Graveyard and other cults

Dawn
By Ardeshir Cowasjee

IT is since 1971, when we lost half of ourselves, that the nation at large, with particular emphasis on those catapulted or ‘freely and fairly’ voted into power, has adopted and thrived upon the habit of visiting of tombs, with ‘figures de circonstance’ (the arrangement of faces to wear suitable but fictitious expressions of grief).
From 1948 when he died, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (never let it be forgotten that he once famously stated that he wished to be known as ‘plain Mr Jinnah’) lay deeply buried in a simple grave over which was placed a marble slab (provided by the Sind Patent Tile Factory owned by Jinnah’s friend, Jamshed Nusserwanjee) protected from the skies and the weather by a simple tent. Visitors were few and far between, one reason being that Jinnah himself had not been known to be prone to take himself off to linger at various grave-sides — at least there are no known photographs of him doing so.
The tent stood until 1960 when construction started on the marble tomb that now marks his place of burial. The rather squat structure was completed in 1971, and it was during the era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that guards were posted and it became the habit and hobby of every politically connected Tom, Dick and Harriet, with their suitable figures de circonstance, to slow-march up the marble stairs for a photo opportunity (suitably surrounded by uniforms and sycophants), hands raised, eyes lowered, at the iron railings that surround the empty catafalque on the upper floor of the mausoleum — Jinnah himself lies way down, in the bosom of the earth.
It has become one of those obligatory duties, rather like proceeding on Umra at the nation’s expense, that when people are appointed to political positions they must travel to Karachi expressly to be seen at the Mazar, a place in their previous apolitical lives they had never thought to visit.
This cult of tomb-side photo opportunities is growing by the day — not a healthy phenomenon. On Saturday, in the national press were three photographs taken of the Asif Zardari-appointed prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani. One depicted him in traditional pose at the Mazar of Mr Jinnah, one likewise before the grave of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the third offering fateha at the grave of Benazir Bhutto.
These three visits had taken place on one day — April 4, the 29th death anniversary of ZAB, a day that was declared a school holiday in the province of Sindh, a first-time happenstance that had never before occurred, not even during the two governments of Benazir herself.
The cult of grave-visiting is becoming graver by the day. The press yesterday, apart from the prime minister, showed numerous shots of our various luminaries at Garhi Khuda Baksh. And three days prior to this, on April 1, Asif Zardari, in a fit of forgiveness, took himself off to the Azizabad graveyard, here in Karachi, to pay homage at the gravesides of Altaf Hussain’s brother and nephew (had he ever met them?) who were murdered in Karachi during Benazir’s second premiership.
This Zardari make-up with the MQM and Altaf Bhai is not pleasing Mian Nawaz Sharif of Lahore and he has expressed his displeasure.
However, it must be said that we who live in Sindh, and in Karachi in particular, welcome the accord between the provincial ruling PPP and the party of the Pir of London merely because it denotes that, if it holds, there will hopefully not be any unusual violent upheavals in our lives. Things tend to get tricky when the MQM is isolated — we are understandably apprehensive.
The Mian is also unhappy — and he shows it, looking exceedingly grim in his photographs — over the matter of the reinstatement of the dismissed judges. Widower Asif Zardari is in a bind — firstly and foremost he is bound to honour the agreement made between the powers in the USA, President General Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto in which her future line of action had been laid out for her, and the same with Musharraf. The question of the judiciary and the survival of Musharraf to which it is linked is very much within the purview of the current US ‘great game’.
There can be no doubt that the minority literate and fairly well economically endowed of the nation who can afford the luxury of dwelling upon such matters is all for an independent judiciary. Mian Nawaz Sharif’s new-found passion for the independence of the judiciary has all to do with his equally passionate desire to rid himself of Musharraf.
Zardari has to say he is all for an independent judiciary and that is the democratic and right thing to say (whether one thinks so or not). But realistically, can the leaders of this country — be they civilian or military — ever afford a truly independent judiciary? The answer has to be no, as they all carry far too much baggage.
Asif, to give him his due, is open and upfront about the matter, as can be gauged from reports in the national press of a one-sided conversation held at Naudero (on the grave-visiting occasion) between himself and Aitzaz Ahsan on the matter of the judiciary. Asif made it quite clear to Aitzaz that it was not the legal fraternity and their histrionics that had removed Musharraf’s uniform and given the country free and fair elections — it was Benazir Bhutto and what she achieved whilst alive and by her death.
He was also very clear in pointing out to the besieged barrister that none of the now heroic judges had ever given him the time of the day when he was imprisoned on what he terms cooked-up charges and that they had even refused him one day’s reprieve to attend the funeral of a relative.
He also had a go at the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who he accused, with some justification it must be said, of having politicised himself and rendered himself unfit for the high office to which he again aspires. Reportedly he also questioned the integrity and independence of some of our other honourable former judges.
As for Musharraf, Asif is right when he says he has delivered — he has, down to the last drop, which for Asif is the National Reconciliation Ordinance. Now, even the hard-cast case in the Swiss courts involving the Cotecna and SGS kickbacks and money laundering is being killed off thanks to the NRO (though with a PPP government in power Pakistan could in any case have withdrawn itself). The NRO is in itself iniquitous, it is unconstitutional, unlawful and immoral as it involves not the money of individuals but of the people of Pakistan.
What we must remember, and what the beneficiaries of the NRO in their shamelessness will not remember, are the words of Dominique Henchoz, the Government of Pakistan’s lawyer in the Swiss case. Whilst confirming to the press that Pakistan had withdrawn itself as a civil party to the case, she remarked: “Just because there has been an amnesty for the good of the country does not mean that no crime was committed.”

arfc@cyber.net,pk