Lessons from the Gujrat Srtike Can Lawyers of Pakistan Lead The

Lessons from the Gujrat Srtike Can Lawyers of Pakistan Lead the People? By Manzoor Ahmad Manzoor Let there begin a new endeavour for nation building in Pakistan in spite of Americans, Zionists and Musharrafs as we can overcome all of them. The chances of unity of our people, which have developed, must not be allowed to go waste. There is so much to do! And the lawyers of Pakistan are perhaps the best-placed community in the society to take up challenges we face today. The question is will they do it? I believe they will.

I believe there is no choice with the lawyers of Pakistan. They have to come forward to lead the people. Aggression by the government against the people and implementation of American orders and wishes will not stop, to which the lawyers cannot stop themselves from responding. In fact it is already happening. Is there any other possibility?

------‘First Revolution then Democracy’

This document [Can Lawyers of Pakistan Lead the People?] was written in English as you find it below. It was completed on August 2, 2004. Its Urdu translation was published during the same month and distributed among the Lawyers’ Community. As we are more experienced now as to what is possible and what is not possible to accomplish in Pakistan, I submit my point of view again to the Lawyers’ Communityand in particular to those who may be anywhere but can come out of the prevailing narrowness of our minds to visualize a ‘New Pakistan’ headed by a new leadership. I have been endeavoring to clarify and formulate parameters for this basic change in Pakistan for many years and if you focus on what I am saying, you will find that very consistently I am right on the track. I wrote in this document which you will read again below:

“I believe the best and ambitious minds in the lawyers’ community must come out of the traditional mould to be able to lead the people. I appeal to their conscience to abandon the repetitive practices, which cannot lead us anywhere. ‘Restoration of democracy’, for example, is a meaningless phrase. You cannot restore which never exited. In fact ‘establishing democracy in Pakistan’ is the task we have yet to undertake. This must be consciously understood and made the bedrock of a national programme around which people must be asked to unit.”

Let us face the truth. Pakistan has to pass through the rigors of a revolution to find its right path onward. To avoid unnecessary sacrifices and focus our minds accordingly, I venture to think that our revolution must be unique in many ways as we have so many experiences from the world history and therefore our agenda should be a Carefully Designed Revolution.

We have to leave rhetoric and undertake serious work to assemble and make workable a new leadership which should be able to unite peoples of Pakistan under its guidance. ‘Restoration of democracy’ is a myth suited to all who according to the compulsions of their own existences continue to repeat it. It means nothing except their small and sectarian agendas. See the bigger picture and you will find the reality of revolution staring in your eyes. Accepting ‘First Revolution then Democracy’ will liberate us from our present useless politics and lead us to a kind of work which, inshaallah, will be of historical significance.

– MAM: September 17, 2007, Lahore

------

That Osama bin Laden attacked America on September 11, 2001 is as self-evident to Americans today as it used to be to the people Pakistan that, in collusion with the British, India had occupied Kashmir in 1947. And if people of Pakistan were told that, in the first place, the ‘Kashmir problem’ was avoidable and, moreover, that the state of Jammu and Kashmir could come to Pakistan peacefully, right in 1947; it would have been unbelievable for them. Similarly, if we tell Americans today that the claim of their government is unproved, and that the attacks seem to have been engineered by some interested quarters in Americaand Israel and that attack on and occupation of Iraq reinforces this view; it is unlikely that Americans are in a state of mind to accept this.

Muslim League’s leadership had prepared Muslim masses and made them believe, of course wrongly, that the root cause of their all problems was Hindus. With this state of mind, any Muslim could blame Hindus for bad results of his own mistakes; while another one could always find pretexts, by blaming Hindus, to deliberately act for his own selfish ends. And Muslim masses were ever ready to readily believe all this. There is no doubt that the people themselves had to suffer ultimately for what they were made to believe. But even then, except very few individually, they could never discover this during all their remaining lifetimes. Such is the inertia of ideology. Once made to believe, no people can come out of the situation except trough an historical process.

What happened with us in the run-up to 1947, something similar has happened with the people of theUnited States of America. They have been manipulated with a design. Ideology enslaved us then and ideology has enslaved American people now. Our enslavement made rulers of a small, poor and weak state of Pakistan such selfish adventurers that they caused one tragedy after another to our people, our country and our region. Time and again they initiated unnecessary armed conflicts. They even participated in the disintegration of Afghan society. A stage reached that for merely their own careers nuclear conflict with India started looking a possibility. It is not strange but quite logical that the next generation and inheritors of those who got promoted after 1947 sit today in the lap of Zionists and extremist American Christian ideologues telling us: this is our ‘national interest’!

By comparison, I am horrified to contemplate that, rulers of America, the super power, and Israel have positioned themselves to inflict limitless harm on the Muslim people. They have enslaved their people by an ideology in the formulation of which Zionists have provided major input. And this ideology is Muslim specific. Therefore they can always blame Muslims for their own failures and captive American people would readily believe them. There will be no end to it. They have created a new anti- Muslim ‘business’, which if not stopped has no foreseeable end.

This is the problem, the 21st century catastrophe for the Muslim nations, we face today.

I think you can appreciate that when we have a problem, it has many aspects. What I have said in the paragraphs above is stating our situation in few words. More of it later. But in any case, the question, which immediately arises, is what to do?

Our foremost necessity is to apply our minds to the higher issues of our country and the world. But our culture inhibits us from such endeavours. We must break the barriers. Many must become volunteers to work for the people, the country and for the humanity at large. They will be the future leaders of Pakistanwho will be able to contribute to the collective world civilization as well.

And remaining truly faithful to these ideals and goals I am totally engrossed in work and, hopefully, inshaallah we will find a way out of this crisis. I have already dealt with the issues comprehensively in my work titled Labbaik Allahhumma Labbaik.

I was in this sort of state of mind that sometime during the month of July, my attention got focused on the Lawyers’ strike in Gujrat. Incidents were happening quite frequently and more and more of the government getting into the affair. In the normal circumstances (before American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq), a similar incident perhaps would not have attained the significance it has attained for me now. You may wonder what Afghanistan and Iraq have to do with lawyers’ strike in Gujrat? I explain.

It is but normal to protest whenever we confront an undesirable situation created by some government official individually or by an action of a government itself. As in our consciousness, and rightly so, individuals with authority and governments have historically been on the wrong side, and therefore, protests and demonstrations in our eyes have apparently an unspoken legitimacy.

But it is never or very rare that the protesters got their demand or demands fulfilled which had become the cause of the protest in the first place. Quite often, as has been observed time and again, protesters and demonstrators have to immediately face a new problem: the arrests made of and cases filed against them by an incumbent government. And so more often demonstrators have to lose further in addition to losses they had already suffered which basically became the reason of the protest. And thus governments invariably come out victorious from such episodes, which are minor skirmishes for them but usually the biggest and many times the first ever battle in the lives of the protesters.

These facts which we have repeatedly observed explain very forcefully perhaps the most fundamental reality of our country: the broken relationship between governments in Pakistan and the people ofPakistan. So within the 21st century catastrophe and, of course, related to it, we have our own this specific Pakistani tragedy.

The Gujrat strike very clearly demonstrates this situation of broken relationship, hence its significance. And further, perhaps, I would not have been able to focus on and explain this broken relationship had Musharraf not totally identified himself with Israelis and American extremists. By doing this he has magnified the phenomenon. What changed Musharraf that he became soft on India but very aggressive against the people of his own country? It must be an American/Zionist design: ‘oppress your own people, feel like you are our friend, remain within the lines of our agenda, and we ensure your rule over Pakistan’! How else can we explain all this? And without this background, Chaudhries of Gujrat would not have behaved the way they have behaved.

While the Gujrat lawyers were on strik since May 11, a case is registered in Gujrat on June 24 against the District Bar Association (DBA) president Chaudhry Tariq Javed Warraich, acting secretry general Asghar Shaheen and Advocate Gulraiz Warraich on the charge of embezzling bar funds in the name of strike against the District Police Officer (DPO)) Raja Munawwar Husain. The DBA had passed a requisition in October 2003 against Raja Munawwar for allegedly misbehaving with senior lawyer Gulraiz Warraich.

As we know our governments and those individuals who wield power very well, a DPO would never say ‘sorry’ for his ‘misbehavior’. Why should he say so? Saying ‘sorry’ is a civilized attitude. Musharraf will never say sorry for ‘Kargil’, and now Bush will never say sorry for ‘Iraq’. Can we believe Musharraf and Bush promote civilized attitude? Why should Raja Munawwar say sorry for a ‘minor’ incident: misbehaving with Advocate Gulraiz Warraich? It is a question of culture -- culture of power when it is in the hands of the uncivilized.

It seems obvious that the decision to register this case must have been taken at the highest political level. They decided to use force, of course unlawfully, against the lawyers. The lawyers had no alternative but to press ahead with whatever means they had at their disposal.

The very next day leaders of the Lahore High Court Bar Association and the Punjab Bar Council threatened the Punjab government with a province-wide strike if Gujrat DPO is not transferred. The bar leaders contended that Mr Warraich had been booked at the instance of DPO Raja Munawwar with whom Mr Warraich developed a dispute during October election last year.

But the Government had a plan in store, which could not be stopped by the arguments of the lawyers. Three days after this on June 28, around 1,200 clients from various parts of the district (read government men) reached Zahoor Elahi Stadium in buses and other vehicles. They took out the rally and assembled at district courts where they chanted slogans against the bar president and other lawyers. They demanded of the lawyers to either reimburse their fees or call off their strike and appear in courts. Later, the protesters started marching towards the bar office where more than 200 lawyers were present at the meeting. As the lawyers closed the bar doors, the protesters forcibly entered the office and ransacked the furniture. They also beat up some of the lawyers. The protesters dispersed after an assurance given by the DPO that the action would be taken against lawyers.

There is no law; it is all naked power. Those who hold power do not want to be disturbed. They are teaching the people there is no peaceful way to resolve problems. In fact they think that those who have been left out of power should not have any problem! They should simply obey. At the most they should ask for mercy!

It was the same (bar room) building which was built by the late Ch. Zahoor Elahi, that was now under attack by the men of his present family – a clear case of broken relationship. But who had to lead in maintaining good relationship between a community or social group and those who wish to remain their leaders? If Chaudhries wished to remain leaders of Gujrat lawyers, it was their duty to maintain the relationship in working order after the death of Ch. Zahoor Elahi. It must be mentioned that the portrait of the late Chaudhry still hangs on a wall of the Gujrat bar room although total bar has turned hostile against the Chaudhries. And, moreover, the bar members did not show any disrespect to the late Chaudhry.

The government’s aggression continues. The same night, June 28, Gujrat Civil Lines police registered a case on various charges against 20 lawyers, including the DBA president, acting president and secretary general. However, the police did not lodge a case on the complaint of bar’s acting secretary general Asghar Shaheen against the DPO and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) activists.

Apart from other details, the complainant Advocate Fakhar Nisar’s (read government man) story was that some men of Advocate Tufail also forcibly entered the bar room and started beating them and ransacked the office and they also took away record. Mr. Nisar alleged that the suspects had committed the offence at the behest of bar president Tariq Javed, and demanded that the police took legal action.

On the other hand, acting secretary general Asghar Shaheen alleged in a written application to the Civil Lines police on Tuesday (June 29) that lawyers and bar room came under attack by PML activists at the behest of the DPO and some PML leaders. However, the Civil Lines police did not entertain his application. Upon this, he filed a writ application in the court of the district and sessions judge the same day.

In his petition, he alleged that lawyers were present at a meeting in the bar room convened to take a disciplinary action against those 27 lawyers who had called off the strike against the DPO and started attending courts.

To fail the bar meeting, he alleged that DPO Raja Munawwar Hussain, MPA Khalid Asghar Ghurral, former MC chairman Chaudhry Tufail, Nazims Rana Maqsood and Javed Akhtar Colowal and other PML activists and lawyers made provocative speeches before protesters gathered outside the Zahoor Elahi Stadium.

In his speech, the DPO asked the protesters to attack lawyers present in the bar room and beat them up if they put up resistance, he alleged. At this, over 500 people attacked the bar room and thrashed lawyers.

Advocates Iqbal Behalpur, Khalid Shah, Shahzad Aslam, Tajamul Shah, Munir Bajwa and Habib Alam Naqvi sustained critical injuries.

You can see the government deliberately flouted the law. Many well-intentioned people must have been amazed at the government’s behaviour. Why should the government act like this, they would have asked themselves. Or, is the DPO so important an officer as to prolong the bar-administration conflict, has been a very valid question. But we must understand that their agenda does not fit and their incompetence is not sustainable within the constraints of law. And the nature of the political power in Pakistan which keeps the people away by manipulating them gives space to such behaviour. If a government remains lawful, the weak is benefited. But no law worked in this case. It is brute power, which wants to pre-determine everything according to its own wishes.

But what else an aggrieved person, group or community can do? Nothing perhaps! So the governments oppress and people react. People wonder at the behavior of governments when things happen against common sense. Their perception is correct that oppression of governments is never necessary; or even to their advantage. In fact it is directly proportional to their stupidity and incompetence, which are the main ‘qualifications’ of governments in Pakistan.

So, one may think that there is hardly an alternative for the unorganized and the dispossessed in Pakistan. And that those who are organized and at the same time not dispossessed, the situation should not be as hopeless. But are lawyers of Pakistan not such a community? Potentially they seem to be much better placed to not allow governments to cross limits. In spite of them, governments not only have been crossing limits, they have successfully weakened the position of the lawyers’ community in the country. The question is, have they too been pushed to the ranks of the unorganized and the dispossessed?

What happened to the members of the Gujrat Bar amply demonstrates that if a sitting government happens to become unhappy with someone, he becomes a “criminal” in the eyes of those who wield power. It is as simple as that. And this fact we all know.

If someone is harmed by a government official individually or by an action of a government itself, he should humbly accept the harm, not say anything bad about the individual or the government itself and perhaps only then he can hope for mercy. If he is foolish to claim his ‘rights’, sooner or later he will be further harmed deliberately. And we all know it.

In the prevailing overall environment against the lawyers only time will tell the significance of the report that the district and sessions judge Syed Ali Hasan Rizvi directed on Wednesday the crime range police to nominate DPO Raja Munawwar Hussain, MPA Khalid Asghar Ghurral and 14 other PML lawyers and politicians in the supplementary FIR of the bar attack case.

And at the same time, he also directed the crime range SP to conduct an impartial investigation into the case. Civil Lines police had registered a case by inserting 11 sections in the FIR against 20 lawyers on Monday night on the complaint of Fakhar Nisar advocate.

The accused lawyers were: bar president Tariq Javed, bar acting president Usman Warraich, bar acting secretary general Asghar Shaheen, Muhammad Tufail Hanjra, Habib Alam Naqvi, Shamshad Malhi, Attaur Rahman Qadri, Akhtar Javed, Mian Nasir, Gulraiz Warraich, Mirza Tahir, Tanvir Hasan, Rizwan Rathore, Asghar Ranjha, Sabir Cheema, Aslam Langay, Iqbal Behalpur, Khawar, Khurram Sadiq and Ali Ayub Shah.

On July 2, the Lahore High Court restrained the Gujrat administration from registering a case against any lawyer without first obtaining the court's permission. Justice Mohammad Bilal issued the restraint order on a writ petition seeking quashment of an FIR against Gujrat bar president Tariq Javed Warraich registered on the charge of hooliganism in the bar room on June 28 when the bar was proceeding against some lawyers who appeared in courts on the 45th day of their boycott against the attitude of DPO Raja Munawwar.

Don’t you think that this observation of the Lahore High Court was sufficient to transfer all senior police officers out of Gujrat? When there is no trust between a government official and the people, the official must go.

A number of lawyers’ leaders, including Lahore High Court Bar Association president Ahmad Awais and vice-president Zulfiqar Ali Shah, Punjab Bar Council executive chairperson Pervez Inayat Malik, Lahore Bar Association president Mirza Hanif Baig and PBC former vice-chairman Ramzan Chaudhry appeared in the court on behalf of Mr Warraich.

They submitted that lawyers were not agitators but wanted to settle the conflict amicably. On the other hand, they stated, the administration had wasted a number of opportunities to resolve the issue for which lawyers held a number of meetings with the district and provincial administration. They submitted that the DPO misbehaved with some lawyers in October 2003 and when the bar staged protest, the DPO resorted to victimizing lawyers and their representatives.

On July 3, Saturday, lawyers largely boycotted courts on the call given by the Punjab Bar Council in protest against the Gujrat situation. The Punjab Bar Council claimed that lawyers observed a complete strike from Attock to Rahim Yar Khan.

Earlier, a PBC meeting regretted that the Punjab government had gone back on its solemn commitment held out on June 15 that the conflict would be resolved amicably. It said the DPO was out to settle his personal vendetta with the Gujrat bar leadership and the government chose to remain indifferent. The meeting reiterated the demand that the DPO should be transferred.

Government’s hairaphery and 2-number karwai continues. On July 4, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said that almost all lawyers in Gujrat were attending courts. Certain elements were trying to divert the attention of lawyers from their professional affairs to seek their personal and political benefits which was regrettable, he said, while talking to a delegation of the Gujrat District Bar Association, which called on him here.

For the first time in the history of the country, resources had been provided for the construction of buildings for all district and tehsil bar associations, besides provision of libraries and other facilities to them on the directions of President Pervez Musharraf, he said. The chief minister said steps were also being taken to develop residential colonies for lawyers in all districts and tehsils irrespective of their political affiliations.

The delegation members said some elements were wrongfully claiming that the lawyers were observing a strike in Gujrat. A list was presented to the chief minister showing that most of the Gujrat Bar Association members were appearing before local courts.

Why seeking ‘personal and political benefits’ by others is objectionable to the rulers? Granted for a moment that this is objectionable, there is evidence that even this did not happen. In a meeting few months earlier at his house former Gujrat MC chairman Chaudhry Tufail said in his speech forcefully that Tariq Javed used his position for political gain as he had contested election against Ch. Pervaiz Elahi. But one Muslim League lawyer Chaudhry Riaz Hanjra in his speech said that Tariq wanted to end this phadda, but the Muslim Leaguers passionately wanted to remove the DPO, thus logically favouring the continuing agitation. But after the meeting was over and food had been served, when this point was raised informally, Chaudhry Tufail said that he agreed with the observations but what else could he have said in his speech?

When the ruled turn against the rulers, the rulers invariably express astonishment. ‘Their Majesties’ tend to think very innocently, ‘we have provided them everything, even then they have turned against us! How ungrateful are they?’ So, in spite of provision of “resources, buildings, libraries, residential colonies and other facilities” the lawyers ‘very ungratefully’ remained stuck to their stance.

A majority of lawyers on Monday (July 5) observed a complete strike against the DPO and boycotted courts on the 54th (or 56th ) consecutive day, making a mockery of chief minister’s claim that almost all lawyers were attending courts. Bar president Tariq Javed Chaudhry said that out of total 482 bar members, not more than six appeared in courts.

And the Punjab Bar Council, the same day, rejected Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi’s assertion that there was no boycott and said the lawyers in his home district have been on strike since May 11.

According to PBC executive committee chairperson Pervez Inayat Malik, a delegation of 19 lawyers from Gujrat, where the total membership is about 480, met the chief minister on Sunday who was later quoted as saying that lawyers were not on strike in Gujrat. The entire delegation, according to Mr. Malik, comprised PML lawyers and none of them was an office-bearer of the Gujrat district bar.

According to Mr. Malik, lawyers of Gujrat did not appear in any courts for 44 days. After that there were some defections and a few of them ended the boycott in violation of the bar resolution adopted after the conflict between the bar and DPO Raja Munawwar heightened in October 2003.

The government continued to try to deceive the lawyers and the public. A news item appeared on July 7 with the heading “Lawyers ‘regret’ row” and which read like this: The Punjab government claims that a delegation of lawyers from different high court bar associations in the province and the Punjab Bar Council have regretted confrontation during a meeting with the law minister Raja Basharat over the Gujrat bar issue. They assured the law minister that they would not indulge in activities bringing a bad name to the profession. A government handout issued here on Tuesday (July 6) said both sides resolved to settle the issue amicably. The official communication did not mention the name and number of lawyers, who met the law minister.

At last there were ‘signs of patch-up’ (read a trick by the government). On July 8 (Thursday), the Lahore Bar Association deferred a rally hours before it was scheduled to be held to express solidarity with the Gujrat lawyers. The decision was announced by LBA president Mirza Haneef Baig in the backdrop of certainPunjab government conciliatory moves, which began late last evening and continued till early hours of the day. According to a newspaper report, this was the first time since the conflict between the lawyers from Gujrat and DPO Raja Munawwar Husain started nine months ago that the government made a 'serious move' to defuse tension.

The decision to recall the rally was taken at a time when the lawyers from the Lahore High Court, Gujrat and some other places had already reached the Aiwan-i-Adl from where they were to march on to The Mall. Later, Lahore High Court Bar Association President Ahmad Awais, Gujrat bar's Chaudhry Tariq Javed Warraich and the LBA president told a news conference that the rally was deferred as a gesture of goodwill. The bar leaders said the government wanted three to four days to find out an amicable solution to the problem. They hoped that their positive attitude would be matched by a similar response. "The decision demonstrates that we want to resolve the issue and have no hand in stretching it so long. We have also shown that it is not our, but someone else's ego problem," Chaudhry Warraich told a questioner.

"The ball is in the government's court and we expect that it will take all steps to defuse tension," he added. According to him, the contact was made at the "highest level" of the government. He furher said that the bar had dropped two of the three demands. He said it no longer wanted the withdrawal of cases against a number of bar leaders nor was it interested in registration of criminal cases against those, who attacked the bar room in Gujrat on June 28. However, he said, the demand of the transfer of the Gujrat DPO could not be compromised. He said the lawyers would not end their boycott in Gujrat till the demand was met.

About various delegations of lawyers from Gujrat meeting first chief minister Pervaiz Elahi and then the law minister, he said the total number of such members of the bar was 19, of whom 15 were not practicing law. One of them was a parliamentary secretary, the other an MPA, yet another a tehsil Naib Nazim and the rest were running their businesses.

He said all of them belonged to the PML. Four practicing lawyers of the delegation, he said, were with other members of the community who abstained from courts for 44 days in running. It was after this prolonged agitation that the government pressured them to break away or lose party affiliation, Mr Warraich added.

But unlawful arrests continued. The same day, July 8 (Thursday), Police arrested Gujranwala District Bar Association President Chaudhry Saifullah Cheema and Secretary-General Malik Muhammad Sarwar Awan when they were going to Lahore to participate in the protest rally against the Gujrat DPO Raja Munawwar Husain. Reports said the lawyers were on their way to Lahore when a heavy contingent of police, headed by Saddar ASP, stopped them near Chand da Qila bypass and asked them to return. On resistance, they arrested the bar leaders.

Another lawyer of the Gujrat District Bar Association asked the Saddar police station to register a case against the Gujrat DPO and other policemen, who had allegedly kept him and other colleagues into illegal custody on July 8 when they were on their way to Lahore to participate in a protest rally against the DPO.

According to Chaudhry Aslam Langay, he along with advocates Chaudhry Akram, Chaudhry Arshad and Khalid Pervez, had boarded a Lahore-bound bus to participate in a rally when some policemen held them near the Chenab Bridge. He said the police took them to a wagon in which 11 lawyers were already being taken to police station. "Few minutes before the arrival of a court bailiff, they took us to Jalalpur Jattan Saddar police station where they kept us for two hours and later released us," he alleged.

To counter the above allegation, (government) sources told media people that the lawyers were neither stopped from going to Lahore nor were they illegally detained. They said the local lawyers were unaware of the fact that their colleagues in Lahore had postponed the protest meeting for four days after negotiations with the government. The lawyers, they said, returned voluntarily when they learnt about the postponement of the agitation.

But who believes the government ?

One can now look back and conclude that the government wanted to humiliate the lawyers. And in this it fully ‘succeeded’ when the Lawyers decided on July 10 to observe the strike once in a week in the larger “public interest”. The decision came after observing a complete strike for about two months at a bar meeting chaired by the president Tariq Javed Chaudhry.

It was unanimously decided in the meeting that lawyers should start attending courts by wearing black armbands except Thursday of every week. It was decided that five members of the bar would observe hunger strike daily while black flag would be hoisted atop the bar building. The meeting also decided that June 28 would be observed a black day every year as bar room and lawyers came under attack on that day. The lawyers vowed to follow their new schedule of protest till the acceptance of their demand of transfer of the DPO.

Speaking on the occasion, bar president Tariq Javed said that the new decisions had been taken in view of the general public who were the only sufferers of the strike. He disclosed that the government had promised to fulfil their demands by July 15 and if their demands were not met they would take out a protest rally from Aiwan-i- Adal, Lahore.

Advocates Rizwan Rathore, Chaudhry Zaheer, Ali Shahzad, Akbar Tas and Gulraiz Warraich on Tuesday observed hunger strike and lawyers attended courts wearing black armbands.

A small problem, which started between two individuals in a district headquarter, went up to the Prime Minister on the one side and the Pakistan Bar Council on the other!

It was reported on July 18 that, Prime Minister Shujaat Husain ‘failed’ to keep his pledge of taking action against the Gujrat police chief. Gujrat District Bar president Tariq Javed Warraich, who was allowed audience by Shujaat Husain after he ended the bar strike, told on Sunday that the PM had assured him a ‘definite decision’ by Friday (July 16). The meeting of Mr. Warraich with the Prime Minister took place after a National Reconstruction Bureau-sponsored convention of lawyers in Islamabad on July 13.

For the other side it was reported that on the call of the Pakistan Bar Council of July 18 to stay away from work across the country after 10:30 am, lawyers went on strike on July 28. In the Lahore High Court Bar Association protest meeting, lawyers said that the government had made the issue (of the Gujrat DPO) a question of ego and was bent upon confronting the lawyers to save a police officer who, they alleged, served the vested interests of the ruling family.

They said the transfer of the DPO was not ordered, though commitments were made to the lawyerscommunity on a number of occasion. The ‘temporary’ prime minister, they said, had given a word of honour to Gujrat Bar president Tariq Javed Warraich at a meeting in Islamabad that the DPO issue would be resolved within a few days The commitments was yet to be fulfilled even after the lapse of weeks, they said.

It should be mentioned again that earlier lawyers had boycotted courts on July 3 (Saturday) on the call given by the Punjab Bar Council in protest against the Gujrat situation.

As stated earlier, the incident of Gujrat strike eloquently demonstrates the broken relationship between the State and the people.

The government’s view must be that the lawyers have been ‘humiliated’ and ‘defeated’; that they were not even allowed a reasonable ‘face saving’. No comment. The time is not far off when it will be indisputably clear to everyone who had won or lost.

Now that we have gone through various aspects of the Gujrat strike, therefore before concluding and in the light of what I have said above, we must touch the main question we started with: can lawyers ofPakistan lead the people?

But this question immediately raises another question. Has politics failed in Pakistan? Yes, had this not been so, I could not have raised the question of lawyers’ leadership, in the first place. Politics of Pakistanis just an illusion. At the most, it is a dependent extension and part of the State. And the State has now accepted openly Zionists and extremist American Christians as their overlords. Has the State of Pakistan ever belonged to its people? If some believe so, it is no more so. Now Americans, Zionists and their local managers (known as Pakistan’s rulers) are in illegal occupation of our country.

The ‘rulers’ will deceive us now with growth rate, development and so on. But these are no more the basic issues. Is growth rate the issue right now in Iraq?

Their interest in politics and off and on walking into the political arena is what historically lawyers have been rightly doing in this country. And recently they have passed resolutions opposing Musharraf’s growing friendship with America. In another resolution they have opposed Shaukat Aziz’s nomination as next Prime Minister of Pakistan mainly due to his American connections. They have rejected Pakistan’s MNNA (major non-Nato ally) status, whatever it actual means, which America has granted to Pakistan recently.

Their professional matters often get transformed into disputes with the government. And it is due mainly to the attitude of the government. Look at the attitude of those who occupy government offices that presently Punjab government is deliberately hindering Punjab Bar Council elections. It is nothing but increasing chaos in society. The government must be punishing the lawyers who are compelled, as in the Gujrat case, to oppose it.

I believe the best and ambitious minds in the lawyers’ community must come out of the traditional mould to be able to lead the people. I appeal to their conscience to abandon the repetitive practices, which cannot lead us anywhere. ‘Restoration of democracy’, for example, is a meaningless phrase. You cannot restore which never exited. In fact ‘establishing democracy in Pakistan’ is the task we have yet to undertake. This must be consciously understood and made the bedrock of a national programme around which people must be asked to unit.

It is my considered opinion that reform is not possible in Pakistan. If my observation is correct, its logic leads us to the conclusion that it would perhaps be possible to make revolution in Pakistan but impossible to get a ‘DPO transferred’! The government has already proved and we have experienced the truth of one part of this statement!

If they apply their minds to the issues we face today, apart from efforts of other social groups in the country, a leading role by them for a new and positive social and political change in Pakistan becomes possible. And those who decide to take up the bigger challenges at national and international level will not find time for infighting and group politics within the lawyers’ community; because there is the immediate task of connecting with the people.

Work on a package of comprehensive judicial reforms must start without delay. Along with the preparation of this package, lawyers must spread out to educate the people and get feedback from them at the same time. The judicial reforms to be proposed, apart from dealing with other issues, must ensure ending exploitation of the people during the process of their seeking justice.

The power of the people is shackled by the evil practices of the State. The alternative has to be assembled bit by bit by those who earnestly struggle for truth and are inclined to transform themselves accordingly.

Let there begin a new endeavour for nation building in Pakistan in spite of Americans, Zionists and Musharrafs as we can overcome all of them. The chances of unity of our people, which have developed, must not be allowed to go waste. There is so much to do! And the lawyers of Pakistan are perhaps the best-placed community in the society to take up challenges we face today. The question is will they do it? I believe they will. (August 2, 2004)