A failing state

KARACHI: In his article on these pages of February 21 titled “A failing state”, learned Professor Dr Attaur Rahman has identified three reasons for the problems facing the country. For obvious reasons, he has not included military dictatorships in this list.

It was a civilian martial law administrator and a feudal who had brought down the ceiling of land holdings to 150 acres. Later, the same feudal, as an elected prime minister, got the Land Reforms Act passed from a feudal parliament that reduced this limit to 100 acres. Even if the fuedals had not brought down the ceiling further, the holdings would have dropped to 25-30 acres by now through succession.

It was the Shariat Court of Ziaul Haq that nullified this law passed by the ijma of elected representatives of Muslims. A petition for review of the Shariat Court judgment filed by Mr Abid Hassan Manto has been pending before the Honourable Supreme Court for many years now without any hearing.

The contempt for the elected representatives of the people of Pakistan shown by Dr Attaur Rahman does not befit a scholar of his stature. To state that 249 members of the National Assembly had fake degrees without minutely checking the data is not worthy of a scientist. It was the government of which he was a part that had made a BA degree a pre-requisite for contesting elections, and this was violative of fundamental rights. Also, it was the Commission that he presided over that had to verify the authenticity of the degrees.

In the world of science, Dr Attaur Rahman is a highly respected name. He has made valuable contributions. Even his science columns of which I was a regular reader were so educative. It would certainly be a very bad bargain if we exchanged a great scientist with a person who takes politics as a hobby rather than a science, which has to be learnt the hard way.

Taj Haider

General Secretary

PPP Sindh, Karach

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2013.