Dawn Editorials 29th September 2025

A bench of prejudices

FORMER chief justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud has made an admission of communal bias in his reading of history. He told journalist Sreenivasan Jain in an interview that the making of the Babri Masjid in the 16th century was an act of desecration. The communally pregnant assertion parrots India’s Hindu extremists who claim the mosque was built by destroying a Hindu temple. No Indian court or professional historian has backed the claim. The view expressed by the former chief justice sadly bears resemblance to quack ‘historians’ from the Hindu right who periodically write about the Taj Mahal being a Hindu temple. What is particularly disturbing about Mr Chandrachud’s comments is that he was on the five-member bench that delivered a unanimous verdict on the Ayodhya dispute in 2019, paving the way for the construction of a temple to Ram at the site of the razed mosque. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated it on the eve of the 2024 elections. In the Ayodhya judgement, the bench had clarified that there was no evidence of any structure being demolished to build the Babri Masjid and that there was a gap of several centuries between the underlying structure mentioned by the Archaeological Survey of India in its report and the Babri Masjid. In the interview, Mr Chandrachud cited the ASI’s rejected report as the basis for his claim.

When Mr Jain said the Hindus appeared to have been rewarded for desecrating the mosque for decades, Mr Chandrachud countered him by asking: “What about the fundamental act of desecration — the very erection of the mosque. You forget all that happened? We forget what happened in history.” As chief justice Mr Chandrachud broke a constitutional propriety by inviting Mr Modi for a televised prayer to a deity revered in his Maharashtra state. In a slow release of his religious inflections, he had admitted to seeking a Hindu deity’s ‘blessing’ to deliver the Ayodhya verdict.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2025

Divided by disaster

NATURAL disasters demand unity, not point-scoring. And yet, instead of sandbags, Pakistan’s coalition has reached for brickbats. While floodwaters devastated Punjab and Sindh, the PML-N and PPP traded shots over aid delivery. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari wants the federal government to route relief through the Benazir Income Support Programme, a cash-transfer scheme with a national registry. Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Punjab’s chief minister, calls that “simplistic”, saying Rs10,000 handouts insult families who have lost homes, livestock and crops. She promises Rs1m packages. The clash is more than family drama between two dynasties. At stake is whether Pakistan can mount a coherent disaster-relief strategy. Mr Bhutto-Zardari argues that BISP remains the fastest way to get money into pockets, as during the 2022 deluge and Covid. He also urges an international appeal, hinting that donors could show flexibility if Islamabad moved early. Ms Nawaz insists on state-led reconstruction and rejects “begging”, invoking her father’s mantra of pride and self-reliance. Pride plays well; it does not patch roofs. Both leaders are right about something, and wrong in important ways. Speed matters. So does credibility. Large provincial promises are politically attractive yet operationally slow; in flooded districts, households need cash for food, transport, medicines and temporary shelter today. Conversely, modest BISP payments will not rebuild a house or a crop; they are a bridge, not the destination. Sindh’s pledge of a Benazir Hari Card and fertiliser assistance for small growers is sensible triage. Punjab’s compensation schemes are welcome, provided they supplement rather than supplant immediate transfers.

The obvious compromise is a layered design: rapid BISP disbursements to all verified households, followed by targeted provincial grants tied to damage assessments, while addressing transparency concerns with independent audits, real-time public dashboards and third-party verification. The PPP should not treat alternatives as attacks on its legacy; the PML-N should not discard the one instrument capable of reaching Gilgit-Baltistan, KP and south Punjab quickly. As for the foreign aid quarrel, successful states mix domestic mobilisation with external finance and still demand accountability from themselves. The real question is not to ‘beg’ r not but whether every rupee can be traced from exchequer to household. Politics will not stop the rain. The victims of Rajanpur or Khairpur care little whether a card bears Benazir’s name or Maryam’s signature. They will remember who helped first, fairly and transparently.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2025

Justice in retreat

THE judiciary, once regarded as a source of clarity in times of political and institutional uncertainty, now appears increasingly consumed by internal discord.

Where judgements once prompted debates about their implications for citizens, the focus today has shifted to the courts’ own crises. Instead of guiding the public, the judiciary seems locked in a cycle of controversy that has steadily eroded all confidence in its ability to dispense justice.

Recent decisions have done little to inspire trust or repair their reputation. In most of the political cases, the courts have increasingly appeared unconcerned about grounding their rulings in sound reasoning, as long as the outcome serves immediate ends. At other times, they have adopted an inexplicable passivity when proactive intervention was both warranted and constitutionally mandated. This was true of both the case pertaining to the military trial of civilians, as well as the petitions concerning the 26th Amendment.

The judiciary is expected to uphold the supremacy of the law and ensure the separation of powers. Yet in case after case, this solemn responsibility seems to have been abdicated.

Worse still, judges who have sought to defend their institution appear to have paid a steep price. A troubling example is that of Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri of the Islamabad High Court, who was among the judges to formally complain of interference by intelligence agencies in a letter addressed to the superior judiciary in 2024.

Recently, Karachi University once again cancelled his law degree, declaring it tainted by “unfair means” he allegedly used four decades ago. The timing of this extraordinary step, coming just days after the judge, along with four others, petitioned the Supreme Court regarding alleged misdoings in the IHC, raises grave questions about how internal resistance to the judiciary’s perceived capture is being dealt with by powerful quarters.

If a high court judge can be discredited and penalised in this manner, what hope can an ordinary petitioner have? If the courts themselves cannot safeguard their own, how can they protect the rights of citizens? These are questions the judiciary must confront with urgency.

Unless it can restore its independence and reassert its commitment to fairness, it risks losing not only public confidence but also its relevance as a guardian of justice. It is disturbing to contemplate what would happen in that instance.

If powerful individuals and institutions begin writing and rewriting the laws based on their whims, and if a handful of people start deciding where the law applies and where it does not, society will devolve to a Hobbesian state. The judiciary is meant to safeguard the vulnerable and check those with totalitarian instincts. It cannot and must not avoid that responsibility. Pakistan and its people must not be abandoned to a punishing fate.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2025