The fourth death anniversary of Zia ul Haq on August 17 was an occasion for much public flogging. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif assured the dictator’s followers that he too was a “devotee’ of the man whose “jihad in Afghanistan had borne fruit” because “Afghanistan was now a free country”. Mr Sharif prayed to Almighty God to “give him strength to follow in the footsteps” of his leader.
Few people in this country will join the prime minister in offering such prayers. Thanks to Zia ul Haq, the MQM has grown into such a monster that even the army cannot tame it; violent sectarianism is rampant, the country is awash with drugs and guns, the Constitution is in tatters and Parliament is besieged by a Shariat Court. Thanks to Zia, the Afghans are killing one another even as their country verges on disintegration. Thanks to him, too, we have been lumped with a President who wants to dish out more of the same poison to Pakistan.
The prime minister seems to be especially enamoured of the mullahs these days. His zealous chief minister in the Punjab, Mr Ghulam Haider Wyne, took a great leap forward last month when he blatantly revised history to ‘prove’ that the Mashaikh supported the Quaid’s struggle for Pakistan. Then Maulana Sattar Niazi upped the stakes by calling Benazir Bhutto an infidel who should be eliminated. Now Mr Sharif has exhorted the ‘ulema’ to “expose anti-Shariat elements in society” so that Zia ul Haq’s Islamic dreams can come true.
Why has Nawaz Sharif suddenly become an Islamic zealot? When the Shariat Bill was passed last year, he was careful to reassure everyone, especially foreign journalists, that he was not a ‘fundamentalist’. Mr Sartaj Aziz, his finance minister, has repeatedly assured foreign investors in confidence that the IJI government is not serious about ‘Islamisation’. Sardar Assef Ali, the economics minister, continues to heap scorn on the views of those who want to “Islamise the economy”. The prime minister himself has ordered the isolation of the biggest fundo of them all — the Hizbe Islami leader Gulbudin Hekmatyar — and publicly rebuked the thekedars of Islam, the Jamaat i Islami, for harming the national interest.
Mr Sharif’s compulsions are pretty obvious. The IJI government is in trouble and needs bailing out. Privatisation is floundering amidst allegations of favouritism and corruption. Inflation has reared its ugly head. The MQM and the Jamaat i Islami have deserted the IJI; Mr Jatoi et al are sitting on the opposition benches; there are grumblings within the Muslim League and talk of “Thatchering” the prime minister; a significant number of Senators want to disassociate themselves from the IJI and set up their own ‘dissident’ group; Benazir Bhutto is threatening to bring the government down by a combination of parliamentary resignations and mass-movement pressure; and tensions within the ruling troika have undermined confidence in Mr Sharif’s ability to survive for long. When Mr Sartaj Aziz admitted before a public forum of businessmen recently that the IJI had lost its two-thirds majority in parliament, he was making the understatement of the year.
So Mr Sharif has devised a cunning strategy to prove that he is still very much in charge. He has come up with the idea of amending the Constitution to make “the Quran and Sunnah the supreme law of the land”. He knows that the Jamaat i Islami and other dissidents will vote for it in both houses. He thinks the PPP will not have the courage to oppose it openly. Since such an amendment will require two-thirds strength in the assembly, if passed it will show that Mr Sharif enjoys the overwhelming confidence of parliament and disabuse speculation about any impending change in his status as prime minister.
This is constitutional abuse of the highest order. It is a cynical exploitation of Islam for opportunistic political reasons which would have done Mr Sharif’s mentor Zia ul Haq proud. It amounts to conjuring an illusion of legitimacy when all other ploys have failed. If it works, Mr Sharif will undoubtedly derive enormous satisfaction at his own cleverness. But will it give his government a longer lease of life?
We remain sceptical. The Constitution’s credibility will be further eroded by such callous maneuvering in Parliament. There will be fresh debates and confusion about the validity, scope and application of such a law. The Federal Shariat Court will spring into action again and strike down something or the other, with repercussions possibly far more damaging than those relating to its orders on ‘Riba’ or the ‘quota’ system. The parallel structure of Anglo-Saxon and Islamic laws will become even more unworkable. The state will be up for grabs and Mr Sharif will become a prisoner of his own handiwork.
The real crisis is not about the place of Islam in this country. It is about how to accommodate pluralism, autonomy and democracy in the system. As long as Mr Sharif refuses to address these issues, he will only deepen the crisis. The Constitution is not worth the paper it is printed on if it is mocked so imperiously for short term gains. The prime minister is not only deluding himself by playing such games, he is jeopardizing the very system which brought him to Islamabad in the first place.