Pirs:The
Real Rulers of Minds and Souls in Pakistan
Dr
Zafar Altaf
WHERE
IS the writ of the federal government? Very limited and very insignificant.
The budget touches very few of the population and the social actions
of the Federal Government are conspicuous by their absence.
Imagine
what the budget does to the poor living in remote areas. If some
one is breaking out of the poverty line the budget is there to
make them go back to square one. Imagine what the budget has done
to the poor.
The
unskilled worker and the semi-skilled workers are in the infrastructure
projects. As a result of the changes brought about in the carriage
of these goods the cost has escalated by about 25%. How has that
happened? Well it seems that the carriage people were carrying
a bigger load of crush and other building materials and the carrying
contractors have been heavily fined. So what was built for 25%
less has now escalated by that amount?
What
does that do to the poor? It pushes them in to the lap of the
Pirs of this country. The will of God works on them to their detriment.
And the poor have this uncanny ability to see a religious person
as only they can see. There can be no arguments about it.
That
is for the poor and we will examine at a later date the implications
of this. The political leaders of this country may consider themselves
at the head of the country but they do not rule this country.
It is the Soofis of old the Bulleh Shah, the kalam (verses)
of Sultan Bahu and the works of Baba Farid to name only a few.
There are others in the pir system. The most famous amongst them
belongs to the Chishtian Khandan starting with Data Ganj Buksh,
Hazrat Mian Mir and this silsila (thread) goes to Ajmer
Sharif after the Delhi Aulias.
The
spiritual guidance and the impact of this system is unbelievable.
In Islamabad we have the Golra Sharif and then there is the Bari
Imam. But of late some of the Pirs are educated and have had some
kind of foreign education.
Gen.
Zia ul Haq, a God fearing President, was a Pir frightened President.
He used to go regularly to Faisalabad and seek guidance from his
Faisalabad Pir. It helped as long as it did and then it went berserk.
The Pir could not save him.
After
a long ride on the country he went down in the plane coming from
Bahawalpur. I was supposed to have flown with him [I was on tour
to Cholistan] but I was annoyed because my guests accommodation
in the local circuit house was canceled and we settled for Panjnad.
That is how the system works as my staying would surely have taken
me to the next kingdom. That was not to be and I had to live another
day to make my statements.
Nawaz
Sharif had his pir in an educated gentleman Jehangir by name.
When the time came the Pir was unable to help him. BB had her
Pirs. The Abbotabad one-called Dhamaka pir. He was used to using
his stick on people.
BB
had other local and bureaucratic Pirs and one who used to give
him Tawiz was none other than the leader of the ‘Allah
hoo’ group Qazi Alimullah. Qazi Alimullah was a God
fearing soul and besides that he had risen to great heights and
at that particular time was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning
Commission. I used to say that he was capable of meeting any aspect
dependent on the situation. His exponential experience had been
such.
When
things were not going right for BB she made a definitive statement
to Qazi Alimullah in one of the Cabinet meetings and said ‘Qazi
Sahib Aap Key tawiz to ultey par rahi hain’ [Your amulets
is doing the reverse of what you said]. Qazi sahib was perplexed
and said ‘Is jumairat ko main khas dua karoon Ga’
[I will specially pray for you this Thursday].
I
was Qazi Sahib’s neighbor and I recall the Majlis he had
every Thursday in which Qazi Sahib would emerge with a Choga
[specially designed long Coat] and sermon his faithful's.
I was asked to join in but I was a bit afraid of the whole thing
and in sequence I had always imagined that this formulae was for
people who had some internal inconsistency. During this period
I noticed that Thursday was a full day and Qazi Sahib was at his
spiritual and regal best. He was given to spirituality. Whether
it worked in this manner or not I would not know.
Then
there was the versatile CM Anwar the Chairman of the Pakistan
Agricultural Research Council and the President of the Quran Society
who was also the ‘gadi nashin’ of a Dargah
in Gujranwala that actually belonged to the father of the then
IG of Police, Islamabad. The IG’s mother and CM used to
give amulets especially for BB. That was the rumor going and whether
it was actually done or not is difficult to say but CM took a
lot of administrative kudos out of it.
So much so that at the death bed of the IG’s father CM Anwar
was made the heir to the dargah and became the spiritual
father of the IG and his family. The IG faulted when he was promoted
and put on 4 stars on his jeep. The Army protested because being
and having a star was their prerogative. Not only the stars came
down, the IG was made OSD. He was my age and we had been together
at College and studied the same subjects. The IG had some serious
illness and he was to go for a medical but the versatile CM Anwar
as his spiritual guide and mentor told him that he would be cured
by his ‘Dum’ and the puff of air that holy men generally
throw at the ill after reciting a holy verse.
The
sickness was serious and the IG died suddenly. He was a noble
soul [one should not talk irreverently of the dead] and a pretty
career was cut short.
Why this fetish with the spiritual mystics. The governance factor
is complex and infinitely more with all kinds of uncertainties
that come one’s way. The PMs have been internally unable
to weather the storm. The emergence of these came in the second
half of BB’s tenure. NS with all his bravado was internally
not more than the average Pakistani.
The
first two years of BB were excellent so far as governance was
concerned. Then party faithful started giving way. There is nothing
more certain than when the top loyalists start criticizing their
own boss. The team over a period of time does not hold. BB’s
strong loyalists and party stalwarts joined the care-taker.
Meraj
Khalid [God may look after his soul and may he be in perpetual
peace] who as Bhutto loyalist was made the Chief Minister of Punjab
was nothing but an out and out Surkha [Communist/red]. He became
a turncoat despite the fact that he was made the Rector of the
Islamic International University Islamabad. With no credentials
as to education he held this lucrative job [paid in $] and did
a somersault when BB’s government was toppled. Disgraceful
is a mild word for then he went on to do every thing that was
uncivilized.
The
cabinet meeting would be a meeting of the kind that cannot be
denied. He was heading a meeting of people committed to arrest
as many of they could lay hands on and bureaucracy readily shared
this attitude for they were interested in getting their own enemies
or supposed enemies. It was top turf for that period. Each Minister
would say I will be giving in names of 14 collaborators who should
be arrested and the cases against them are watertight.
One
minister in the former regime of BB was accused of having taken
away 15 million dollars. The Minister would be an idiot to stay
with that kind of money in Pakistan. The newspapers of the time
had special instructions to print adversely against the regime
that had been ousted.
But
why this uncertainty? The macro governance may be one aspect but
surely there must be some other causes? For one thing anyone who
is out of power is asked to go to the jail. All kinds of actions
are suggested and all kinds of accusations made that are not justified
later on.
How
can this be corrected? I have always advocated that in public
service public interest is paramount and if any one uses that
public interest for private reasons he should be taken to task.
But what about the whistle blower he is never taken to task for
the wrong whistle blowing? If he cannot prove his case surely
he should be sent to jail. That is what is needed.
The unintended consequence of all this for the power seekers is
to seek crutches outside the realm. In the case of Zia it came
when he took on a political role. As long as the Army was with
him he was all right and he could defy his foes. When that became
uncertain he sought other avenues. The external factors also contribute
to this uncertainty. These could be within the country or without.
Basically
the Pirs, so far as governance is concerned, are unable to cope
with the situation when powerful forces come in conflict. The
ignoble curiosities of the Pakistani mind are difficult to explain.
When evil ends direct actions nothing positive will ever come
out. In fact the advantage of BB was that she had thought lines
and she was capable of doing well by the republic but the continuous
hammering and the continuous accusations undermined the very basis
of that governance and that thoughtfulness.
Kargil is an excellent example of how if we do not manage our
thoughts and arrange our ideas the battle stands against us and
we are defeated at many fronts. Success in actions is dependent
on theorists. And theorists cannot be people who have never been
thinking.
Imagine
the ones that we go to. At Pakpattan where the on going Chistian
Khandan have their Dargah and one of the chain that ultimately
ends at Ajmer Sharif the annual urs are nothing but an illustration
of how uncertain and insecure this society is. Education is supposed
to take care of these uncertainties but that is a total failure.
The
proxy for education is to see the growing influence of these mystics,
around Islamabad, in Sindh and in fact anywhere. It is interesting
to see how a new one comes up. It takes time and it can be done
anywhere and once he occupies public land nothing can be done
about it. The influence of these mystics and dargah people is
increasing and it is they who rule the minds of the average Pakistanis
and in some cases all the powerful people have been subjected
to its influence.
When
will the current situation change? It will. There are moments
in one’s life that are unexplained by the limitations of
one’s mind. There just seems to be no logical reason for
it. And yet it occurs. As things get more and more complex the
will of the Mystics and of the Pirs will keep on increasing. The
internal world of the power based has never gone into reason and
rationality.
Once
in power they go for the jugular. Once out of power they touch
the ankles. How will this change? Not by a magic wand. It requires
that all institutions of the republic work in tandem and at a
growing rate of improvement. I have always advocated that when
things improve it is not by the money that you pump in but by
the wisdom and knowledge that one takes to a situation.
There
is no way that a willfully committed crime can go away unpunished.
But then man-made laws are erroneous and error begets error. It
is the same for rational actions. Pakistan has perverted truths
and in doing so they have placed the country on its back foot.
There is much to say and the travel is long and arduous and by
now one is tired. Take a deep breadth Oxygen is energizing.
The
writer is a former Federal Secretary, Government of Pakistan
