By Khaled Ahmed
November 7,
2020
The charge
of “sedition” comes in handy when the state leans on half-a-dozen sections of
the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and arrests its political opponents, thus
equating the right of criticism under democracy to treason. It is blatant but
the law is there — so why not use it to silence the right to criticism under
democracy? Somebody in Shahdara, Lahore, accused Prime Minister Imran Khan’s
arch-opponent Nawaz Sharif of “using criminal speeches from London on the
electronic and social media” during the All Parties Conference, and filed an
FIR at the local police station.
To clinch
the argument, the plaintiff added that UK-based Sharif, in his speeches, had
supported “the policies of India”. He was buttressed by Khan’s “information
advisers” saying “Indians are laughing at us” because of Nawaz Sharif’s
treasonous allegations. To add more fire, the FIR accused Sharif and his
partymen of defaming Pakistan’s high courts and the armed forces “in front of
the international community”. For good measure, he added the names of 40 of
Nawaz Sharif’s party in his plaint, thus exposing them to the punishment of
“death or lifetime imprisonment” under the High Treason (Punishment) Act, 1973.
The man who
brought the charges was Badar Rasheed. After pictures of him appeared together
with Punjab Governor Muhammad Sarwar, it became known that he was president of
PTI’s youth wing. Prime Minister Khan “disapproved” of the “treason case” and
his partymen thereafter began to dissociate the party from Rasheed. Lawyers
came on TV denouncing the law itself, saying it was a dubious legacy of British
Raj that Pakistan and India had retained to punish political opponents.
The British
had actually made the law to beat down Indian resistance to the Raj. Famous
essayist Lord Macaulay wrote up the anti-sedition law in 1834, which was to
become a part of the Indian Penal Code in 1860 and the Criminal Procedure Code
in 1861. In the following century, Indians began being rounded up and thrown in
jail for making “seditious” speeches. India’s “freedom fighters”, today a part
of the pantheon of nationalism, began to be rounded up under this law.
Ironically, India and Pakistan chose to retain the law after Independence in
1947. Despite many amendments, the core of the IPC, 1860, is still in the
statute books of Pakistan.
The Indian
freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak was probably the most defiant of Indian
leaders fighting the Raj. In 1916, he was jailed under the sedition law but was
successfully defended in court by the man who later became the founder of
Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. “Tilak had wanted to fight the case with a
political spin, but Jinnah insisted that the defence proceed on legal grounds
alone”. According to an Indian writer, “Jinnah also facilitated Tilak’s
re-entry into the Congress Party and became his partner in the signing of the
historic Lucknow Pact the same year.”
Pakistan is
going through a period of “verbal degradation”. Politicians for and against the
government employ a language often described by themselves as gali-galoch. Khan
was always known to be rough with words while describing the corruption of
rulers of Pakistan, and his diatribes usually ended with pledges of exemplary
punishment. This “vituperation” has become part of his political style, and he
hires people in the “information department” gifted with this special expertise
of abuse. The result is shocking: Both government and opposition have degraded
themselves as communicators to the level of hired thugs.
The damage
to political communication has not been realised in Pakistan as those for and
against the government now take pride in having specialised in low expletives.
This contagion of the tongue has spread downwards into the population where
partisans serve each other with tongue-lashings that are often unprintable.
Thinking of the background to this verbal degradation, one has to think of the
“religious rage” that has dominated the Muslim world at home and abroad. There
is no doubt that “true Muslims” who defend Islam often use bad language as a
means of excommunication. You put on a tantrum and you castigate. It is a cruel
irony that rage should be associated with religion in India and Pakistan.
-----
Khaled Ahmed is consulting editor, Newsweek
Pakistan.
Original Headline: Vituperation against
political opponents marks Pakistan’s public discourse
Source: The Indian Express
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