On Monday, when Makhdoom Javed Hashmi returned to the teak-panelled circular chamber of the National Assembly after an absence of 45 months that he spent in jail serving a high treason punishment, desk-thumping and 'Go Musharraf, Go' slogans greeted him.
As some of the opposition members went over to his seat to exchange pleasantries, the treasury members, except a few from the Saraiki belt, sat tight in their seats, motionless and detached. Even otherwise in these dying days the National Assembly is shorn of boisterousness and tumult that permeated its proceedings when Hashmi was last there. He was sombre, a bit bitter. 'You did nothing for me. I am here thanks to the proactive judiciary', he told fellow members in his half an hour speech.
"Your impotence has made the entire parliament impotent", he said addressing the Speaker, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, who had all these months and years arrogantly ignored the opposition's repeated pleas that he should order production of Hashmi in the House. But it was the generals that he sharply shot at, offering to undergo another spell of solitary confinement if what he had been penalised for was the 'crime'.
He appeared to be drawing moral strength from the common perception that his severe punishment was more in order to set an example by the regime for its detractors than to meet the ends of justice.
Makhdoom Javed Hashmi philosophised that it is a "new Pakistan" that he has come back to. The change that he noticed is what we all see and that is the prevalence of judicial activism and emergence of civil society as the fifth pillar of the polity.
The reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has given hope to the people and strengthened their faith in their destiny. But that also sends out the message to the political leadership in the country that, be they in the government or opposition, they would be held accountable for their omissions and commissions.
No more voters' blank cheques for the cultic inheritors. With civil society acting as the watchdog the political leadership would be expected to clean up their parties and act responsibly in the service of the people. Democracy must replace military rule but it should not be the replica of gross misrule that characterised earlier democratic intervals when corruption, nepotism, political vendetta and police encounters were condoned.
Surely, the 'new Pakistan' that Hashmi finds himself in calls for empowerment of 160 million Pakistanis instead of handing back this country to the same old feudal families, business tycoons and religious cabals. So, it was not entirely out of place that welcoming his release, Aitzaz Ahsan cautioned Hashmi not to forget that he has left a smaller jail to enter a bigger jail.