On August14, 1947, a piece of land budded off from another nation to
form a democratic nation of Pakistan. The then president of Muslim
League, Md Ali Jinnah, held the reigns of the country. Since then this
land called Pakistan or the “chaste land” has seen a myriad changes in
its political setup. When Pakistan was made it was thought that a
separate nation with Muslim majority would abate the continuing
Hindu-Muslim riots of 1947. But the things didn’t change much. The
greed of some of the religious leaders infused violence and hatred in
the hearts of their fellow citizens which results today in the garb of
terrorism and suicide bombers. In fact the dream of Jinnah today has
become a haven for extremism and terror forces. The vehicle of
democracy has never been stable in Pakistan as marshal laws have always
plagued it intermittently. This vehicle had caught some pace when Ms
Bhutto and then Mr. Nawaz Sharif sat on the chair of Pakistani P.M. but
the pace could not keep up as The Kargil war marred the continuation of
democracy in 1998. This was in the regime of Nawaz Sharif and then
resulted in political upheavals in the country. A loss in the war
slapped on the nation followed by the political debacle when General
Parvez Musharraf slaped another army rule on the country. Nawaz sahab
was charged with corruption and cheating the nation so was sent into
exile.
Since then to the present date, democracy in Pakistan has never seen
the light of the day. Under constant pressures from all sides to
restore democracy in the country, Gen. Musharraf has tactically handled
the situation by his influential speeches around the world and in UNO.
But never has he allowed Pakistan on the road to democracy. He even
started to fiddle with the Pakistani judiciary by sacking Justice
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary and reinstating his own candidate, Justice
Rana, on the seat. It was his bad luck that the same judiciary called
back Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary as the Chief Justice of Pakistani
Supreme Court.
Seeing the defeat of the general in the hands of judiciary, political
parties started a furore in the country to reinstate the democracy.
Nawaz Sharif landed back on his ‘sar zameen’ to contest elections but
seeing his victory, General flew him to UAE as per some old bonds with
the kingdom there.
In the mean time Madam Bhutto was planning the game
of politics with General to bring back democracy in the country in
collaboration. So, Bhutto returned back after her exile amidst suicidal
attacks on her convoy and life threats. An election for President was
held in Pakistan in which, as guessed, General Musharraf emerged as a
clear winner on October6, 2007. Questions were raised on General’s
candidature to contest elections and a panel of judges in Supreme Court
was to give a decision. Before the Supreme Court could even reach some
decision, General Musharaff again ran the horses of his brain and
slapped emergency on the nation of Pakistan on October3, 2007.
Judiciary was irritated again and Hameed Doger replaced Justice
Iftikhar Chaudhary as the Chief Justice of Pakistani Supreme Court
because old judicial panel was interfering with the liberties of the
President Musharraf. Now the roads in Pakistan don’t see citizens
treading them but the armed patrolling vehicles move on them. Men in
uniform exercise their special rights on the land of Pakistan. All the
fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens have been revoked.
The world remains aghast by this decision but how do the citizens of
Pakistan know what the world thinks. Television and radio broadcasts,
mobile signals and all other means of communication have been jammed in
the country. Only the state run P-TV show what the general wants its
people to see and alleges ‘serious internal strife’ the reason of
emergency in the state.
Emergency to democracy is what death is to an animal. The clocks which
were ticking to show the time when democracy would again come to the
nation have come to a halt and no one knows when will they start
ticking again?