Open Letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan

Dear Honorable Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry,


I am writing this open letter to you because the righting of wrongs is avowedly a part of your movement for judicial reform, and the matter in question must be particularly close to your heart, being as it is close to your first and last names too.

I read in the news today that a doctor in Hyderabad was arrested, and a case registered against him under the Blasphemy Act, when he threw the business card of a medical representative with the first name of Muhammad into the dustbin. Now I know that some people are thinking well that’s one small step back for all Pakistani Muslims, and one giant leap forward for all Pakistani Medical Representatives, but I for one wept with joy at the news.

You see, your exalted lordship, if indeed this report is true, I see in this ingenious application of a tragically misunderstood law…the Blasphemy Act is meant to protect the Quran and the Holy Prophet (PBUH) from ridicule, not expose them to it, I don’t know why some buffoons just don’t seem to get that… I see in this ingenious application of a tragically misunderstood law the seeds of the Great Pakistani Muslim Revival. Now that a precedent has been set, some of the biggest thorns in the nation’s side can be effectively removed, and some of its most cacophonous trumpets silenced.

I have listed below some of the cases that merit your most immediate, most esteemed, attention. I am sure, once the enthusiasm my idea will inevitably kindle in you has been communicated to all the appendages of the state, the judiciary and the general population, others will come forth with more scenarios too. Then, we can begin to cleanse the face of this nation, follow it up with some aggressive exfoliation, and enjoy the beatific effect of the spiritually moisturized smile we subsequently share with the world.


1) Any cricket player, official, reporter, commentator, spectator, umpire, random passer by who has ever expressed reservations about Muhammad Yousuf, Muhammad Amir or Muhammad Asif’s character in writing should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act. That will really clean up the game.

2) Any school/college/kindegarden/madrassah teacher, principal, administrator or instructor who writes a negative comment in the report card of any student with the name of Muhammad should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act. There should be a particularly harsh sentence for the sentence 'Muhammad is a bright child but is easily distracted and lacks the ability to concentrate on his work.'

3) Any college, school or kindergarten student who mistreats pages containing the name and verses of Allama Muhammad Iqbal (mistreatment including but not limited to burning, tearing, ripping, doodling in the margins or making planes out of or – in the case of the kindergarten kinder, eating) should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act. Since the burden of proof of innocence is on the accused, the learned judge in charge of cases featuring minors must be hardened against tears, tantrums and wanton cries of ‘dudu biskit! dudu biskit!’

4) Any tandoorwala, paanwala, umroodwala, bhuttawala, chanawala, assortedwala who wraps his offerings in paper that contains the name Muhammad should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act.

5) Any traffic policeman, immigration official or station house officer of any thana attempting to write a challan or file an FIR against any person with the name Muhammad on his driver’s license, passport or NIC should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act.

6) Anyone coming into contact with books, pamphlets, promotional literature that contain the name Muhammad, or cards advertising services of aalims offering cures for love, impotence, curses, memory loss or age that happen to be named Muhammad, without showing said books, pamphlets, promotional literature or cards adequate respect (for the purposes of this argument let that be holding them below navel level or tossing them carelessly on to a seat or – in the case of the cards – out of the window) should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act.

7) Any woman who has received a passionate letter from an admirer named Muhammad and, wanting to conceal it from the prying eyes of her younger siblings and/or parents, wadded it up into a ball and thrown it into a dustbin should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act. (This, your lordship, I consider a particularly important lesson as it will teach our women to be wary of a significant percentage of the male population, urge them to toss their lovers but keep their letters, and hence do that little extra bit we need to safeguard their morals).

8) Any columnist, critic, reporter, journalist or opinion maker who questions your judgment in opening these floodgates should be arrested and charged under the Blasphemy Act.

Gobsmacked!

Unbelievable. Un-effing-believable!

I really have no polite words for this. I saw this flash on DawnNews and thought I must have been dreaming. Or that the channel must have got something wrong. But no such luck.

Here is the short report in Dawn of today's proceedings in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, still hearing a case against the 18th Amendment as the rest of the country copes with death, destruction and disease. Read it and weep. The operative part of that report is this:

"During the hearing, the federation lawyer said that the parliament's powers were limitless. Responding to that, Chief Justice Iftikhar said that limitless powers could secularise the country."

Yes I know all about the mis-translation into Urdu of 'secularism' as 'la-deeniat' decades ago and the confusion it has caused in ordinary people's minds ever since. But when the chief justice of the highest court is able to say things like this, probably with all the pseudo-gravitas he can muster, you have to wonder about the intellectual bankruptcy of this nation's powers-that-be.

Free Iftikhar Chaudhry!

And Aitzaz Ahsan believes this man is the saviour of Pakistan?

Really Lost in Translation

As newspaper blunders go, this one is a real doozy!

But when I read Javed Chaudhry's translated Urdu column in the Express Tribune this morning, not having read the original in (the Urdu daily) Express on the 27th, I simply could make neither head nor tail of it. It seemed to me to be a column written about two years ago and for the life of me I could not make out why it had been published today. And why did I think that? Because the headline of the oped was:

"A conversation with Abdul Hameed Dogar"

And of course because the rest of the column referred in glowing terms to "Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar's" long working hours, the amount of cases being expeditiously handled by him while sitting in the Supreme Court, Dogar's open admiration for Justice Rana Bhagwandas - the Supreme Court's senior-most judge who refused to accept General Musharraf's diktat against the judiciary which Dogar had gladly accepted ("It is we who are Muslims but it is Rana sahib who has stronger belief [in democracy]") , his praise for the independent media (the same media, it may be recalled, that had hounded Dogar for his daughter's nepotistic admission to a college over the heads of more qualified candidates), his belief that the PPP government should continue rather than be dismissed by him as 'many are predicting' (much to Chaudhry's 'astonishment' and my confusion since I never knew that Dogar was ever considered anything less than beholden to Asif Zardari for his support), etc etc etc... I thought I was in some episode of The Twilight Zone.

Lost in translation: Javed Chaudhry

Well, as it turns out, it was not me but the Express Tribune staff that's in some sort of twilight. Or at least tubelight. As you can verify from the original Urdu piece posted here, Javed Chaudhry's piece was actually about Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry! And his name is mentioned no less than three times in just the first para. In spite of the fact that his chief protocol officer is referred to as "Hameed sahib", for the life of me I cannot understand how the current chief justice's name was substituted for that of the disgraced former judge who, under the Supreme Court's own ruling, is no longer to be considered as ever having been the lawful chief justice.

 Note to ET: NOT Abdul Hameed Dogar

ET staffers are apparently putting the entire blame on the translator but it must be said that the level of oversight involved here is just mind-boggling. Surely a bunch of other sub-editors and editors would have - or should have - seen the piece before and once it was 'pasted' on to the page. Are we to assume that nobody saw anything bizarre in the article? Or that nobody at ET can read Urdu?

Unfortunately, ET has changed the story as it appears on their website now, to reflect a corrected version. And they still do not have an epaper version for you to see this hilarious blunder in all its gloriousness. But I will update the post tomorrow with a scan of the print edition to keep all of you entertained.

But what of the story itself? Considering that it was an exclusive given to Javed Chaudhry by Justice Chaudhry - a mere day or two before the damning judgements reversing the government's controversial multi-billion dollar LNG deal and the elevation of over 50 bureaucrats to secretary-level grade - probably to assuage the government's paranoia about the judiciary out to get it (the title of the Urdu column was "There is no threat to the system"), you can imagine how frustrated both Chaudhries must be. After all, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had gone out of his way to praise Benazir Bhutto as well, only to see it all being credited (at least in English) to his former nemesis Dogar.

Or is this what is known as poetic justice for PR exercises?

Expect a big-ass apology from ET in tomorrow morning's paper.


*** UPDATE on 30 April 2010 ***

As promised, here is the scan of the article as printed yesterday:

Meanwhile, the apology has come in the form of a "deeply regretted" correction notice on the op-ed pages that blames the translation as expected. "The mistake crept in because the name of the chief protocol officer happens to be Mr. Hameed" says the notice. Inconsiderate man that chief protocol officer.