Unfortunate as it is, both the government and the MMA are playing power games at the expense of an important draft law concerning women's rights. After much public debate and eliciting encouraging statements from some members of the Council of Islamic ideology - a constitutional body whose only job is to ensure that the country's laws are in consonance with Islamic teachings.
Last month the government introduced the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill with a view to removing certain controversial provisions of the Hudood laws, which were introduced by General Ziaul Haq's military regime as part of an Islamization campaign he used as the excuse to perpetuate his rule. The bill was referred to a Select Committee of the House that included representatives from the PPP-P while the MMA had boycotted it.
The MMA, in fact, had always maintained that the Zia laws were in accordance with the 'Hudood' prescribed by the Quran, and, therefore, not open to any fresh discussion and amendment. The government had placed the bill on Thursday's agenda of the National Assembly and was all set to get it approved within two days, but then stopped in its tracks because of an MMA threat. After its supreme council meeting on Tuesday, the religious parties' alliance announced its decision to resign from the Assembly if the bill was passed.
Soon afterwards, a team of ruling party legislators led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain called on the MMA leadership with the offer to form a committee, comprising four members from government side and four MMA nominees, to resolve the issue. And Maulana Fazlur Rehman told reporters on Wednesday that the alliance was ready to cooperate with the government in removing controversial clauses that were not in accordance with the Holy Quran and Sunnah.
Thus even though indirectly, he acknowledge that, contrary to the alliance's earlier insistence, the Hudood laws as promulgated by General Ziaul Haq through a presidential ordinance were open to reinterpretation, like the laws' critics had argued, in the light of Islamic teachings. This change of stance came as a surprise even to MMA's old friends in the PML-N, which for reasons of its own had been supportive of the MMA's stand.
That politics was a major consideration behind the MMA threat to resign becomes clear from what Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, who is to lead his side in the government appointed committee's deliberations, had to say to explain his disapproval of the PPP-P for its backing of the bill. Said he, on the one hand the PPP had moved a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and on the other it was extending support to a bill tabled by the treasury benches.
This amounts to mixing apples and oranges. The no-trust move was a purely political issue and, as PPP's secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf pointed out, the bill is in accordance with the party commitment included in its manifesto, hence its support.
As a matter of fact, even before the government had moved to make changes in the controversial Hudood laws, PPP MNA Sherry Rehman had tried to introduce an even more radical bill on the issue. At least on this one issue the party cannot be accused of any inclination to make an unsavoury compromise with the government.
Indeed, the proposed amendments in the law are too important from the perspective of securing the rights of Pakistan's female population as well as its image abroad as a progressive, forward looking party. One can only hope that the government would not allow exigencies of power to come in their way.
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