DNA Edit: Political Games

India would do well to treat former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s comments with a high dose of scepticism. The fact of the matter is that Sharif’s comments that “militant organisations are active in Pakistan and had crossed over to kill over 150 people in Mumbai” reveals a truth that both India and the world already know — that Islamabad is a haven for terrorists. What we also know is that from continuously denying that former Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was on its territory to allowing Hafiz Saeed, co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), free rein in its country, Pakistan is unlikely to take any action against terrorists, now or in the near future.

The thing to realise then is that Sharif’s statements is more about internal politics within Pakistan rather than any bid to help India. The first part of his comments, given in an interview to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, was a rather unsubtle warning to the judiciary and military that he was quite prepared to embarrass them on the world stage — especially in front of arch enemy India — if they did not drop or go easy on their charges against him. The other point, cleverly inferred by him here, is that the courts seem to be applying selective justice, as the Rawalpindi court has stalled hearings — for one reason or the other — of the Mumbai attack case since 2009.

As a result, Sharif seems to be saying, without saying it, that the court acted with undue haste in his case, while conveniently stalling other bigger cases. Such a move, he hopes, will win India’s and possibly the international community’s goodwill, which can only stand him in good stead. As for the domestic front, he has already tried to portray himself as a martyr done wrong by greater powers, a fact that was evident in a rally in February this year in Pakistan Punjab’s Sheikhupura district, where he accused the judiciary and military of being his ‘enemies’ and ‘conspiring’ against him.

Politics aside, the second part of Sharif’s comments, given in the interview, should arouse more interest within India where he talked about ‘parallel governments’ within Pakistan and the difficulty of running a nation state in this manner. This problem, which has plagued Pakistani politics for years, is something that India and the world need to look at more aggressively. It is no secret that Pakistan’s military, which has continuously maintained a hostile anti-India attitude, is running the show, for which Pakistan’s parliament is itself to blame. In March last year, Pakistan’s parliament voted to amend the constitution to allow the reinstating of fast-track military courts.  

Under this system, defendants are not allowed to hire their own lawyers, there is no access for the media, the venue, timing of the trials and verdict is announced by the military. Such a move cannot help but undermine the independence of the judiciary within the country. Sharif is right to point out these ills, but the fact of the matter is he was in power at the time when the vote was passed. It is now too late to cry ‘victim’. And as far as India is concerned, it would be foolish to expect goodwill from a man who was very much in power at the time when the Kargil war took place.