state activities” under the 1952 Security of Pakistan Act.

News of Suhrawardy’s arrest in Dawn newspaper on Jan 31, 1962

1970s

Sept 1977: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto served as the prime minister from Aug 1973 to July 1977. In Sept 1977, he was arrested for conspiring to murder a political opponent in 1974.

News of Bhutto’s arrest published in Dawn on Sept 4, 1977

He was released by Lahore High Court Justice Khwaja Mohammad Ahmad Samdani who stated that his arrest had no legal grounds, but was arrested again three days later under Martial Law Regulation 12. The regulation empowered law enforcement agencies to arrest a person who was working against security, law and order, or the smooth running of martial law. This law could not be challenged in any court of law.

Bhutto was eventually sentenced to death and executed on April 4, 1979.

1980s

Aug 1985: Benazir Bhutto served as Pakistan’s prime minister twice (Dec 1998-Aug 1990 and Oct 1993-Nov 1996). Under Ziaul Haq’s dictatorship (1977-1988), Benazir served as an opposition leader. She arrived in Pakistan in Aug 1985 for her brother’s funeral and was put under house arrest for 90 days.

Reasons for Benazir’s arrest cited by sources in Dawn on Aug 30, 1985

Aug 1986: Benazir Bhutto was arrested for denouncing the government at a rally in Karachi on Independence Day.

1990s

May 1998: The Ehtesab Bench of the Lahore High Court issued bailable arrest warrants for Benazir Bhutto.

June 1998: The Public Accounts Committee issued an arrest warrant against Benazir Bhutto.

July 1998: The Ehtesab Bench issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Benazir Bhutto.

Arrest warrants for Benazir Bhutto issued in June and July 1985. — Source: Dawn

April 1999: Benazir Bhutto was sentenced to five years and disqualified from holding public office by the Ehtesab Bench on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company hired to fight customs fraud. She was not in the country at the time of the verdict and the conviction was later overturned by a higher court.

Oct 1999: The Ehtesab Bench re-issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Benazir Bhutto due to her non-appearance before the court in the assets reference case.

Arrest warrants issued against Benazir Bhutto in April and October 1999. — Source: Dawn

2000s

Sept 2007: Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan after being cast into exile by Gen Pervez Musharraf in 1999. On his return to Islamabad, the airport was sealed and Nawaz was arrested within hours of his return and sent to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to complete the three remaining years of his 10-year exile.

News about Nawaz Sharif’s arrest and exile in Dawn on Sept 10, 2007

Nov 2007: Benazir was put under house arrest for a week in Punjab at PPP Senator Latif Khosa’s house to prevent her from leading a long march against Gen Musharraf’s dictatorial government.

A news clip of Benazir Bhutto’s house arrest published in Dawn on Nov 12, 2007

2010s

July 2018: Nawaz was arrested and given a 10-year sentence for corruption by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz. He was released two months later when the court suspended the sentences to wait for a final judgement by the high court.

Dec 2018: Nawaz was jailed again and given a seven-year sentence in relation to his family’s ownership of steel mills in Saudi Arabia. In November 2019, he was allowed to leave the country to receive medical treatment. He has since not returned to Pakistan.

July 2019: PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi served as the prime minister of Pakistan from January 2017-May 2018. On July 19, he was arrested by a 12-member NAB team for alleged corruption while awarding a multi-billion rupee import contract for LNG in 2013 when he was the minister for petroleum and natural resources. He was granted bail and released from Adiala Jail on Feb 27, 2020.

2020s

Sept 2020: The current prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, was arrested on Sept 28 after the Lahore High Court rejected his bail in a NAB money laundering case. He was released from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat central jail nearly seven months later.

March 2023: Two separate arrest warrants were issued for Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan after he skipped proceedings in cases pertaining to alleged threats issued to a judge and the Toshakhana gifts. Party supporters had gathered outside Khan’s residence in Zaman Park to prevent his arrest. The standoff resulted in violence with security personnel firing tear gas shells at protestors.

May 2023: Imran Khan was arrested from the premises of the Islamabad High Court on May 9 on corruption charges in a case related to the Al Qadir University Trust. He was subsequently released two days later, with the Supreme Court declaring his arrest “invalid and unlawful”.

Rangers personnel leading Imran Khan to their vehicle after detaining him from the IHC premises. — Screengrab/ File

August 2023: Almost three months after his arrest and subsequent release in the Al Qadir Trust case, the former premier was arrested by Punjab police from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore.

Announcing its verdict, the court sentenced Imran — who was absent from court — to three years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on him for concealing details of Toshakhana gifts. His lawyers were also not present.

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This article was originally published on May 9, 2023, and has been updated to reflect the latest developments.