Side by side with the explosive political developments, which adorn headlines in our national dailies, the issue of missing persons has been a major domestic development that has caught the attention of the public eye. As of last week, the judiciary issued notice to the sitting Prime Minister of Pakistan to be present for explaining the position on September 9; if there is no positive development during the next two months; speaks of the issue coming to heads of the rulers; the real rulers and the ruled.
It may be pointed out here that this is not the first time when the judiciary has taken up the issue and the government has been asked to submit its findings. The concerned rights groups as well as the aggrieved parties have taken up these initiatives sporadically.
The issue has been a recent phenomenon in the Pakistani context. The 9/11 fallout on Pakistani society, the wars in the Middle East in the backdrop of the “Arab Spring” and the local political and ethnic trends all combined to make that phenomenon a regular feature to poke one’s nose into; be it human rights groups, political parties, families of the “disappeared” individuals as well as regional political parties.
A cursory look at the conduct of the political governments; be it the PPP, the PML(N) or the now in opposition of the established order; PTI; reveals that all preferred to look the other way when it came to the issue of taking a stand for the missing persons; of whatever ethnicity, belief, area they might have belonged to. That avoidance OF facing the truth on part of the political governments sitting in Constitution Avenue made way for the groups and even in some cases the lone bus passengers to take up the quarrel with the law enforcement agencies, not to detain any student or for that matter any individual. In cases where such human rights violations took place in campuses, the pressure from the fellow students forced the law-enforcing agencies to release the concerned person or persons. Recent months have witnessed instances where the law-enforcing agencies preferred to “respect” public sentiment.
As a gift from the 9/11 fallout, the issue of terrorism has been the centerpiece of the law enforcement narrative; and with the passage of time, it is being felt that the limits as set in the constitution of Pakistan are frequently ignored and completely new modalities of action and reaction has set in, in Pakistan.
Taking up the issue from the human rights angle; the Constitution of Pakistan as agreed upon in April 1973 and still adhered to by at least two military takeovers and one hybrid arrangement; fully guarantees the basic human rights of any Pakistani, balancing out with the national security imperatives of the state. To begin with, any person detained has to be produced within 24 hours and information about him shared as per protocol with the available court ,according to the Article 10 of the Constitution. Other clauses take inspiration from the fact that the judicial authorities have to be informed in one way or another. It has to be a transparent process; unlike the one veiled in mystery as now practiced.
The missing persons are undoubtedly Pakistanis; who dare to think apart. Societies have prospered and changed on the back of dissenting voices; not through suppressing them in the bud. The state and the society need to reconsider the thought that every citizen has a utility for the nation-state. They cannot be regimented; to say cautiously into patriots or traitors.
In plain words, there is no blank cheque for the law enforcement agencies; affiliated to the federal government and governed (if any) by the Ministry of Defence, or by the provincial governments like the police and its affiliated departments dealing with supposedly militant activities in the society. The person arrested or picked up needs to be counted as per his or her status by the state in the court of law.
However, what a viewer in Pakistan observes is a complete disregard of the relevant sections of the Constitution as well as a general apathy towards the social norms in particular. It is not uncommon to see that under various national security imperatives; imperatives usually the exclusive discretion of the intelligence agencies to formulate, become a national security policy. That thought process it seems is not debated or put before even the standing committees dealing with national security.
These thought processes regretfully are not exclusive to Pakistani society and the national security environment. A look back into history reveals wailing mothers of the major squares of the capital of Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s. Similar scenes were witnessed by tourists visiting any Middle Eastern country during the same period.
What is disturbing is that while the rest of the world is approaching the new area of technology and governance; Pakistan is still faced with the spectre of a regimented society where the national security imperative outweighs the plight of the common person. Among other missed benchmarks, which make our nation-state a sorry example of a dream gone sour, the lack of debate on the issue in its fullest has caused misunderstanding and one can conclude widening of the perception of the law-enforcing agencies , the judiciary, the common person and all conceivable actors in the game.
Whenever these issues are debated; even for the sake of judicial debate initiated as the result of any petition; the head-on collision of arguments centring around national security make the whole exercise futile to begin with. Here the point needs to be noted that an open-hearted debate of these issues is worth more appreciation as it can bridge the creeping misconceptions.
The fallout of these attitudes in the society had their own devastating consequences. Practically Pakistan is at war with many of its own people; or to be precise entire sections of society. There is a complete breakdown of any debate or understanding between the institutions, the established order or the sections of society to sort out the differences as well as fine-tune the perceptions.
Regretfully, the dissenting voice in its entire eventuality is seldom heard and it remains lost in the heart and mind of the person forcibly picked up under any national security argument; an argument; the handiwork of the few. In a nation state like Pakistan, where the law-enforcing agencies enjoy a nuisance value; such rogue behaviour on part of these sleuths is a reality of life.
Coming back to the issue of breakdown of debate, our society runs the risk of a deeply polarized society; whether it is the matter of ethnic identity; religious identity or belief or any other conceivable idea, which does not, goes down well with the established order.
When the Constitution clearly defines the limits of the state and the law-enforcing agencies, complete disregard of the constitutional limits and “autistic” lack of communication on part of the law-enforcing agencies can only complicate matters for the worse.
The missing persons are undoubtedly Pakistanis; who dare to think apart. Societies have prospered and changed on the back of dissenting voices; not through suppressing them in the bud. The state and the society need to reconsider the thought that every citizen has a utility for the nation-state. They cannot be regimented; to say cautiously into patriots or traitors.
