Honourable Fakhruddin G Ebrahim is a retired judge of the Supreme Court. His article, ‘Panacea for our present problems’ reads like a judgment because what else the word ‘panacea’ would mean in times of surplus self-righteousness and hyper judicial activism.  He writes: “I am a beneficiary of Pakistan. Whatever I have achieved or acquired is because of Pakistan: Therefore, if I sound ‘jazbati’ or emotional, you will please excuse me”.  He adds: “Constitution is the ‘Rooh of a nation’ and an independent Judiciary is its heart”.
Almost all of us are unhappy. However, not all of us are emotional and that is why we are still, one way or another, hopeful. Hope awakens when politicians are around and hibernates when they are replaced by the generals with the connivance of judges.
Not all, who became Pakistanis due to a stroke of history’s pen, became beneficiary of Pakistan. The wiser amongst the non-beneficiaries are rational when they tell their side of story. The Sindhis, Baloch and Pukhtoon did not benefit from emergence of Pakistan; they would have been better in India where feudalism and tribalism were abolished and secular social democracy was adopted as governing system. The common mohajirs and Punjabis too would have been far better; they would not have faced the torture that our self-righteous elites inflict on them on daily basis. Nor would have they lived with the fatal social disease, political uncertainty.  Speaking sadly, while a majority of the Indian Muslims demanded Pakistan, only elites are the beneficiaries of Pakistan.
Partition was the best that happened to India. It saved the Indians from identity crisis and any big social disorder that the elites of a big minority could cause.  The emergence of Pakistan could also have been the best that happened to the western periphery of India, where Muslims were in majority, if political power and economic resources were shared with the provinces and people. Only politicians could do it; but the elites — the generals, the bureaucrats, the judiciary, the rich and the media lords who had all political and economic power in their sacred hands—made it certain that politics would not emerge; and if it somehow emerged, it was crushed, sometimes through force and judicial means; and sometimes through poisonous propaganda and intrigues.
What is going on today is certainly continuity of the past.  True, our present problems are not any different from our past problems, but they need absolute solutions and not the ordinary ones that the concerned judge has given. His solutions are already known to every Pakistani. Even on the major crisis of today, president’s immunity, his solution is not a fresh one; the lawyers, media persons and other elements who are pro-right, pro-political religion and PPP haters have been demanding the same from the government since the day the great judgment came.
He writes: “The NRO judgment must be implemented in letter and spirit un-conditionally. All that is required is that action be taken in terms of the judgment, namely, the government must commence actions within the country and in relation to cases pending abroad, forward a copy of the Supreme Court judgment with a request that the cases, if closed, may be re-opened. It is up to the foreign courts then to take action permissible under the laws in force in that country. In so far as the cases within Pakistan are concerned, unless President Zardari waives immunity he will have protection under Article-248, but in so far as foreign courts are concerned, his request, if any, will be dealt with in accordance with laws in force in that country”. This part forms the core of honourable judge’s article.  Three decades earlier when the generals wanted to hang Bhutto, eight out of ten articles used to deliver the similar message, ‘the judgment must be implemented to establish all are equal before law of the land’.
No sir, in the land of pure some people are more equal than the rest. Has anybody gone to the depth of this statement: ‘He should have the courage to commit that he is corrupt.’ Some people talk and act like gods. Law of land is not meant for them. They are here to punish or pardon only. We respect them even if they help those who abrogate the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, the soul of nation.  On the other hand we humiliate, hate and even kill or attempt to crush those who create constitution.
True, ‘Constitution is the ‘Rooh of a nation’ and an independent Judiciary is its heart’. What we do not know is that politics is the brain of a nation. None is worried about brain. None realises that if politics is weakened nation too will be weakened; and if politics is crushed, nation too will die.
We faced half death when East Pakistan separated from us. Neither religion, nor army, nor bureaucracy, nor judiciary, nor media saved us. Only a political bond could keep us together. The Bengalis should be thankful to our generals, judges, bureaucrats and journalist who did not allow such bond to appear. Today Bangladesh is safe because it is a secular social democratic state. Today Bangladesh is safe because it is in safe (political) hands.
Yesterday we were, again, a divided people. The assassination of Bugti, the march of Taliban towards Swat and stopping the deposed Chief Justice from entering Karachi on May 12, 2007 are three of the numerous examples that show intensity of the then divide. Today Pakistan is not perfectly united but it is not terribly divided either. Today Chief Justice can go wherever he likes and the Chief of Army Staff can visit front lines with pride. Today we have political unity whose nucleus is none other than the President of Pakistan.
The Chief of Army Staff, Chief Justice and Mufti-e-Azam(s) of Pakistan can help strengthen or weaken political bond; they cannot create it.  If we can bury the past of our generals and judges, which is sinful given their treatment to the Constitution, why cannot we bury the past, which is not, even, so far proven sinful, of the politicians.
Emotionalism is very much a human quality, but it is of little use when it comes to seeking solutions of problems. What is required is to have and own wisdom. And wisdom is a thing that is function of brain.  Never before were we as wise as we are today; because never before was politics as strong as it is today. This is why, never before was resistance to emergence of politics as open as it is today.
We are not looking for solutions; we want to humiliate nation’s brain, the political institutions, by attacking brain’s nucleus, the president. We do not want to share political power and economic resources with the provinces and people. We want to keep the sixty three year old budgetary equation, which has nothing for people, intact. Nothing is left with the government after fulfilling the loan obligations and meeting the defence and administrative expenditures. The equation is balanced by adding more loans to its public sector side. The equation will remain unbalanced as long as instability exists. The people who are more equal then the rest will try their utmost to have instability around. This is the story that our politicians are trying to tell and change. They tell more. The enemies (of Pakistan) are within.