Why Army is in Sindh?
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
I am grateful to Dr. Saghir Shaikh, Chairman, and Dr. Rubina Shaikh, Vice Chair, World Sindhi Congress, to give a non-Sindhi like me, an opportunity to express my views on Sindh for which I have very tender feelings. Even after having left Sindh many years back, I still dream of the warmth and affection given to me by the students from Sindh (and Balochistan) when I was a student of Masters in Political Science and LL.B. in Karachi University. After completion of studies, I did my apprenticeship as an advocate with Ghulam Safdar Shah Advocate of Karachi who was later elevated as the judge of Supreme Court of Pakistan. This illustrious judge of Supreme Court had to go in exile in United Kingdom to save his life from the clutches of General Zia-ul-Haq. The only fault of this noble judge was that he had refused to pass an illegal death sentence against an elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As all of us know this Prime Minister, from Sindh, was assassinated by the generals. No doubt, any person who is not liked by the generals, can not live in Pakistan.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
The subject of my paper is: ‘Why Army is in Sindh?’
But before proceeding further, being a Punjabi, and President, Punjab Democratic Front, I have to make an apology:
Because a majority of Pakistan Army comes from Punjab, it can also be called a Punjabi Army. I admit that this army is responsible for all the miseries of Pakistan and, particularly, those of Sindh. Many Sindhis have been victims of illegal arrests, torture and even death on the orders of the generals. Funds generated by Sindh are being spent for the construction of military cantonments and making of weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs and missiles. I apologise on behalf of the people of Punjab for the atrocities committed by the army.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
What are the factors that have enabled the Pakistan Army to stay in Sindh and exploit the Sindhis? It is certain that the Army could not stay in Sindh unless it had the consent, voluntary or coerced, of a considerable section of society from within Sindh. Let us examine who are the supporters of the Army inside Sindh. The two main groups are: the clergy and the feudal lords.
The reasons of alliance between the religious parties and the Army:
People of Sindh do not like the clerics who have worldly ambitions like becoming MNAs and MPAs. The saints of the past, were, and are revered till today because they had no worldly greed like the modern political clerics. Today, the clerics attract their followers only by spreading hatred against all those who have a different faith from theirs and, particularly, against the educated people who hold liberal and progressive views. Therefore, most people avoid the clerics and a few voters would be prepared to vote for them. In fair elections, not a single cleric can reach the assemblies, particularly, from Sindh and Punjab. Only the Army can take them to the assemblies by rigging the elections. This rigging is done in various ways. Usually, it is done on the elections day, during the meals break by the polling staff, when mostly the army personnel are left to ‘guard’ the ballot boxes on the polling stations. During this break, the ballot boxes of some selected candidates of religious parties who had already been repeatedly projected on TV to make their later fraudulent success in the election appear credible to the people, are stuffed with bogus ballot papers. Sometimes, the actual ballot boxes are replaced with other ballot boxes already filled with ballot papers marked in favour of these candidates in connivance with the army soldiers on duty who have the orders from the top to allow this rigging. (This is only one type of rigging. As the details are outside the scope of this paper, the same are not being described.) In cases when this exercise does not succeed due to some reasons, the Chief Election Commissioner, appointed by the generals, or the returning officers appointed by him, announce the names of the selected candidates of the religious parties as successful, against the actual polling results on the ground. Few people challenge these fake results in the courts because election petitions take such a long time to be finally decided from the level of Election Tribunal to Supreme Court that before the final decision is announced, new elections are declared. Consequently, the frauds committed during the elections are rarely exposed at judicial level. MNAs and MPAs belonging to religious parties are well aware that they have been declared elected only with the help of the Army. So, they cannot dare to oppose the generals after the elections. The fake opposition that the clerics sometimes show towards the Army, is for the purpose of hiding from the people that they are in league with the generals. In this fake opposition also, they oppose only the Chief of the Army Staff, thus indirectly, defending the institution of the Army.
Religious parties get big donations from the businessmen who get very lucrative business contracts at national and international level, particularly in Middle East, through the contacts of ISI. These businessmen are bound, by an unwritten contract with ISI, to give big donations to the religious parties with which these parties maintain their full-time paid workers and give them military training with the help of instructors supplied by ISI, run their election campaigns and buy the voters and the polling staff. ISI also pays cash to the religious parties directly. Clerics and the generals have a common denominator. Neither has a genuine constituency among the people. So, they create artificial constituencies by supporting each other because it is a matter of survival for both of them. In these circumstances, religious parties have no other choice but to remain silent at the presence of army in Sindh.
Reasons of alliance between the feudal lords and the Army.
Another important section of society that helps the presence of the army in Sindh is the feudal lords. One of the religious-cum-feudal lords of Sindh is well known for saying openly that he has relations with the GHQ of Pakistan Army. This gentleman, who is an insider with the generals, sometimes gives correct prophecies, about the political situation in the country or about the leaders in the opposition, half in jest and half in earnest, on the basis of information leaked to him by the generals.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
In fact, the feudal lords are very ‘intelligent’ people. Feroz Khan Noon, a feudal lord (from my district Sargodha), and Prime Minister of Pakistan during 1957-58, was the ‘pioneer’ in granting lands to the generals. Khuda Bakhsh Bucha, then a bureaucrat from Saraiki Area, and later a minister during the regime of Field Martial Ayub Khan, asked Prime Minister Noon that what the generals would do with these lands (because they had no experience of cultivation). Prime Minister Noon replied that he could not say what the generals would do with these lands; what he knew was that after the generals became land lords, they would protect our lands. Since Prime Minister Noon till today, lands are being distributed among the generals, mostly in Sindh and Saraiki area at a token price at the cost of the local people. The ‘intelligent’ feudal rulers first turned the generals into big land lords. Next, through inter-marriages between the feudal lords of Sindh and Punjab, between all these land lords and the generals plus civil bureaucrats, the feudal lords of Punjab, Sindh, the civil bureaucrats and the generals have become one family and an oligarchy which is ruling Sindh and the whole country. Feudal lords, bureaucrats and generals from Balochistan and Pakhtoonkhwah (NWFP) have also joined this oligarchy now.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
In a contempt application before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, a list supplied by ISI is on the record of this highest court of the country. This list contains the names of the politicians who have been receiving cash in millions from ISI. Among others, this list mentions the names of politicians from Sindh, including the name of a feudal lord from Sindh who has also remained a care-taker Prime Minister of Pakistan. It is difficult for such feudal-politicians, who are on the payroll of ISI, to object to the presence of army in Sindh.
The number of clerics, feudal lords and their voluntary followers combined, is not more than five per cent of the population of Sindh. But due to a low literacy rate (consciously kept low by the feudal lords), poverty, intimidation, coercion and persecution by the police, civil and military bureaucracy, the clerics and the feudal lords have a grip on a considerable section of the Sindhi society. Therefore, no voice, on mass level is raised against the presence of Pakistani Army in Sindh.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
Let us, the brethren of Sindh and Punjab, the descendants of the common civilisation of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, join hands to get rid of the political domination of the oligarchy comprised of the generals, the clergy and the feudal lords.
After a bitter experience of fifty six years under the rule of the generals who are fond of posing to be a Charles de Gaule, an Amir-ul-Momineen or an Ataturk, now we are convinced that without the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people of Sindh, Balochistan, Pakhtoonkhwah, Kashmir and Punjab, the people of Pakistan will not be able to throw away the yoke of the oligarchy mentioned above.
Madam / Mr. Chairperson,
In the end I would submit that although it would not be easy, I am confident that under the able and devoted leadership of personalities like Dr. Saghir A. Shaikh, Chairman, and Dr. Rubina Shaikh, Vice Chair, World Sindhi Congress, the Sindhis will achieve their right of self-determination in the near future.
I thank you Madam / Mr. Chairperson.
This paper was presented by Shaukat Baloch, Advocate, President, Punjab Democratic Front, in the International Conference on Sindh held on July 31st, 2004, by World Sindhi Congress, in London, UK.
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