33rd session of the Senate began on Tuesday evening but did not last more than half an hour, as it was adjourned without taking up the listed business in deference to the death of its former chairman and President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
Ironically, even that short sitting of the upper house could not be covered from the ringside seat as reporters boycotted it protesting the kidnapping of BBC correspondent Dilawar Khan Wazir. The poor thing lost his young school-going brother to unknown hounds sometime back, and now he himself is the victim.
Appears that for sometime now the anti-media forces are having the field day: Malik Ismail's murder early this month remains untraced. (The latest report says that Dilawar Khan Wazir has been "released" by his captors.)
Every time a journalist is hit his colleagues covering the parliamentary proceedings register their protest by staging a walk out from the press gallery. This happens many times in a year, not because they are prone to agitating: They protest so often because they come in the way of the dark forces far too frequently.
As a practice, as soon as they leave the gallery and assemble in the adjacent press lounge the presiding officer, be he the speaker of the National Assembly or the Senate chairman, directs the government side to send "someone" who should bring them back.
The chair's emissary would go to the press lounge, listen to protesters' grievance and make promise to help. That done they return to the press gallery. That did not happen this Monday; thanks, perhaps, to the fatigue the government has developed of the so-called free media.
Unlike the National Assembly where Bajaur tragedy overshadowed the opening day and Ghulam Ishaq Khan's death was passed only in passing the Senate had the patience to recall the services of its former chairman. Professor Khurshid Ahmad, Wasim Sajjad, Raza Rabbani and Sher Afgan offered profound condolences, their remarks about him were generally quite generous.
Wasim Sajjad, who became chairman when GIK became president in the wake of death of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1988, was of the view that the late president had put Pakistan's nuclear programme on sound, secure footings. Raza Rabbani was more explicit about "three phases" of Ghulam Ishaq's life-as bureaucrat, chairman of Senate and President of Pakistan.
The PPP-P leader had no quarrel about the first two phases but as president "he showed door to two assemblies. If the assemblies had been allowed to complete their terms it would have strengthened country's institution. It is for history to judge the role of Ghulam Ishaq Khan."
The House, however, could not take up the one-item listed legislative business - to consider and pass the Women Protection Bill (WPB) as passed by the National Assembly. It will do tomorrow and pass the controversial law, given that the PPP-P told its allies in the pre-sitting meeting that it would stay course. Not that the others expected the PPP-P to deviate from its role that it adopted in the lower house and got the WPB passed.
What puzzles one, however, is a streak of apology that laces the party's justification for supporting the WPB. Why was the same not presented for legislation during the two tenures of Benazir Bhutto? There is a question for the treasury benches also. Why was Kashmala Tariq, a treasury member, was reprimanded by her senior colleagues when she presented an identical bill early this year?
As the senators drove to the parliament building a bevy of burca-clad women who carried anti-WPB placards greeted them at the main entrance, protected by an equally big, perhaps bigger, contingent of danda-carrying police force. As colloquial said, "even a bird cannot flap its wings" in the presence of such fiercely looking force, but at the very gates of so-called citadel of democracy so menacing a show of force looks absurd. Demonstrations and protest marches are part and parcel of democratic ambience.
No doubt the passage of Women Protection Bill (WPB) will stand out as a landmark development in the parliamentary history of Pakistan. If the MMA support to the 17th constitutional amendment had opened the door on Pervez Musharraf to go beyond 2004 the PPP-P vote in favour of the Women Protection Bill is destined to give him the next term.
Not that the Bill would enhance his popularity; in fact, it helped him divide the opposition. The PPP-P insists the support for the WPB was a one-time event, but independent sources take this assertion with a pinch of salt.
There is the growing perception that in case Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his friends in the National Assembly try standing apart, as it seems to be happening, the PPP-P would move towards the Establishment.
When that starts happening the law - a simple electoral ban - on her becoming prime minister for the third time can be taken care of by simple majority in the parliament. Her both terms of office were "interrupted" before completion, she told the Newsweek in a recent interview. Interruption is something different from completion.