My first introduction to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) was in 1995. I was researching the women’s movement in Pakistan as a result of the regressive legal changes that triggered them into action. Asma Jahangir, my mentor, helped navigate the many involved in the movement for the restoration of rights for women and the most vulnerable in Pakistan. A mentor who encouraged questioning, accepted difference of opinions and positions. Countless discussions and so much wisdom. I learned by observation, but the most important lesson, was by doing. Action.
I was also introduced to the late Ibn Abdur Rehman sb who co-founded HRCP and remained Pakistan’s preeminent sage and conscience till his last breath. Another example of constantly reminding us of the excesses by the state and its impact on our society; the increasing intolerance, violations of sane norms, draconian laws, and the lack of appropriate responses by state, society and politicians. Unrelentingly reminding us of the moral decay and weakening of our democratic creed with no compass to navigate us back into a semblance of sane safe society for all.
Active, responsive, unrelentingly in the face of adversity.
Recently, I attended an HRCP Islamabad chapter meeting, to raise an issue which has forced me out of a state of inertia. Too many of us merely talk, discuss, opinionate, pontificate even on well-paid platforms, but how many are actively responding to the excesses of the state? Babbling away about foreign countries and decrepit political landscapes globally is really not going to solve Pakistan’s internal malaise. But we spend so much energy and time discussing the radicalisation and weakening of democratic credentials of other states.
For a generation at least, the human rights community sided with the mainstream political parties against the excesses of the non-state actors and the military establishment. Today, in my humble opinion, they are exposed as collaborators
Listening to a brave committed lone lawyer defending a Christian young child who has been abducted and forced to marry, I share his frustration at the delayed support from the HRCP bureaucracy, run by Lahore. A case in Islamabad requires clearances from Lahore before any active action of lobbying can materialise. Clearances are centralised and sub-judice cases are not touched until there is some resolution.
Why?
Imagine: this child has to wait a month or two or three for the human rights organisations internal bureaucracy to kick in to pressurise the apathetic legal & justice systems, in an obvious clear-cut breach of law, against child marriages, forced conversion and abduction!
How can we tackle the bigger excesses when simple clear-cut cases take so much time?
This is not an indictment of the human rights community, far from it, they remain the last standing spokespersons for the citizens of this country, under attack from the state. Human resource constraints, funding is always an issue. These are genuine concerns. But alliances are possible by so many individuals who daily fight back in silos. The social organisations of Pakistan have become too reliant on foreign donor funding and the accompanying reports, research and paper pushing that comes with it. This has cost us our activism. This has cost us our natural instinct to push back in the face of adversity, collectively.
We are at another turning point, a moment of choice – a major pivot is required. Those of us who remain committed to the sanity& sanctity of all citizens of Pakistan. A wake-up call- individually and organisationally, shift gears from talk to action. Return to some sanity cannot be achieved without collective responsibility and effort.
For a generation at least, the human rights community has sided with the mainstream political parties, especially the PPP and later PML-N, against the excesses of the non-state actors and the military establishment’s interferences in political parliamentary affairs.
Today, in my humble opinion they are exposed as collaborators.
Many amongst us have taken too long in accepting the nature of the current parliamentarians’ who occupy parliament. Perhaps they do, but regard them as the lesser of the evil. Defending the institution of Parliament must not be devoid of those who are parliament. Are they representing the people’s interests are they taking the nation into the 21st century? In defence of parliament is supreme some have looked the other way of who makes up policy makers in the House of the People. That argument has become stale after 3-4 6 cycles of the same? For how long do we tolerate them? Who benefits in the meantime and what is the cost to the vast majority of Pakistanis. Frankly, they are the products of negotiated power brokers, and are part of the problem not the solution for Pakistan’s beleaguered politics.
There is no doubt there many sole voices who have and continue to champion important issues: Mohsin Dawar, Afrasiab Khattak, Ali Wazir, Bushra Gohar, Fauzia Habib, Sherry Rehman, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Marriyum Aurangzeb etc – but these are a handful and alone they do not determine the course their party chooses to tread in the face of the onslaught on the poor citizens of Pakistan.
I am an advocate of NOTA on the ballot, but can anyone in good faith disagree when we witness the same parliamentarians prioritise themselves and their power backers over the people’s welfare – over and over again? Not once, not twice, but every single budget they have passed has prioritised the military establishment’s needs. Parliaments of PPP, PML-N, PTI and the hybrid coalitions of the same have remained consistently against the interests of the ordinary semi-literate desperately vulnerable. How many times do we give them a pass because the military interrupted their parliaments by formal takeovers or through hybrid parliamentarians?
Parliament has not brought in new faces for generations. They remain the same coterie recycled under different party banners or alliances with the same agenda.
Those of us who want change, need the change to happen sooner than later need to move away from the position that because they are brought into parliament through the ballot does not make them legitimate representatives of residents of 154 districts. True, we have never seen a clean election in Pakistan. Selection not election. And the one election in 1970 saw Bhutto split the country, attack and remove a legitimate government in Balochistan and amend the Constitution several times, weakening its foundational egalitarian rights for all. So please let’s not go there.
For a second let’s overlook these facts and move forward, have any of the parliamentarians provided a pro poor budget, a strategy which uplifts the vast majority of Pakistan out of poverty illiteracy and lack of hope? 77 years. A parliament disconnected from its electorate is not its representative. It is as simple as that. They are not political they are tools of the permanent powers. There is little to differentiate parliamentarians from the incapacitated bureaucracy, struggling to provide services to a growing disempowered populous.
“Vote ko izzat do” is a fantastic slogan. To operationalise it the ballot must include an option for none of the above, which will shift an iota of power in the hands of the electorate, to reject democratically the unrepresentative behavior of the regular candidates on offer. Lest some think I support NOTA for further manipulations by the powers that are. Let’s trust the electorate to make a choice in the privacy of the electoral booth.
Today when the current parliament allows notifications to violate individual privacy at will, they are attacking the very foundation of civility. The Iddat case against the former prime minister Imran khan and his wife was a low point in Pakistan’s political victimisation. But it is consistent with the brazenness of entering the private spaces of citizens and their personal choices. This is acceptable and parliament’s position is for all to see.
When parliamentarians refuse to prioritise education, social opportunities, human resource development of its populous, then a tool must be provided for the electorate to reject them. This is a step towards deepening democratic behavior empowering the electorate even if it is slow and piecemeal.
Otherwise, social chaos unrest and revolution is on the cards.
I believe it is time for democrats to coalesce and litigate against the various excesses. Similar to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who advocated a legal strategy and way forward to fight for the rights of those who would remain vulnerable in a post-colonial subcontinent; I implore the collective human rights organisations in Pakistan to rethink their strategies. We must litigate every single excess by the state, against the foundational human rights of every individual and against an entire populous.
First it was the Islamisation of the laws, with an interpretation in which patriarchy and misogyny disenfranchised women and non-Muslims. To think our almighty distinguishes between his creation is, well a difference of an opinion. Entire communities disenfranchised and targeted, made vulnerable in their own country. What was the purpose of Pakistan? Our forefathers, and mine were directly involved, wanted a level playing field in a safe sane nation, otherwise we would have remained in undivided India?
Today’s Parliamentarians, after 40 years of Zia-ism, have done little to reverse these anti people laws and practices, we have seen further erosion of rights and opportunities making Pakistanis more vulnerable. Parliamentarians have facilitated and embolden bad behavior.
How much more should we bear?
Vast areas of Pakistan remain blacked out. There is no reporting or care about their welfare. Abduction, murder, disappearances a plenty what are we doing about this? Who should be leading the integration of all parts of Pakistan? The state and its parliament choses to keep these areas inaccessible and disconnected from the federation. Handing them over to militants, Taliban or disingenuous operations have turned entire provinces into a killing zone and a parking lot of unsavory elements.
Today, we are told ‘national security’ imperatives require more Pakistanis to remain even more disconnected from one another. Communication networks must remain sketchy and blocked. And now an Orwellian strategy to invade our personal spaces sanctioned. The state is sending messages on our phones that citizens should report on each other, if anyone is ‘blaspheming’ or speaking against the state. We must be fearful not only our state managers but of one another now.
In response we are to remain silent and pliant.
What is Pakistan’s parliament with a constitution doing; aiding and abating.
This state of affairs is only possible if the parliament is full of anti-democratic parliamentarians.
When the people of Pakistan become victims of parliamentary laws, budgets, policies they are no longer democratic- these are signs of a praetorian state actively promoting creating vulnerabilities that cannot be constitutionally viable. Pakistanis are protected by their constitution which guarantees rights to safety privacy and dignity.
Parliament is made up of 342 members in the centre, along with 104 senators, in addition, the 835 members of the provincial assemblies. For generations now, they have collectively failed to protect the rights of the citizens of Pakistan.
Citizens have to stand up now to protect what is most precious. Empowered human rights organisations must lead the Act Up, effectively challenge parliament as illegitimate representees who are actively undermining the welfare of Pakistanis. Public interest litigations must lead the way challenging unconstitutional, anti-poor and anti-people’s welfare laws and notifications.
This is radical.
We live in a time where we are chasing our tails, going in circles spiralling down an inferno.
To break the cycle, the responsible must be made accountable.