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Nizam-e-Adl
Govt, TNSM agree on Nizam-e-Adl in Malakand (Daily Times Feb. 16, 2009)
NWFP govt unveils Nizam-e-Adl
(Daily Times Feb. 17, 2009)
It is indeed a Sad Day for all those sincere
(but naive), secular and democratic Pakistanis who believed in the
declaration of Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah when in his speech of 11th August,
1947, he said: "You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that
has nothing to do with the business of the State".
Here he has clearly stated that the State has
nothing to do with the religion. It is only a half step towards the
secularism because the other half is "Religion (or non-religion) has
nothing to do with the State". Here we are using the word State in
term of State Affair (System of Government). So, the 11th August statement
of Mr. Jinnah indicates only his half wish towards the secularism in the
state affair.
In 1947, on 15th August, the Indian leaders established
a Secular Democracy in India,
while one day earlier the Pakistani leader (Mr. Jinnah) decided to continue
the reign of the Governor General. There is no doubt that he wanted to
establish a Secular Pakistan where constitutionally the Islamic nature of Pakistan
was also mentioned. This particular wish of the founder of Pakistan was fulfilled by Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan on March 12, 1949, by "The
Objectives Resolution" where it is "proclaimed that the future
constitution of Pakistan
would not be modelled entirely on a European
pattern, but on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam". This
resolution, even today, is the part of the 1973 constitution which is the
gift of another Secular leader Mr. Zufiquar Ali
Bhutto.
A popular leader, who came to power with the
vote of people, took away the sovereignty of the people to decide for
itself and constitutionally handed it over to Allah. It is not surprising
that a few years later, in 1979, when his successor General Zia ul Haq hanged the popular
leader, no popular attempt by the people was organized to save him. His
fate was left in the hands of the Almighty.
This theoretical and constitutional work of Mr.
Bhutto opened a large field for Gen. Zia to put some Islamic reforms in
practice. These are the Hudood Laws which were
actively applied during his regime and are still constitutionally valid but
not applied any more.
Gen. Zia was the only honest person who openly
worked for Islam and not for Democracy. All the other leaders who came to
power by legal or illegal means claimed to be democrats but they did every
thing to make Pakistan
an Islamic State or at least to keep the religion (Islam) in state affair.
We started with Governor General's Democracy,
then moved on to President's Democracy, Basic Democracy, Megalomaniac
Democracy, Islamic Democracy, Corrupt Democracy and Enlightened Democracy
but alas we never had the Democracy which could be termed as the Government
(of-by-for) the People.
In the present state, there is a president
chosen by the National Assemblies, without any direct vote from the people.
He has all the executive powers, even more than, Sarkozy
or Obama. This system where a single man has all without sharing with any
other rightful representative of the people is simply called Zarda ri (keep the money = zar dA ry).
Ahsan
Strasbourg
ahsan@noos.fr
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