NAMAZ is the time to take a break from worldly matters to stand before Allah and seek His mercy and guidance. But despite one’s best efforts, thoughts wander to mundane matters — as they do to the unintended consequences of the events taking place in our country.

In the 1980s, the MQM was created to take care of the monopoly of a party in Karachi. For the next 30 years, we saw the MQM’s new culture of violence in Karachi impeding the city’s economic, physical and social growth. From the ‘city of lights’, Karachi became the world’s second most unsafe city after Caracas.

In the 1970s, we had to fight fears of the Soviets invading our country after Afghanistan. Simplistically, we took to the idea of training and funding civilians, religiously inclined or financially driven, as mujahideen, and having them cross the western border. It was a win-win. Rulers could prolong their rule; the country and rulers could get dollars. Everyone was happy. The unintended impact was the introduction of drugs and the Kalashnikov culture, which have flourished since.

We also saw that after the USSR’s withdrawal, while we expected the mujahideen to return to their mundane village life, they, having become used to power and pelf, morphed into the Taliban.

The result of our actions will haunt us.

While we encouraged the Afghan Taliban to destabilise and then take Afghanistan from the US, we expected the Pakistani Taliban to melt away and forget about the power they enjoyed. Now the Taliban, our own handiwork, whether it was through educating them in our madressahs or giving them arms and training, are not in our control. They are actively involved in destabilising Pakistan.

In the 1980s, we were seen to support Kashmiri fighters infiltrating occupied Kashmir, resulting in brutal counterinsurgency action by the Indian state, which led to the brutalisation of ordinary Kashmiris, and diluted the sacrifices of the genuine freedom fighters.

In the 2020s, in order to neutralise a political party, we have again hit upon the idea of using the faceless force of the state to bring everyone in line, whether it be a defiant politician, an independent judge or a cheeky policeman. While the temptation to use force in all its forms, without actually killing anyone, is tempting for the state, there will be unintended consequences like before.

The first new normal is the militarisation of the police. Earlier, police officials, while entertaining the wishes of the rulers, always had at the back of their mind the thought that any excesses committed by them could land them in trouble with their department or that the courts could hold them accountable. Now that amne­sty, medical cover and compensation to their families have been assured at the highest level, the level of brutality is unprecedented.

This new norm where the police force is fixed on obliterating the government’s political opponents will come to haunt future oppositions.

The second new normal is a unique way of arresting a person to ensure punishment before trial, by raiding the home of the victim and traumatising his family, without regard to the unwritten norms of the sanctity of home and family, which had hitherto been assured in our culture. The destruction of furniture, electronics, windows, crockery, vehicles et al, is the norm now, while there is no mention of this method of punishment in any law book.

The third new normal is multiple FIRs and arrest of undesirable persons. Pre­viously, a person was charged, arrested and given bail if the court felt that keeping him/her in jail was not legally justified. That disc­retion has been taken away. That is why the state does not find any need to incarcerate anyone under the MPO, which apart from procedural requirements and no provision for arbitrary arrests by the government, has a maximum limit for the detention period.

The fourth new normal is the most serious feature, and a forebearer, of a lawless society. The Supreme Court is, by definition, the highest and most powerful forum and final arbitrator in the state. Its rulings have the effect of law. In this case, in order to tide over short-term exigencies, we disobeyed the court’s unambiguous orders of holding elections in provinces, followed by disregarding the order of the full court (the highest conceivable forum) in the case of special seats. While life goes on as normal, this expediency will come home to roost.

Imagine a hotly contested football match with 80,000 fans equally divided between the two sides, watching a match where one team refuses to obey the red card shown by the referee, and continues to play with the expelled, or insists that a goal scored on an offside cannot be refused. You will certainly see a free for all amongst the fans in the stadium to ‘settle’ the problem. We need to prevent that from happening here.

The writer is a former civil servant.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2024