People's Democracy

PAKISTAN

Mob Violence Underscores Musharraf’s Weakening Authority

Naresh Nadeem

THE May 12 mob violence in Karachi may not be anything new for a city that has a history of urban violence because of the freely roaming gun-wielding groups of criminals, off and on exchanging fire among themselves and sometimes clashing with the police or paramilitary forces. (Read the novel Aage Samandar Hai by eminent Karachi based Urdu writer Intizaar Hussain.) Yet what makes the latest instance of violence unique in the history of Pakistan is that, in public perception, it was directly linked to the question of what extent would General Pervez Musharraf go to in order to retain his grip on power.

A SIGN OF WEAKNESS

The facts of this violence are too well known to need reiteration. One knows that behind it stood the Muttahida (earlier, Muhajir) Qaumi Movement (MQM) that has a share in power at the centre as well as in the province of Sindh. (The province has an MQM nominee as governor while the chief minister belongs to pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam) --- instance of an opportunistic power-sharing deal to prevent Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, the biggest party in the assembly, from forming a government.) The MQM claims to represent the Muhajirs (those who migrated from India after the partition, and their descendants) and has its biggest base in Karachi, the largest city in the country as well as its financial capital, where the Muhajirs constitute close to 90 percent of the population. It is also known that the MQM has better been known for its leaders’ lust of power than for their concern for the Muhajirs who still find themselves somewhat rootless in their adopted country.

As for the cause of the violence, it is widely known that, through its mask-wearing hoodlums, the MQM resorted to it in order to prevent a meeting of the Karachi Bar Association from taking place; the meeting was to be addressed by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhari, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, whom the federal government forcibly removed from his position in April. Since his removal, Justice Chaudhari has addressed in several cities similar meetings organised by the community of lawyers who are at present one of the main groups fighting for restoration of democracy in the country.

The maltreatment meted out to Justice Chaudhari at the M A Jinnah Airport in Karachi, the (aborted) attempt to prevent him from addressing the meeting, and then the sudden disappearance of Pakistan Rangers from the vicinity of the Sindh High Court just before the violence began, all point to a sinister attempt on part of the Musharraf regime to prevent the pro-democracy voices from acquiring a snowball effect.

As the earlier meetings addressed by Justice Chaudhari were overall peaceful, no ordinary citizen, much less a political observer, is ready to believe the official version that the person was trying to incite violence in the country. Just likewise, nobody is inclined to give credence to General Pervez Musharraf’s bombastic claim that his “million man rally” in Islamabad on the same day was a proof enough of his continuing popularity. That the rally was stage-managed, was evident from the simple fact, among other things, that it could not be a million strong even if the total population of the national capital had come out to listen to the president.

In plain words, as Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading progressive intellectual of the country, noted, the rally “blatantly used the state’s full organisational machinery and was widely ridiculed. It was seen as a sign of weakness rather than strength.”

But so was also the horrific May 12 carnage in Karachi.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY

Moreover, the May 12 violence underscored one crucial aspect of the Pakistan polity in the last half a century. Ever since Field Marshal Ayub Khan usurped power in the country, the Pakistan judiciary has been known more for its pliant attitude than for any gesture to assert its independence. Not to go any far back into history, the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared as valid the set of constitutional amendments promulgated by General Musharraf in 2004 under the title of Legal Framework Order (LFO); its aim was to enable Musharraf to continue as president and as the Chief of Army Staff simultaneously. The Election Commission and other pillars of a democratic polity are similarly weak insofar as Pakistan is concerned.

But it was in this very state of affairs that Justice Chaudhari dropped a bombshell in the form of some Supreme Court verdicts. One such case was of the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills. When a bench led by Justice Chaudhari declared this privatisation illegal, it was a direct setback to the ruling coterie as Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister and a Musharraf crony, was taking undue interest in the deal and got enraged no end after the verdict.
This was not the end, however. The Supreme Court’s intervention in some cases of mysterious disappearances (or what The Dawn called “forced disappearances”) also embarrassed the Musharraf regime by exposing the real character of its fight against terrorism. Ever since the US 9/11, Musharraf has been trying every means at his disposal to placate Uncle Sam and make him believe that Pakistan would be the frontline state in the Yankee “war against terrorism.” It is, however, widely believed that he is not so much concerned with elimination of this scourge as with the dollars which he has been getting from the US, and hopes to get in future, in the name of fighting such a war. But a still stronger motive is to make the Yankees believe that he is their best bet against the Islamic fundamentalists, so that he could continue in power with the blessings of US imperialists who have been making and breaking the governments in Pakistan since decades.

In this bid, Musharraf not only sought to project himself as “the enlightened face of Islam” in this part of the world; it is widely believed that he also resorted to some dubious tactics for the purpose. One such tactic was to send police or intelligence men to get the ordinary workers of opposition political parties arrested, and then hand them over as “active terrorists” to the US forces stationed in the region --- of course for a fixed number of dollars for each such “terrorist.” This, in public perception, was the real reason for the mysterious disappearances at the behest of the CIA that had earlier followed the same tactic in Chile through the vampire-like Pinochet dictatorship.

Disappointed from all other quarters, when the relatives of some such ‘terrorists’ (one of them was only 11 years old and was arrested along with his rickshaw puller father) approached the Supreme Court, the latter directed the police and administration to find the whereabouts of all such persons, prepare a list of such persons and produce them in the court, and some of them were indeed produced in the court. This was enough to bring out the reality of such disappearances, and the statements issued and interviews given by these detainees projected the government in a particularly bad light. It is another thing that many others still remain “disappeared” and their relatives don’t have an inkling of their plight.

THE GENERAL’S MORTAL FEAR

This explains the mortal fear that has gripped the general. The reason is that the Supreme Court was about to hear a number of politically sensitive cases in the next few months --- before the promised general elections to the National Assembly and provincial assemblies take place (if at all) in October. One such case is of the legality of President Pervez Musharraf simultaneously holding the post of Chief of Army Staff, while the other is about the constitutional validity of the recent cabinet decision that the existing National Assembly and provincial assemblies would elect the new president before their term is expired.

The meaning of this latest decision is too simple to deceive anybody. As the Muslim League (QA) and also the MQM have lost a lot of ground among the electorate in the last few years, Musharraf’s fear is that they may not have enough votes in the new assemblies to re-elect him to the presidency. In fact, it was because of this fear that he recently tried to enlist the support of Benazir Bhutto, though one is not sure about what finally happened of this move. (One thing is, however, probable: if the general placates the PPP, maybe he loses the support of MQM.)

The public perception is that this was the reason the government wanted to get rid of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhari --- as he could prove too unmanageable. When the justice refused to heed the ‘advice’ of tendering his resignation, there was no way for the government but to forcibly remove him from his position. The matter is now in the Judicial Tribunal of Pakistan but, as The Daily Times editorial put it on May 13, “The possibility of any compromise to correct the original mistake of removing the CJP has vanished.”

The general’s fear also emanates from his double-dealing, as he has been trying to placate the US imperialists as well as Islamic fundamentalists at the same time. In January 2002, he announced a ban on six terrorist groups including the Lashkar-e Taiyyaba and Hizbul-Mujahideen (three months before that, he had banned two other outfits) and sealed their bank accounts, but all such groups continued to function under changed names and the Musharraf regime allowed them to do so. Moreover, in September 2005, he was widely reported to have paid millions of rupees to some outfits in a bid to buy peace in the Waziristan region. Observers think he has been playing over-smart, but nobody is sure how long he would be able to ride the two boats simultaneously. The fundamentalists are not very happy with him, there have been as many as four attempts on his life, and who knows when Uncle Sam would like to have a ‘better’ person in the Aiwan-e-Sadr (President’s House) in Islamabad. ‘News’ to this effect keep appearing in the western media from time to time.

FUNDAMENTALISTS ON RAMPAGE

It is in such a situation that the Musharraf regime has been seeking to once again placate the fundamentalist outfits in order to enlist their support during the run-up to elections. One recalls how the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of six ‘Islamic’ parties, gained ground because of the legitimacy the Musharraf regime gave it in the past: while the MMA controls the assembly in the North West Frontier Province, it is a partner in the Balochistan government and is the officially recognised opposition in National Assembly. On its part, the MMA did not hesitate to extend support to the LFO issued by the regime.

Amusingly, MMA also abbreviates Mulla-Military Alliance, a term of ridicule, and the people at large have been using it for the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal also, more so after its support to the LFO. This has been a cause of embarrassment for the fundamentalist parties constituting the MMA.
Though the MMA has, at least twice, threatened to pull out of the legislative bodies (on the passage of the women’s protection act, widely called the Hasba Bill, and after the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti at the hands of the Army), it has so far proved a paper tiger. Moreover, it is infested with internal dissensions also. While the Jama’at-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed is in favour of boycotting the legislative bodies, this involves a too big stake for the Jamia’tul-Ulema whose chief, Maulana Fazlur-Rehman, is leader of opposition in the National Assembly and which has by now carved out a big support base in tribal areas. This gives Musharraf a ground to hope that maybe he is able to manipulate the fundamentalists, and he is in no mood to alienate them by any means.

The developments involving the Lal Masjid of Islamabad must be seen in this light.

It all started after the Islamabad Development Authority (IDA) issued notices to the encroachers to vacate their illegal encroachments from public parks and green areas, and this involved as many as eight mosques that were constructed upon encroached lands. This enraged the Lal Masjid chief Maulana Abdul Aziz and his deputy and younger brother, Maulana Abdur-Rashid Ghazi, who also run an Islamic seminary for boys and the Jamia Hafsa, an Islamic ‘university’ for girls. The duo are openly sympathetic to the Taliban and tribal militants fighting the army, and have attracted to themselves a core of militant outfits including the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

The result was that a large number of burqa clad, lathi wielding women students from Jamia Hafsa attacked the CD shops in Islamabad, burnt bonfires of cassettes and CDs by dubbing them as purveyors of anti-Islamic ideas and culture, then captured a public building (the Children’s Library) on January 21, and are in occupation of the building since then. In the meantime, they also swooped upon the house of a modern-thinking person, saying that it was functioning like a brothel, kidnapped three women and a baby, and released them only after forcing out a written ‘confession’ plus apology from them.

This moral policing by the Jamia Hafsa students and their instigators well draws our attention to their affinities with the Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini and other Sangh Parivar outfits here in India.

The Lal Masjid clerics also threatened to organise a bloodbath if their demands --- reconstruction of the demolished mosques and enforcement of Shariat in Pakistan --- were not met. It was thus a clear case of taking the law into one’s own hands and a move to hold the whole country hostage. The case illustrates how a group of fundamentalists can go on rampage any time they like and force the government to bow down to their pressure.

STOOPING DOWN TO LOWLIEST DEPTHS

But most surprising was the attitude displayed by the Musharraf regime vis-à-vis these law-breakers. Though these events occurred in the national capital, i.e. under the very nose of the government, and though Islamabad is a territory directly under the federal control, the government did not lift a single finger to stop these illegalities.

On the contrary, it thought it more prudent to stoop down to the lowliest depths to placate these fundamentalists. At a time when sizeable to big demonstrations by common people in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Karachi and other cities were demanding that the government take resolute steps to stop such illegal actions and uphold the rule of law, the government thought it better to bow to fundamentalist diktats. The way it resorted to lathicharges against the demonstrators at some places, gave an unmistakable indication of its ideological priority.

What was the government’s response to the Lal Masjid law-breakers? First it deputed the federal minister for religious affairs, Aijazul-Haque, to negotiate with the two brothers; one recalls that this minister is the late dictator Ziaul-Haque’s son, and Pervez Musharraf inducted him into the cabinet in order to placate the Zia loyalists. But when Aijazul-Haque failed in the mission, Muslim League (QA) president, Chaudhari Shuja’at Hussian was made to pay a “surprise visit” to the mosque where he held negotiations with the chief and the deputy chief to reach an ‘amicable settlement.’

When Hussian announced a resolution of the stand-off after holding the second round of talks with the clerics, he referred to the Jamia Hafsa’s lathi wielding girl students as “our daughters” and as protectors of the religion, against whom “no operation could be contemplated.” He further said both the main demands of the protestors had been conceded. His words, reported by the PTI on April 25, were: “We have agreed to rebuild the mosques and as far as Islamic Shariat is concerned, Pakistan is an Islamic republic and measures can be taken to improve the laws.” It is evident that Hussain could not have dared to make such announcements of far-reaching implication, without a go-ahead from his boss in Aiwan-e-Sadr.

Thus, as Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of physics in Qaid-e-Azam University of Islamabad and a leading propagator of rationalism in the country, says: Musharraf’s “secret reliance upon the Taliban card --- one that he has been accused of playing for years --- increases as his authority and judgement weakens.” While the state “has showed its displeasure in Karachi with bullets…. Lal Masjid clerics operate with impunity. No attempt has been made to cut off their electricity, gas, phone or website, or even to shut down their illegal FM radio station.” It was therefore not surprising that these fundamentalists have issued open warnings to female university teachers in Islamabad against wearing modern dresses or unveiling their faces in public, and that one of them, a history teacher, was on May 7 physically assaulted in her office by a bearded young man who claimed that he was instructed by Allah for this attack. President Musharraf, who is the chancellor of the university, made no comment about it.

In sum, to quote Hoodbhoy again, “Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city, different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier, it was largely the abode of Pakistan’s hyper-elite and foreign diplomats….. (but now) the stage for transforming Islamabad into a Taliban stronghold is being set.”

Undoubtedly it will be somewhat unrealistic to say that the May 12 violence in Karachi has set the stage for the general’s exit, as some commentators have remarked. It is also not certain whether he would impose emergency in the country, despite his contention to the contrary, to somewhat lengthen his rule. But what is certain beyond any reasonable doubt is that whenever he exits, “Musharraf will have left a legacy that will last for generations.” Should we add that this legacy would be a dubious legacy --- at the best?

May 15, 2007