FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

For the first time in 21 years history, the National Assembly met on time at 10 o'clock on Tuesday. Both Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain and M. P. Bhandara must be credited for engineering this pleasant change. M. P. Bhandara had remonstrated with the Speaker on Monday that the House has been meeting late, usually by 40 minutes, every day.
Speaker Hussain stepped in the Hall dot on time even though there were only about 30 Members present, including twelve seven women and six male legislators sitting on the Opposition side. What is more he was able to dispose off all the 40 or more items of the day's business!
In that sense it was Bhandara's day all right, for doing a service to bring in constitutional governance, and to give minority communities a sense of belonging as equal citizens in pursuance of paragraph 6 of the Preamble, and Article 4 of the Constitution that states without any qualification that all citizens of Pakistan are equal in law and that 'adequate provisions shall be made for the minorities freely to profess their religions and develop their cultures.'
Bhandara strived to present a Private Member's Bill, the Blasphemy (Criminal Laws Amendment Act 2007) providing for two years punishment and fine of Rs 10,000 for any one who knowingly brought a false charge for defiling a copy of the holy Quran as well as punishment of five years and fine of Rs 20,000 for brining a false charge for use of derogatory remarks against the holy Prophet of Islam.
His Bill, this time round, was shot down; even opposed by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan. However, he might derive satisfaction from the fact that he had been able to give notice to legislators to take stock of the prevailing situation that had worried quite a few leaders in the past such as Raja Tridev Roy and Colonel S. K. Tressler.
The former Raja Tridev Roy has been pressing the government since quite a few years to constitute a Minorities Commission headed by a Supreme Court Judge to determine measures which safeguard the rights of minorities in respect of employment and education. Bhandara's Bill today had a different context. He wanted to secure minorities of the country from the fear of frequent charges of blasphemy brought against them from a handful of ill-motivated people.
Bhandara of course shares the same veneration of the holy Prophet (SM) with all other Muslim citizens of this country but he wished respect and fair treatment to be given to minorities. Such guarantees are spelled out in the Constitution but he wished these to be documented more pronouncedly.
The guarantee of freedom of speech and expression specified in Article 19 of the Constitution also received focus in speeches made by a number of Opposition stalwarts during the admissibility of the Adjournment motion on the closure in Sindh region of a number of TV channels from airing the coverage of the Chief Justice's historic journey to Lahore on May 5.
Both sides of the divide including Naheed Khan, Sherry Rahman, Khurshid Afghan, Mahmood Achakzai, Fareed Piracha, Mujeeb Prizada, Pervez Ashraf, Liaquat Baloch, Hanif Abbasi, Abid Ali Ummay, professed pious wish to uphold this basic right guaranteed in the constitution. In fact Minister Sher Afghan outclassed all others quoting Quaid-e-Azam's dictum that the 'nations rose with a free press and fell when the freedom of the press was restricted. He later made a solemn assurance on the floor of the House that incidents of this kind would not be repeated as from today, and in fact if after enquiry it was found that the Pemra had a hand in the incident he would see to it that the guilty hand was given an exemplary punishment.
Sherry Rahman wanted much stronger assurances. However, PML (F) Member Khurshid Afghan made a discordant speech that while every one admired journalists for the sacrifices, was her complaint that the standard of journalism had fallen since the days of the great stalwarts.
Eight women and four male Members (Yasmeen Rahman, Mehreen Anwar Raja, Rubina Saadat Qaim Khani, Samina Khalid Gurki, Dr Afzal Pechuho, Ruqaiya Khanam Soomro, Shagufta Jumani, Samia Raheel Qazi, Shabbir Ahmad Khan, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Zamurrad Khan, and Hanif Abbasi) made a spirited attempt to introduce a Bill for making laws for compulsory school attendance in respect of every child.
The proposed Bill comes in the wake of number of campaigns such as Parha Likha Punjab and Chalo School Chalen launched by Punjab and Sindh governments. This particular seeks to actually translate the programme in practice so that the children should be seen attending schools and parents who refuse to send children to schools should be punished for six months as well as fined Rs 5000.
Although the good intention of the 12 Members was rewarded and the Bill was admitted there is hardly a chance that it would be really discussed and made into an Act. Would it not make the government look silly and failing in the commitment of providing free primary education and failure in pushing through the 'Education for All' project it has included in pursuit of Millennium Development Goals?.
The debate on allotment of plots in Islamabad surfaced again, with every one questioning the power of the Prime Minister in giving plots at throw away prices. A Member voiced the feeling that this was done as graft to keep the bureaucracy submissive, while the Member from Sindh, Syed Zafar Ali Shah was quite blunt that such devices were used in the past to bring Members of the National Assembly to the winning side. Shah cited the case of 20 plots given to MNAs in the past to buy vote of confidence against a Speaker. He did not name the Speaker but was it Syed Fakhar Imam he was referring to. Speaker Fakhar Imam was ousted from his seat on May 26, 1986.
Are Cell phones and mobile phones towers pose danger to the individual using it as well as to the hinterland where towers were elected? That was a subject of an interesting debate on Private Members Day this Tuesday.
Parliamentary Secretary for Cabinet Division, Dr Firdaus Awan, promised a full briefing session for Members on this particular subject. We might add that the current threat of gastro-enteritis across the country was also discussed in the House.
From that point of view the Private Members Day was a roaring success. The 40th session of the Senate will begin tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. There, the most pressing business might be the case of missing persons in which S. M. Zafar Chair as well as Khurshid Ahmad, Member of the Standing Committee on Human Rights are taking keen interest. A number of adjournment motions have also been fielded in the Senate requesting debate on the threat to the Chief Justice, as well as sundry motions on the blackout of private TV channels in Sindh.