My father was headmaster in various high schools in the Central Provinces in British India. A teacher of English and mathematics, he was a graduate of the well-known Nagpur University. During his service he was posted in all major cities of the province. Wherever he was posted, there was always a nice residential bungalow for the headmaster within the high school compound. He was paid a lordly sum of Rs250 per month with free accommodation and utilities and two servants. At that time gold sold for Rs15 per tola!
There is one memorable incident from those days. As my friend Razzaq and I were discussing our education with him, he pointed to a fig tree in the courtyard on which a bulbul (nightingale) was feasting on a fig. “Look, sons,” he said. “This beautiful, innocent bird is provided with delicious fruit by the Almighty. Contrast this to a crow – the most cunning of all birds – that is destined to eat litter, rotten fruit and dead animals. The Almighty is kind to those who are simple, honest and hardworking.”
The incident came to my mind a few days ago when I saw a fascinating clip on TV of a man making a hole in the ice of a frozen lake in order to fish. This is common practice in very cold countries. When such a hole is made, it creates light and gives oxygen to the water underneath. This, in turn, attracts fish to the hole. The angler put a dead fish as bait on the hook and dropped the line down the hole. He then went to warm himself a short distance away. A crow sitting in a nearby tree watched the whole proceeding. As soon as the man had moved away from the hole, the crow flew down from his tree, approached the fishing line and proceeded to pull it up with his beak. Each time it had pulled out a short length of line, it would put a foot on it to prevent it from slipping back. Within a few minutes he had pulled up the bait and, using his beak and claws, it succeeded in taking it off the hook.
Many similar instances of intelligence in animals have been shown on TV, and one is often astonished to see their adaptability and insight, all gifts from the Almighty. However, no matter how intelligent God’s creatures may be, sooner or later they are hoodwinked by the wilier human.
But trouble starts when a man becomes too arrogant and comes under the illusion that he is smarter than the rest of his kind. Excessive cunning often becomes a curse. As the famous Persian proverb says: “Ae teziye taba, tu bar man bala shudi.”
This applies to our current situation. The moment the present rulers had cunningly manoeuvred themselves into power, they started showing their true colours. First they reneged on their solemn promises to the nation saying that pledges are neither Quranic edicts nor the sayings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). This means that anyone can make a promise and break it where that is convenient, although the divine edict is that those who break promises and tell lies (the munafiqin) will be thrown into hell.
On Dec 11, The News carried almost a full page of Wikileaks disclosures of emails sent by the US Embassy in Islamabad to Washington. Some of them dealt with my case and showed how President Zardari and Rehman Malik, despite all promises made to me, collaborated with the US to keep me under house arrest for the rest of my life. According to these disclosures, the chief justice of the-then Islamabad High Court, Sardar M Aslam, was a stooge of the government acting on Zardari’s and Rehman Malik’s dictates. Not for nothing did we distrust his in-chamber discussions with government lawyer at which our lawyer was not allowed to be present, followed by his judgements which were in accordance with the orders he had received. It is said that he did all this to curry favour to be elevated to the Supreme Court. He did succeed in getting that promotion. But the Islamabad High Court was dissolved and all those judges illegally appointed were sent home upon the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. Sardar Aslam is now a non-entity. What hurts most is the fact that, although I had enabled the country to become a nuclear and missile power, I was treated like a traitor.
After the restoration of the judiciary, my able lawyer, Barrister Ali Zafar, and his father, the renowned lawyer Senator S M Zafar, decided to take the case to the Lahore High Court. It dragged on for more than a year but, despite hectic efforts and the dirty tactics played by the government lawyer, Mr Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, who is now the chief justice of the High Court, declared my detention illegal and passed a judgement allowing me to live the rest of my life as a free, honourable citizen of Pakistan.
I would like to ask readers to ponder on what the current status of our rulers would have been had I not facilitated Pakistan’s becoming a nuclear and missile power (at the cost of a career in Europe and many sacrifices in my family life). At the time of Partition, cinemas, industrial units, big stores, property, cars, tongas, etc., belonged mainly to Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims were mainly drivers, clerks, gatekeepers, chaprasis, coachmen, milkmen, cooks, waiters, peasants, etc. Very few Muslims were well off.
It has been said that, after December 1971’s ignominious defeat and surrender in East Pakistan, the rest of the country would not have survived for more than ten or 15 years if we had not had the nuclear deterrent. Those who are now kings and viziers would then probably have been no more than barbers, drivers, peons, small shopkeepers and black-marketers. Thanks to the blessings of Allah, this country has not only survived, but has become stronger after the 1971 debacle. Many Pakistanis wonder what sins we, as a nation, have committed to invoke the wrath of Allah in the form of a succession of corrupt, incapable rulers.
At the beginning of this column I had given an example of crows. We have many parallel examples in rulers – the Shah if Iran, Marcos of the Philippines, Sani Abacha of Nigeria and, last but not least, our own commando dictator, Gen Musharraf. At one time they were all-powerful but their cunning did not stop them from becoming ignominious chapters in history. The present rulers are very proud of their manoeuvrings to stay in power, but they should not forget the Persian proverb quoted above. They will undoubtedly meet the same fate as others of their kind.
Copy rights Thenews 28.12.2010
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