Wednesday, March 17, 2010
By By Mohammad Malick
ISLAMABAD: On Monday, Shahbaz Sharif’s arguably controversial remarks pertaining to the Taliban sparing Punjab provided fodder for animated discussion in the House. On Tuesday, the parliamentary anger mills were fed by another Sharif. This time, no less than the honourable Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, Khwaja Mohammad Sharif.
His remark about “Hindus” giving money and the Muslim militants using it to carry out terrorist activities while hearing a case made the Hindu and other minority parliamentarians cry out an anguished Hi Bhagwan and led to what must be the first ever parliamentary boycott of a sitting chief justice of a high court.
We have seen a lot of strange things happen in our exceptionally colourful chequered political history but never before a walkout of such a nature. In a desperate bid to do some instant damage control, a rather unconvincing Syed Khurshid Shah wanted the House to believe that the honourable CJ must have meant to say “Hindustan and not just Hindu”, adding: “It was apparently a slip of tongue.” But Ramesh Laal wasn’t buying and making a speech before his protest walkout said that the honourable chief justice should have talked about a country but not about a religion. On hearing this one of the chaps sitting in the press gallery quipped: “If nothing else, a judge must be able to judge his own words.”
A tad harsh assessment but not altogether without merit. It wasn’t as if Muslim MNAs weren’t in a supporting mood for their minority colleagues. Rasheed Akbar Niwani of the PML-N wanted the judges to “speak through judgements and not otherwise”, while Munawar Talpur apologised to the Hindu MNAs whom he described as “as good a Pakistani as anyone else”.
It is inconceivable that the honourable chief justice would deliberately want to hurt the feelings of the hundreds of thousands of Hindu Pakistanis but still, exceptional care must be exhibited by men of stature, particularly those whose word is literally the law, to avoid strengthening any negative stereotyping of religious and ethnic minority groups in particular.
We already have enough impure divisive fissures in our so called land of the pure, and the last thing we need is further alienation of the population that is already being treated as aliens most of the time.
Talking of aliens, there was also talk about the real aliens in our midst. You know the type? The one which believes that they landed here from Mars to rule us and profit from our miseries. Yep, I am talking about our bountiful bureaucrats.
Humayun Saifullah wanted the government to take notice of the report of The News revealing the details of the unlawful arbitrary ‘discretionary’ granting of contracts worth almost 100 billion rupees by the National Highway Authority.
In an understandably irritated tone, he informed the House-not that anyone was listening and even the prime minister was busy signing away a zillion applications of MNAs making a bee line to his seat- of the deliberate delays in allowing a vital amendment to be made to the powers of the Public Procurement Rules Authority.
He disclosed that the House committee dealing with the matter had recommended that the PPRA’s power to grant exemption to rules must be withdrawn. And would you believe when this simple recommendation was made? More than six months back but trust the baboos to ensure that it does not get enacted.
In a man’s world, discretion thy name is valour but in that of a bureaucrat: discretion thy name is wealth (and lots of it).
But the most amazing part of the whole episode was that near the end of his short lament, Humayun Saifullah literally shouted: “Is anyone listening? Will anyone in the government answer me?” and not a single minister or a treasury member even bothered feigning attentiveness, let alone offer any response.
Humayun had a point as he looked towards the prime minister since all authorities are controlled by the cabinet division which in turn is under the direct supervision of the prime minister.
But the PM was simply too busy signing away. Tragically warped priorities, is all one can say. Talking of confusions and tragedies, it wasn’t as if the House didn’t have its funny moments. So what if they bordered on the edge of being ludicrous.
How about a real aging Nawab eating his heart over an insolent post master of a little town? Funny nah? Because that is exactly what happened today. I am personally very fond of Nawab Yousaf Talpur. He is a good man, like they say but apparently things have started to slip a bit I’m afraid.
The old Nawab stood there a whole good fifteen minutes or so venting his ire against the post master of Umar Kot. Yeah, you read it right, the post master of Umar Kot.
Nawab sahib, though he didn’t say as such, clearly wanted him to be tied to the back of a chariot and dragged through the dusty streets of Umar Kot for daring to “damage” the reputation of the mighty government both by misappropriating moneys being sent under the Benazir Income Support Fund and also “returning” money orders intended for the needy.
What he would gain by returning, Nawab sahib didn’t elaborate. But imagine one puny post master threatening the survival of the majestic PPP government. This man must be seen and in case my column goes missing over the next couple of days you should know that I shall be in Umar Kot to meet the deadly post master.
FOOTNOTE: In the coming days I shall bare the explosive details of a multi-billion dollar scam against Pakistan but let me share just one thing in advance that it happened on the watch of one man who is being seriously considered to watch over the national kitty as the country’s next finance minister. So keep your fingers closed and pray hard.
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