Is Kaptan Still in the Saddle?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

I used to feel annoyed, very annoyed, indeed, when Imran Khan’s notorious brigade of detractors made it a point to decry him without rhyme or reason, from his day-one in power. They weren’t prepared to allow him the luxury of a honeymoon—customary practice all over the world for incoming leaders in power. They were mean and cussed because they were acting according to their script. IK’s political enemies had laid down an agenda for them.
But I don’t feel that annoyed or angry, now, and I have good reasons for it. Almost two years in power, the famous ‘kaptan’ who rose to stardom on the strength of the niche he’d carved out for himself in his role as titanic head of Pakistan’s cricket team, he has little to show by way of concrete achievement. The score card has huge blanks to his embarrassment.
It wouldn’t be wrong, or exaggerated, to say the legendary ‘kaptan’ is wobbling. He seems ill at ease in the saddle. He’s floundering and there are tell-tale signs of it aplenty.
Last week’s Supreme Court decision against the Presidential reference to the Supreme Judicial Council regarding Justice Qazi Faez Isa, is a smack in the face for IK and his government. The apex court, in yet another evidence of its stride toward judicial independence and insularity from establishment, has given the IK government a wake-up call. Become your own man. Start governing on your own.
IK government’s decision to file a judicial reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa was a huge mistake. What’s worse is that IK and his team blindly signed on to the dotted lines drawn for them by those who had set out to make a horrible example of Justice Isa but were too shrewd to own any responsibility for it, or deal with its fallout.
It’s, by now, an open secret that our not-so-impeccable ‘establishment’ had an axe to grind with Justice Isa and sought to teach him a lesson for being intrepid and daring enough to call their bluff.
The seeds of the ‘reference’ were in the infamous Islamabad ‘Dharna’ by that notorious obscurantist, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and his gangs of blind followers in the reign of Nawaz Sharif. The capital city had been paralyzed for weeks by that rowdy crowd of agitators; Islamabad’s life had been brought to a standstill. But the real culprits were those who’d prompted the rabble rousers to lay siege to Islamabad. These organizers in ‘Khakis’ were caught on television cameras distributing cash. It was an act of brazen disservice to the nation’s harmony.
In his no-holds-barred judgment on that bizarre incident Justice Isa had pointed the finger at the organizers of the Dharna for their nefarious role in stirring up all that trouble to embarrass a civilian government not to their liking.
Judicial activism has long been in the cross-hairs of our ‘establishment.’ Justice Isa’s daring was regarded as an affront to their chokehold over Pakistan. They set out to trap him and make a horrible example of him so others, entertaining his kind of ideas, should think twice before venturing into judicial independence, which is an anathema to the self-anointed guardians of Pakistan’s ideology and destiny.
The first brazen assault against judicial activism was Musharraf’s attempt to silence the then Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. But that assault by the pompous ‘commando’ triggered his own downfall. What followed is history. Judicial activism received a shot in the arm, a big boost, from the commando’s abortive assault at the judiciary’s rampart.
IK was part of the movement for the sanctity of judiciary and favored the rise of judicial activism as an essential pillar of a society based on the dignity of human rights with the active cover of judicial process.
So was Dr Arif Alvi, IK’s right-hand man elevated to the ceremonial office of president of Pakistan on Imran’s watch. Many felt that IK was wasting him and his talent by investing in him a ceremonial office only. However, Arif Alvi is no President Mamnoon Hussain, who served out his stint as president as Nawaz Sharif’s risible puppet.
Though stripped of much authority under the Constitution, the office of President of Pakistan is not entirely ceremonial. The president still has the prerogative of oversight. Since this 1973 Constitution became the supreme law of the land, at least two presidents—Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Farooq Leghari—sent two PMs packing and out of office by using their presidential authority. GHK had carried a chip on his shoulder against an upstart Nawaz. However, Leghari had the nerve to show the door to PM Benazir, of his own PPP, who also happened to be the head of his party.
Arif Alvi isn’t a bull in the china shop like Mamnoon Hussain. He could’ve been expected to look into the pros and cons of the reference he was being egged on to send to the Supreme Judicial Council against Justice Faez Isa. He should’ve known Isa’s antecedents. He isn’t an upstart or a plebeian invested with an authority that he didn’t deserve. Justice Isa is a scion of one of the noblest families of Baluchistan. His father, Qazi Mohammad Isa was one of the closest lieutenants of the Quaid and, thus, one of the founding fathers of Pakistan.
And yet, IK and president Alvi acted like rubber stamps and allowed their august offices used as post offices by powers-that-be. They should have smelled the rat and realized that they were being roped into a vendetta against an honorable judge of the apex court because he’d had the gall to call the establishment’s bluff. That neither IK nor Alvi showed any backbone to stand up to those whose favorite game is to nab those not prepared to sign on their agenda.
The man chosen to be the establishment’s charioteer against Justice Isa was Law Minister Farogh Naseem, a product of the establishment-spawned MQM. There’s a history to MQM doing the establishment’s bidding, off and on, especially when the ruling elite found itself stranded into blind alleys.
So enthusiastic was Farogh Naseem to pilot the government’s reference against Justice Isa that he didn’t mind jettisoning his role of Law Minister so he could have a free hand to wage the establishment’s vendetta against Justice Isa.
Now that the special bench of the apex court has punctured Naseem’s bloated balloon and, through him, sent a clear and categorical message to his mentors that any assault on the judiciary’s hard-fought independence will not be tolerated, the bumbling Naseem has been cut to size. But more embarrassment in the episode is reserved for IK and his government, which has ended up with lots of egg on its face.
But this comeuppance of loss of face for IK is well deserved. An abject and ignominious surrender to the whims and caprices of an overweening and hectoring ‘establishment’ could be the stuff of the likes of Nawaz and Zardari. But IK signing on the dotted lines was least expected of a man with his sterling reputation of a firm and astute master of his cricketing time in his halcyon days. The only conclusion, albeit sad and dismaying to the legions of IK’s aficionados, is that their ‘kaptan’ is losing his way in the thicket of governance. It may be hard, though, for his fans and admirers to stomach the idea that he could be browbeaten by an establishment grown accustomed to ramming its agenda down the throats of all and sundry.
As for the establishment drawing any sobering lesson from this humiliating episode, any student of Pakistan’s tortuous history would tell you that it’s improbable that those grown accustomed to having their way, by hook or crook, wouldn’t suffer from any loss of appetite for more of the same. Like Louis XIV of pre-revolution France, they have become addicted to what he famously hectored, ‘the state, it’s me.’ They are wedded to their bleached and sanitized version of Pakistan in which their word is law that must be gulped without quibble of dissent.
So, rest assured, to them this debacle of their vicious move to compromise Justice Faez Isa may not be anything more than a blip going under their radar. They may have lost a battle but have the voracious appetite to go into many more battles like this one.
The dilemma is of IK. If this is how he wants to fashion his dream ‘New Pakistan’ then a bewildered and bemused Pakistani people would be forced to say that they may be better off in the same old Pakistan where some are certainly more equal than others. At the same time, the battle begun in 2007 to have independence of the judiciary recognized and acknowledged as an essential pillar of state is far from over. Who comes on top in this battle of wits will decide the shape of Pakistan in the years to come. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)