WHAT happened in Lahore on Saturday night and on Sunday morning and all along the highway from Islamabad to the Punjab capital over 24 hours has no precedent in Pakistan’s history. We have certainly witnessed bigger congregations and quite a few incidents are on record when thousands of people waited for six to eight hours for their leader’s appearance at the meeting venue. But the crowd that waited for the Chief Justice at the Lahore High Court, and outside its building, was in a class of its own. And so was the occasion.

Several features of the campaign launched by the lawyers’ community against the outrageous assault on the Chief Justice, his office and his person both, have revived the political discourse that had been stagnating for quite some time. The lawyers have silenced the doubting Thomases who had questioned their capacity to sustain the agitation. The issue of justice has caused something of a miracle by drawing all political parties that merit this title together. A thoroughly rattled establishment is in visible panic, e.g., the blocking of roads on Saturday, the arrest of hundreds of activists, and the blocking of TV channels in Sindh and elsewhere. Students of democratic politics are thrilled at the spectacle of the first public movement since the glorious days in 1968-70 that is free from abuse of belief. The luminaries of the Bench and the Bar who sat through the night at the Lahore High Court, as if stung by Mr Ayaz Amir’s in-house Punjab-bashing, added to the dignity of their robes. Above all, a demonstration of popular will is a tonic all polities need for their health.

All these points and the visual feast the TV channels have offered must have caused a riot of memories in the minds of old tamashbeens such as the present writer. At the moment three bits from of a torrent of recollections are demanding priority recapitulation.

It is possible that Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan enjoys driving.

Perhaps a long drive is an effective antidote to the greatly debilitating frustration that has been the lot for many years of lawyers standing up for democracy, rule of law and people’s rights. But I have a feeling that the quality of satisfaction seen on his face yesterday reflected vindication of his theory of political action.

A couple of days after the dismissal of the Benazir Bhutto government in August 1990, I tried to pick his brain as to what had happened. But he was already looking ahead. In fact he was concentrating on the purchase of a small jeep that he might need during the election that was due in three months. The idea uppermost in his mind related to a strategic response by a popularly elected prime minister to her sacking by an arrogant head of state. Instead of flying off quietly to Karachi, he thought his leader should have travelled from Rawalpindi to Larkana by train (as had been done by her father). The party workers and others would have turned congregations at stops along the route into a decisive demonstration of the people’s will. In the jargon of tennis the presidential shot could have been turned into a half-volley.

This strategy is based on the only political sound response to any authoritarian diktat. It recognises the people as the sole authority to determine their destiny and the way the state must function. Implicit in this strategy is a rejection of the idea of seeking a settlement of political issues in courts, a practice that has undermined democratic politics and the independence of the judiciary both.

The proof of the pudding, they say, is in its eating. At this point one can only say the lawyers here not failed in serving the right dish. Barrister-plus Aitzaz Ahsan has good reason to sport a broad smile.

Another recollection relates to Mr Makhdoom Ali Khan’s theory of superior judges’ need to respect public consensus in their moments of trial.

In his brilliant, and still valid, introduction to the Constitution of Pakistan 1973, he had warned us against yielding to those who seek to prohibit treatment of constitutional matters as political issues. One assumed he was endorsing US Chief Justice Taft’s view that all constitutional interpretations had political consequences. He had also noted that “in exercising their discretion, in keeping executive power within checks, in interpreting the laws passed by parliament, the judges, whatever they may say to the contrary, are constantly engaged in making political choices,” and quoted Lord Hailsham: “Judges cannot choose the work they do; they have to come to a decision one way or another on all litigation which is brought before them. If they assume jurisdiction, they are in politics, if they decline jurisdiction, they are in politics. All they can hope to be is impartial.”

While attributing the Indian judiciary’s firmness in defending the theory of basic structure (of the constitution) to the fact that “democracy as well as the court had become firmly entrenched in the Indian system of government,” Mr Makhdoom Ali Khan observes: “This is not to advocate that the courts must take a long rap while democracy grows roots. The judiciary can provide invaluable guidance to the democratic process and at times even help it along… All that is being argued here is that in these early and troubled times the judiciary would be better advised to move along with and not against public consensus…”

The time to concede the learned Attorney-General’s plea seems to have come.

The third piece of memory has senior friend the late Abdullah Malik on the centre-stage. In May 1981 he was in the Kot Lakhpat Jail, punished as one in a large group for not doing to General Ziaul Haq what their political creed demanded. Although living conditions were by no means harsh, one of the refrains in his conversation was advice against starting an agitation, and facing the risk of imprisonment, in hot weather. The argument that quite a few political battles had been fought in hot periods (Plassey, the uprising of 1857, the partition holocaust) was not contested. Still, he

wished that marching along the Mall or time-out in Kot Lakhpat should be scheduled for cooler days.

What would have Abdullah Malik said about the lawyers who have been out under a blazing sun – and that too in black – that absorbs heat as against the political nabobs’ white that repels heat (among other things).

“Forget the heat,” he might have said, “ghurmas is what matters”. He might have even thanked the black-jackets for reviving the wonderful expression.