An Open Letter to Maulana Sufi Mohmmad Head of TNSM of District Swat

            I salute to your patience, your persistent struggle and undaunted courage for the noble cause. The way in which the people of Swat supported you and gave supreme sacrifice for the implementation of Sharia, should be remembered by everyone in this Country. In my opinion, your job has not ended by establishing a few Qazi Courts in the Swat valley. Much is yet to be done.

            The foremost is the proper arrangement for the education of girls in the area. I do not want to give you lecture on the significance of education of girls but at least would like to ask you that whether you would like to allow your women to be attended by a male gynaecologist in a labour room. Your answer would be definitely “No” because I know that we Pakhtuns of this area have a peculiar attitude regarding our women. When the answer is in “No” then why not to have our own daughters, sisters, granddaughters to be so qualified to attend our women in the labour rooms. I appreciate your love for Islam and Islamic system but I am totally opposed to your proclivity regarding the Education of girls. I do not say that you are responsible for the destruction of the schools for girls but the majority of schools were blown during your struggle for a noble cause. The majority of the people even from Pakhtuns areas resented this. I want separate arrangement for the education of girls up to the highest level. Please do not have adverse attitude to their education. Women comprise more than half of the population of your area. Do you want to have half of the population illiterate, narrow-minded, reactionary, having no ideas for future development? The ex-ruler of Swat had spread a web of schools and colleges. Are you more traditional Pakhtun than he was? People supported you only for this reason that you will install a system of justice as he had installed decades ago. When you are toeing his line in installing a system of justice then what impedes your way of thinking to see the women highly educated? I am a schoolteacher; therefore, I become hardliner on the matter of Education. Your opposition of female education might be based on some idea—probably preventing obscenity in the area but your this logic is erroneous and misleading. You should fight obscenity by providing separate Educational institutions and after their education separate working environment, which is possible, if you are really determined to do so. Mere opposition is not the remedy of the problem. In this way you will lose the support of the half of the population and ultimately your mission will face utter failure which will be indeed a failure of the ardent supporters of Islamic society. I am just pinpointing those causes, which may hamper your mission in the long run. Many hidden forces have already fragmented Pakistani society. They need to be united and Education is the only way to bring them together through a curriculum based on Islamic morality and modern inventions in science and technology. Please boost the living standard and thinking of the people instead of putting hurdles in their progress. The Ex-rulers of Swat are still remembered due to their love for the people and not for killings and undue restrictions. I fully appreciate your determination for the provision of inheritance right to women in Nizam-i-Adl Regulation  but again the question arise who will give possession of their movable and immovable property to the affected women when their male relatives in shape of brothers, uncles etc. usurp their rights. The main challenge to you in getting the immovable property of women through the revenue Department is its officials in shape of PATWARIS, TEHSILDARS, GIRDAWARS, KANUNGOS who have no mind to convey the rights to the owners. Qazi Courts would never be burdened with such like cases if the above mentioned officials performed their duties even to the laws of their own department. Please tame these officials in your area so that the other areas may toe your line in taming them by adopting your methodology of taming such maverick officials who have done much harm to the people who come in contact with them.

            It is encouraging that you have taken the responsibility of the supervision of the Qazi Courts. The performance of these few Judges would be a role model and beacon light not only for the Courts of the rest of the Country but the whole nation is waiting for the results of the Nizam-i-Adal Regulation (System of Justice Regulation). I have a suggestion for you to open the doors of the Courts for other people to come and watch the procedures held inside the Courts in other to learn the method for delivery of cheap and expeditious dispensation of justice to the people.

            I fully agree with you when you say that LLB Lawyers would have no role inside the Qazi Courts, however, the lawyers are permitted to write the plaints and written for their clients outside the Courts. In my opinion, you have minimized the roles of the lawyers but have increased the burden on the Judges in recording the Evidences of the cases. In the present set up, the Judge remains almost unaware about the number of adjournments. Suit is started in the tenure of one Judge while is decided by another Judge after adjournments for several years. Most of the adjournments are done on the requests of the litigants’ Counsels which is  also a cause in the delay which you have addressed in the Regulation. The lawyers and Judges are the passengers of the same boat and cover each other’s shortcomings. The ultimate sufferer is the litigant. We should also not forget that the system which has come after enough struggle will degenerate into a worst form of corrupt system if was not properly monitored.

            Today, in our Country the politicians have stitched to one issue “Judiciary”. They give hope to the people that they would give them free and speedy justice. At least, it impossible in the present circumstances. They have pushed back all the other problems faced by the common man which is really an alarming factor because the people have their own demands while the politicians have their own agenda. There is no conformity in their views which may result in a big clash between them. Again, the tragedy is that the politicians would use one group of poor against another group of poor. The beneficiaries are only the Landlords, Capitalists, Industrialists, Hoarders and Profiteering businessmen etc. They well-built palaces in various other Countries of the World and in case of any adverse conditions, they would fled there as they had done in the past.

            We have no enemies more dangerous than those living in our folds in shape of Landlords, Capitalists, Industrialists and above all those persons and their parties who are half-religious and half secular. These persons are more dangerous than those previously stated persons are because they have liaisons on one side with persons like you purely working for the establishment of an Islamic society and on the other side with those who profess themselves seculars in the affairs of State. If you succeeded, they would come to you and would say that they were already with you being comrades of same mission. If the secular forces succeeded they would go to them and would say that they were actually paving way for their success. At present, Qazi is with Nawaz and Fazalur Rehman with PPP. Both are deriving benefits from them. Until this date, they served only their own purposes by dint of the votes of the people.

            I also appreciate the efforts of the ANP-PPP coalition Government in the NWFP for bringing into existence the Qazi Courts. I request the NWFP Government to extend the concept of Qazi Courts to other Districts of the Province and later on to the whole Country. We are all same Muslims, same Pakistanis, then why different treatment is given to same people?

            If at present, it is not possible to extend the Regulation to the whole Province or Country, at least should specify the duration for Civil cases in the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, and for a Criminal cases in the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898. Six months for Civil and four months for Criminal cases is a very reasonable and appropriate time for their decisions.

            Your next priority should be to have such honest Government Officials in the Government Departments who must perform their duty not in fear of you but of Allah Almighty. The people of other areas are as thirstier as were of the people of Swat for having honest bureaucracy.

            The other religious parties of the Country have lost the opportunity and now have just prefixed and suffixed the word “Islam” with their party names. It is said about you that you are against “Democracy”. In my opinion, you are not against democracy but against the present system of Government which cannot be said according to the ideals for which this country was liberated and for which our ancestors gave such sacrifices which now you have given for the establishment of Sharia. The primary object for which this Country was liberated was Islamic system otherwise there was no need to dislodge millions of people from both the Countries to be called in other Country as Mohajirs—Refugees. They endured every insult for the creation of Pakistan but the creation of Pakistan did not give them that relief for which it was created. The purpose was not the acquisition of land in the vast land of British India. The main purpose was to separate at least Muslims of this area to lead their lives according to their Will. This concept has been laid down the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan but the landlords, capitalists and others hijacked the idea of creation of Pakistan and considered it the separation of two brothers—not two different and distinct Nations, having two different ideologies and system of life. They destroyed the concept of Two-nation theory which is the base of the creation of Pakistan. The clashes of politicians and military interventions in the past deprived us from East Pakistan which is a stigma on our solidarity and Islamic brotherhood. They forgot the lesson of the creation of Pakistan and began those merry-makings which they had left in British India.

            Your primary job should now be to revive that spirit and determination which was once before partition. The name of Pakistan and existence of every evil is inconsistent concepts. Pakistan and evils of every nature and kind cannot go hand in hand. Either evils should flourish or Pakistan should develop. Evils for Pakistan are such germs which have brought it to such condition. We became first Islamic Atomic Bomb holders but we totally failed to be first Islamic Country who have elevated the living standard of the people. Much labour is necessary to purge the existing evils either in shape of persons or systems.

            The main reason is the feudal class of this Country which is doing everything for its own prosperity. This class is so powerful that it has brought face to face all the poor of this Country. Some are deceiving them in the name of justice, some in the name of bread, cloth and house. These slogans are nothing but to dismantle the unity of this already dilapidated and impoverished class. They created problems of sugar shortage, wheat shortage, electricity shortage, price-hike, devaluation of Pakistani Currency etc.

            Your friendship with the present Government would prove efficacious in changing the system because everyone in the Government claims to have ideas for the change of the system. You would prove a catalyst in their determination. Peaceful means for change are far better than coercive and brutal ones. It is better to make a person a good Muslim than to kill him. It is the time to double your efforts in the present turbulent situations.

Thanks.

Sunday, 15 March 2009.

Manzoor Ahmad Yousafzai

B.Sc; L.L.B. M.A. Political Science
Email: manzoorahmadjalalmallb@hotmail.com
Web:http://manzooryousafzai.multiply.com/