Though the news hasn’t gotten a huge amount of attention in the U.S., given our discussions of Pakistan’s political situation a couple of years ago, it seems worth noting that Pakistan’s Parliament just passed, and President Zardari signed, a series of reforms designed to make the Parliament stronger and more independent of the executive. The package of reforms is included in a new Amendment to Pakistan’s constitution. Along with the Parliamentary change, there is also an attempt to clarify the relationship between the Judiciary and the Executive branches of Pakistan’s government, so we don’t see a repeat of the power struggle between the Chief Justice of the Pakistan supreme court and former President Pervez Musharraf that began in 2007.
The most detailed summary of the reforms are at the Center for American Progress. I would recommend readers read the whole article, but here is a list of the changes that will affect the relationship between Parliament and the President:
Removing presidential powers to circumvent the normal legislative process and limiting the amount of time the president may consider bills passed by parliament before approving them (Article 75)
Transferring the power to submit matters directly to parliament for a yes or no vote to the prime minister (Article 48)
Removing the infamous Article 58-2(b) instituted by President Musharraf, which granted the power to unilaterally dismiss parliament under vague emergency provisions
Consulting with the outgoing prime minister and opposition leader on presidential appointments of caretaker governments to manage the transition to a new government when parliament is dismissed (Article 224) ()link)
And that’s just one part of the Amendment. The part of Amendment 18 that leaves open some future areas of contention is the reform of the judiciary appointment system, where it seems like some of the planned changes are still up in the air. According to the CAP author, the most contentious issue in the Amendment thus far has actually been the plan to rename the NWFP along ethnic lines, as Khyber-Pakhtunwa. Riots by members of the Hazara community in the region have left several people dead. It’s too bad that there is some dissatisfaction, but the change does certainly make sense to me — Northwest Frontier Province is an old, colonial name that only made sense under the British Raj.
I’m curious to know what readers who have connections to Pakistan think of the changes. Will they be good for Pakistan in the long run? And what about India-Pakistan relations? Overall, I think it’s a really impressive roll-back of executive power — the real end of the Musharraf era, if you will. President Zardari has exceeded my expectations.
Ok, how about some more substantive analysis – enough of this pusthun/punjabi/bihari/bengali bakwaas!
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\28\story_28-4-2010_pg3_4
42 · Shilpa on April 26, 2010 2:12 PM · Direct link Indians have a lot of respect for the Pashtuns. boston_mahesh, why this slave mentality? Your mind is still colonized. Respect the Pashtuns?? Do you know about the crimes of the Pashtun tribals against Indian women and children when they invaded Kashmir in 1947-48? Admire the Japanese or the Americans, not the Pashtuns.
Shilpa, Many Indian communities, such as Rajput, Jatts, and various Brahmin communities in the north as well as Menons/Nairs and Coorgs all claim ancestry to migrants from present-day-Afghanistan (at least when they’re not trying to claim Greek heritage). Also, in India, we refer to brawny Muslims as “Pathan”, no matter what their origins are from. And many Indian Muslims try to claim that they are part Pashtuns. After all, “Khan” is a common surname amongst Indian Muslims.
I tried posting the exact hyperlinks for this information. It seems that on the various forums that I have followed in the past, that the Indo-Americans there all tried to link their backgrounds with that of Afganis. However, they don’t really try to find links or commonalities with South Indians, but that’s a different story.
Also, Pashtuns may have committed crimes against Indian women and war-crimes against Indians in general, but so have Turkic tribes, Iranians, British, Portuguese, and Greeks. But never forget that the greatest crimes against women are the female infanticide occurring everyday and also the deva-dasi culture of centuries past which allowed priests to have sex with young girls at temples. So we should not single out Pashtuns.
All I was saying is that
Oh I see. So it’s basically casteist people with inferiority complexes who are bitter and cling to pseudo-genealogy who greatly respect the Pathans. Thanks for clearing that up.
boston_mahesh, Thank you for the thoughtful response–I was quite worried that I had been over-wrought in my comment to you!
Yes, I know this all too well, it is present in my family too, although from my reading and thinking I believe this to be a slave/colonized mentality. North and South Indians are much more similar to each other than either is to non-desis. Wanting to be an Iranian or Turk is to be a self-hating Indian, but, yes it is all too common in my North Indian circles.
Good points. I agree. I have often thought, in a nearly taboo-like way, that many of the worst features of my North-Indian Hindu culture (female infanticide, village women covering their heads, “honor killings,” abusive marriages to ABD’s/CBD’s) are the result of too much cultural influence on “us” from the Central Asian invaders. In that way, I look more to South India as “authentically Indian” (even though I speak fluently only English/Hindi/Punjabi). Also, my IIT was in South India, and I really like the lively intelligence of the people there.