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| Qadri holding the Constitution |
What impelled a dual national Dr. Tahir ul Qadri to suddenly terminate his self- exile in Canada and come back with so much display, money and publicity?
Is the only question I can ask of
myself in a situation when I've been limited to my guest house’s room watching everything
on TV due to emergency identical situation in Islamabad today.
Is it the pain and love for the
nation which he had shunned six years ago or is there some other hidden agenda?
Only time will tell!
Dr. Qadri however says he is not
interested in power and claims to be back only to save the nation from a total
disaster. He appears and poses to be a
Khomeini- type messiah and savior of the nation and believes he can transform Constitutional
Avenue into Pakistani tahrir square.
He certainly demonstrated one thing that he
has the capacity to gather mammoth crowds. Two factors in my opinion helped him in this
task, the influence of political Islam in our society and the extreme frustration
that the people have towards the present regime.
With more focus on the few emotional
clauses, Qadri’s demands seem very inconsistent with the provisions of the
constitution. As the document which he urges to be upheld in its spirit and totality, unfortunately didn't have any provisions
for a caretaker government to make decisions beyond running of routine affairs
and the holding of elections.
Similarly an individual cannot
arrogate to himself the right of representing people by merely gathering them
together under the constitution. He or
she has to be first elected by the people before he/she gets the constitutional
prerogative of representing them.
Above all, our constitution does
not prescribe any role for our army or judiciary in holding elections under a
caretaker government.
