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| Alice in Daakustan |
By Justice Markandey Katju
One summer
evening a little girl called Alice was dozing on a green meadow when she saw a
white rabbit wearing a blue coat running on two legs, and seeing a watch said,
''My God, I am late''. Saying this it jumped into a hole on the ground.
Alice got
up, and following him jumped into the same hole. She fell and fell, and finally
landed with a big thud on a heap of garbage.
She looked
around, and saw on a wall a big signboard on which it was written, ''Welcome to
Daakustan''.
She wondered
what that meant, and getting up enquired from a man walking nearby what the
signboard meant.
He whispered
into her ears '' Can't you understand ? In this country most prominent persons
are daakus ( dacoits )''.
Alice
asked how was that ?
He replied
'' It is very simple to understand. Our political leaders are mostly daakus
because they have looted the country, and taken its wealth abroad, where they
have bought huge assets like mansions and luxurious flats, as the Panama Papers
revealed.
Our army
generals, whose job is to defend the country, instead of doing that have
amassed huge wealth during their tenure, and ended up as billionaires, like Gen
Bajwa, and they have also imposed a reign of terror on our country, imprisoning
thousands of our people, and violated all human rights ''.
Alice asked
'' But don't you have a judiciary to protect the people's rights under your
Constitution ? '''.
He replied
'' Our judges are only concerned about their salaries, perks and pensions. They
too are daakus because instead of protecting the people's rights they help the
above two kinds of daakus by giving dishonest verdicts, like Justice Munir who
invented the 'doctrine of necessity' justifying army coups, like Chief Justice
Maulvi Mushtaq Husain who sentenced former Prime Minister Bhutto to death, or
like Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court Aamer Farooq who coerced Additional
Sessions Judge Humayun Dilawar into giving a dishonest judgment against former
Prime Minister imran Khan and sending him to jail for 3 years, to deprive him
of the right to contest elections, and promptly rewarded him by sending him and
his family to London ''.
Alice was
shocked to hear all this.
She walked
ahead and saw thousands of people with their lips sealed and eyes closed, with
their hands on their ears, carrying placards which read '' Speak nothing, see
nothing, hear nothing ''.
She asked
some people there what this meant, but none was willing to answer. Ultimately
one man gathered courage, and whispered into her ears '' Keep quiet, or else
you too will be carted off to a dungeon, like those who protested ''
She walked
further ahead, and saw a huge crowd of people who were evidently hungry and
looking like beggars. She asked one of them the cause of their plight, and he
replied in a whisper '' All our wealth has been taken away by our daakus, and
we are left with nothing. Our leaders are now going around to the IMF, Saudi
Arabia, etc begging for money ''.
Alice saw
an army officer, and asked him why they were behaving like tyrants ?
He was
surprised how anyone could ask such an impertinent question, and then replied
'' The people are like dumb driven sheep and cattle, and the only way to
control them is by using a whip and a danda. Power grows out of the barrel of a
gun, and we will use the gun we have against this riffraff, rabble, scum, hoi
polloi and ragtag and bobtail ''.
Alice
shouted ''You are nothing but a bunch of daakus'', at which he pointed his gun
at her, and was about to shoot, when Alice woke up, and realised she had been
dreaming.
(Markandey
Katju is an Indian jurist and former Supreme Court judge of India who served as
chairman of the Press Council of India. He is the founder and patron of the
Indian Reunification Association (IRA), an organisation that advocates for the
peaceful reunification of what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh with India under
a secular government.)
