State of the Citizen?

It had to take a nine year old poor girl to expose the diseased judicial system of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; it had to take a nine year old poor girl to become a silent face of defiance against the tyranny of the state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; it had to take a nine year old poor girl to epitomise the savagery ingrained within the official fabric of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

She’s a little innocent baby staring into the eyes of a monster that grows fat on the blood of the weak and the marginalised. Today’s State is powerful and diseased, authoritative and rotting, dictatorial and corrupt. This State is the single biggest factor holding Pakistan back from rising to its own potential.

But what is the State if not the sum total of those who run it? It is their mindset and priorities, their worldview and perceptions, their mentality and attitude which shapes the contours of the State. Their mindset, worldview and perception in turn are heavily influenced by their institutional ethos, as well as their own limited exposure to the dizzying changes sweeping across the globe. The State groans under the immense weight of its own mediocrity.



Tayyaba, the nine year old poor girl beaten and abused in the home of a judge, bore the brunt of this diseased, rotting and corrupt State. This sweet little girl went through a horrific ordeal that no child should go through, and yet her torment was laced with a sick irony — the man bestowed with the authority of protecting the weak and the hapless became the brutal oppressor of the weak and the hapless.

Imagine the extent of this sickness: nine year old Tayyaba has to face the brunt of not just one tormentor but a whole array of them armed with State authority and judicial prowess. One lawyer draws up a raazinama, one judge accepts it in haste thereby proclaiming that the nine year old Tayyaba, represented by her illiterate father, has “forgiven” her judicial tormentor in whose house she was subjected to beatings and burnings that left her bruised, battered and injured all over her body. Another judge swiftly hands her over to the father so the matter can be hushed up and his “brother judge” exonerated of this absolutely shameful crime. Imagine the travesty: this unholy nexus of lawyers, judges and policemen all twist and manipulate the entire edifice of this rotten system to save the skin of one judge. Imagine the perversion: the entire State machinery arrayed against one poor little nine year old girl.

Tayyaba is one of millions of Pakistani children being crushed under the lumbering and bumbling hulk of the State. The democratic edifice in Pakistan hides the septic and pus-infected wound inside the body of this nation. This superstructure is being built on foundations of clay — where the rule of law is buried six feet under and might mocks right with cruel relish. But perhaps the biggest tragedy of it all is that many if not most of us have resigned ourselves to a life within the brutal and unjust confines of this system.

But change it must. Most minions of the State believe they do what they do to promote the interests of the State. They may be right but they are a few centuries late in their beliefs. Every time a judge abuses his judicial authority he damages the foundations of Pakistan; every time a politician rides roughshod over a citizen he hacks away at the foundations of Pakistan; and every time an intelligence operative abducts a citizen he chops the foundations of Pakistan.

Today let us say with all the conviction at our command that we reject the State’s self-acquired authority to apprehend citizens without due process; that we rebuff all illegal actions donned in so-called national interest; and that we repudiate all arguments conjured to justify denial of the fundamental rights of Pakistanis.

What is any nation without the absolute rule of law? And what is the absolute rule of law if not the preservation of the fundamental rights of people ordained through divine as well as temporal sanction. What happened to little Tayyaba and what has happened to Salman Haider and other bloggers is symbolic of the same deep-seated problem: the belief by those in authority that they can abuse their taxpayer-sanctioned authority and get away with it? This belief emanates from the bowels of the system structured to enforce the writ of the powerful against the vulnerability of the weak and the marginalised. Such a belief has no place in modern society; no sanction in a true Islamic society and absolutely no allowance in any humane society.

And yet it is this belief that forms the core of our society. As long as it continues to find nourishment within powerful circles it will keep strangulating Pakistan like a python. If the law of our land cannot grab powerful people by their throats and shake them till their teeth rattle; if this law cannot embrace the weaker, poorer and feebler citizens of Pakistan and protect them from those in authority; and if this law cannot ensure a level playing field for every single man, women and child in this country, then let us prepare for a descent into ultimate anarchy.

True national interest demands a strong Pakistan and nothing can make Pakistan stronger than an absolute, rigid and uncompromising adherence to the rule of law. The absence of such a rule of law is a self-inflicted curse that has spawned demons across this fair land. These demons feed off the spoils of this system while crumbs of justice are thrown outside on the street for citizens to fight over.

The true patriot will reject this rotten system and those who benefit from it; the true patriot will fight this system and those who grow fat on it and the true patriot will demand a system where fat cats garbed in State robes will kneel before the likes of nine year old Tayyaba and beg her forgiveness.

Can this rotten State stomach such a glorious change?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2017.

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