A potted history of treason and sedition trials in Pakistan is instructive. The Rawalpindi Conspiracy in 1951 implicated a group of army officers and civilians. Among them was Faiz Ahmed Faiz who later came to be hailed as Urdu’s greatest post-independence poet. In the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case of 1973, there were two governors, two chief ministers, dozens of MNAs and MPAs. Many were later re-elected and became federal or provincial ministers. Also included was Habib Jalib, who was later acclaimed as our greatest modern Punjabi poet. In 1981, Murtaza and Shahnawaz Bhutto, along with 33 other PPP leaders, were sentenced to death for sedition. All were subsequently freed, a few won seats in the 1988 elections and Murtaza was elected to the Sindh provincial assembly in 1993 and became a Sindhi nationalist leader. In the Attock Conspiracy case in 1984, Mustafa Khar figured prominently. Later, he became a federal minister not once but twice.
Among latter-day media offenders, two stand out. Maleeha Lodhi was accused of sedition in 1992 by the Nawaz Sharif regime because she published a hostile poem in The News. She has since served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US under the Bhutto and Musharraf regimes and is now posted to London. TFT‘s editor Najam Sethi, too, was a victim of Mr Sharif. He incurred Mr Sharif’s wrath when he tried to expose his corruption to the BBC in 1999. Mr Sethi was accused of treason but the episode made him a cause celebre, won him two prestigious international awards and made him an editor twice over.
And now for Javed Hashmi. The case is full of ironies. Mr Hashmi was once, like his mentor Nawaz Sharif, a great favourite of the military, having been plucked from obscurity by the Zia regime in the early 80s and transformed from a student leader facing a murder charge into a national leader in the Majlis i Shoora. Ever more loyal than the king, however, Mr Hashmi was also conspicuous in his condemnation of Mr Sethi in 1999. And the lawyer currently defending him, Mr Zafar Ali Shah, was then the lawyer prosecuting Mr Sethi not just for sedition but also for “not being a Muslim”, both charges that were rubbished by the relevant courts.
But Mr Hashmi is not the first person to be charged thus by the Musharraf regime. Rashid Azam, a journalist, and a couple of activists of the Baloch National Party are in prison in Quetta facing sedition charges for distributing an “objectionable anti-army” calendar. We also hear that the loyal Jamali government is thinking of arresting a couple of other trouble-makers from the PMLN and PPP on similar charges. Why, in view of the historical background of such farcical trials, is General Musharraf reacting in such knee-jerk fashion?
Clearly, he is either feeling so strong that he has become arrogant and is oblivious to public backlash. Or he is feeling vulnerable and wants to appear strong. In either case, his concreteness is misplaced. It is his quiet strength and apparent humility that has endeared him to many and served him well thus far. If he is stung by allegations of rifts within the army over his policies, then he should address the root cause of the problem (his policies or those who disagree with him in the army) rather than arrest and silence the messenger. As the adage says: sticks and stones ….
But there is a larger issue at stake here. When religion and politics mix, each is subverted. Similarly, when organs of the state like the army get involved with politics, they subvert the political system no less than they subvert themselves. Why doesn’t anyone in the civilian democracies of USA or UK or Europe or even in India criticize their army like many do in Pakistan? How can any army perceived to be a perennial usurper escape the opprobrium that is attached to usurpers? If there is an increasing tendency among our mainstream politicians to abuse our army, to humiliate it and run it down, the reason is obvious enough. The military is again trying to hog the country; and General Musharraf is refusing to co-opt the main players and give them a stake in the system. In the event, the system is getting more repressive and arbitrary instead of more representative and functional.Indeed, the more General Musharraf tries to clean it up and stabilize it, the more tainted it becomes, one lie being inevitably heaped upon another and so on. That is why even small manifestations of an arrogance of power – like the traffic cops who were smacked by the khakis recently in Lahore and Multan – become giant transgressions of justice and accountability. When civilians and civil society are so humiliated, browbeaten and sidelined, what should we expect from them?
Mr Hashmi’s frustration is explicable. General Musharraf’s angry reaction is counterproductive. The continued exile of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, as well as the seven year long incarceration of Asif Zardari without conviction, should end. The sooner the army and its generals as well as our political parties and their leaders come to terms with history and current realities, the better it will be for Pakistan.