Military should serve Pakistan only as state's subordinate institution: Altaf Hussain

Altaf Hussain, the supremo of Pakistan's only grass root level rights mass movement -- the Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), has warned that the progress of the country could remain halted and impeded if the role of the military in country's democratic and political affairs was not restricted.

According to the constitution, like all other institutions, Pakistan's military is also an institution of the state that is subordinate to the democratically elected peoples' regime.

He said that the people of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have sacrificed a lot, now it is time for the people of Punjab to stand up for democracy and to send back the Army into their barracks. "When the Army will go back to their barracks then from everywhere you will hear the slogans of long live Pakistan."

He expressed these views in his exigent live address to the workers and the people via social media. Hussain said that when the first constitution of Pakistan was promulgated in 1956, it was decided that according to the resolution passed on March 23, 1940 at Lahore, therefore March 23 would be commemorated as a Republic Day but in 1958, General Ayub Khan imposed martial law and abolished this constitution and changed the name from Republic Day to Yaum-e Pakistan (Pakistan Day).

Hussain said that a resolution that was passed on March 23, 1940, at Lahore was fraudulently termed as Pakistan Resolution and it is routinely commemorated every year as Yaum-e Pakistan. He said that the Lahore resolution was called the "Pakistan Resolution" to mislead the nation while the fact was that the resolution passed at a 3-day convention of the All India Muslim League on March 23, 1940 at Manto Park Lahore, had not added even a single word on the inception of Pakistan.

The Lahore resolution did not include the word Pakistan, nor did it call for Pakistan, but for the creation of independent and sovereign states where Muslims lived in the majority and under the Indian federation. This resolution is also inscribed even today on the monument Minar-e Pakistan and anyone may read it there.

Sir Zafarullah Khan, an Ahmedi was the writer of that Lahore Resolution and that resolution was tabled by a Bengali leader Abul Qasim Maulvi Fazal Haq aka "Sher-e Bengal" (Lion of Bengal) who had also been the Chief Minister of the undivided Bengal while Lahore resolution was supported by Chaudhry Khaliquz Zaman from United Provinces, Sir Zafarullah Khan from Punjab, Sardar Aurangzeb Khan from NWFP, Abdullah Haroon from Sindh and Qazi Muhammad Essa from Balochistan.

He said that Qazi Muhammad Essa was one of the leaders of Tehreek-e Pakistan who promoted the All India Muslim League in Balochistan and when Quaid-e Azam (Muhammad Ali Jinnah) visited Balochistan, Essa had received him. Pakistan's apex court's judge Justice Qazi Faiz Essa is his son whose family is now being witch-hunted.

Hussain said that it is unfortunate that today the sacrifices of Pakistan Movement's leaders and creators such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, Khan Liaquat Ali Khan, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Shaukat Ali Jauhar are forgotten or simply removed from the pages of the history.....even anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam is also been forgotten. The sister and aide to the founder of Pakistan, Fatima Jinnah was declared a traitor and an Indian agent by the country's military dictator General Ayub Khan.

He said that it is unfortunate that whoever apprises the nation about the realities, is arrested, enforcedly disappeared or killed like MQM leader Prof. Dr Hassan Zafar Arif or other Baloch, Sindhi and Pashtun representatives.

Hussain said that democracy in the world means the rule of the people, by the people and for the people but there is no democracy in Pakistan. "Today, apparently Imran Khan is the Prime Minister of the country but in fact that the country's Chief of Army Staffs General Qamar Jawaid Bajwah and his military compons truly hold all the strings."

"The military forcibly drags Pakistan in every issue and every action so that if anyone criticises is declared a traitor and anti-Pakistan. If we criticise the wrong policies or wrong actions of the army, then we are accused of treason."

He asked whether it was the duty of the army to pressurise the politicians and members of parliament to join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). "What does the military have to do with politics? Why the military had distributed money among the people of Tehreek-e Labbayk Pakistan (a group of fanatic and extremist people under the banner of Islam, during their sit-in at D-Chowk in the country's capital). Was Bangladesh created by MQM? Had MQM caused the Ojhri Camp (Rawalpindi) incident to occur? Did MQM bring heroin and Kalashnikov culture in Pakistan?"

Hussain said that the difference between Punjabi and non-Punjabi is that his comrades were being extrajudicially killed, they were being caught and enforcedly disappeared; when I raised my voice against these atrocities, the worst state operation was launched against Mohajirs and cases of treason were filed against him.

"My home and offices have been raided and sealed; thousands of my innocent comrades arrested. But PML-N's leader from Punjab, Mian Jawaid Lateef, had said that if anything happened to Maryam Nawaz, he would not say long live Pakistan. Their offices were not sealed, they were not arrested; their homes were not raided. A case was also registered against him but he was granted immediate bail."

He said that our elders sacrificed everything they had for Pakistan and migrated here but we are being treated like aliens till today. "Sain GM Syed supported the resolution for which Sindhis are still being punished and Balochs and Pashtuns are also being punished. The benefit of creating Pakistan is not for the people of these provinces but for the feudal lords who have formed a nexus or partnership with the Pakist military. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto used to call the military dictator General Ayub Khan his Dady and today, his party led by Asif Zardaris has joined hands with military generals at the pretext of democracy, which weakened the PDM," stated the MQM supremo.

"I invite the people to be ready to form a confederation in Pakistan because we believe that Pakistan can survive this. Under the confederation, independent and sovereign states should be established in Pakistan, and Sindh, Balochistan, Pakhtunkhwa should be liberated; Khairpur, Bahawalpur and Swat states should be restored and all states should have full autonomy in running their affairs independently."

Political activists from Karachi, Hyderabad, rural Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are sacrificing for their right to rule, laying their lives and are being forced to disappear and get extrajudicially killed, he said.

There are rights activists, writers, intellectuals, academicians, lawyers and journalists that have refused to bow down before the ghoulish military rule, said Husain adding that they are also kidnapped and forced to disappear. "In case, the honourable intellectuals in Punjab do not raise their voices against the atrocities of the army, if they do not come out to send the army into the barracks and restore democracy in the country, then the country would be completely enslaved."

Pakistan and military domination cannot go together. The army also has to remain within its ambit of constitutional limits. If the army is in the barracks and there is real democracy in the country, then there will be slogans of long live Pakistan everywhere, he concluded.

( With inputs from ANI )