By Saeed A. Malik
Recalling the movie “Taras Bulba”, a sentence comes to mind which suggests a methodology for transference of faith. One of the characters, rooting for peace between the Poles and the Cossacks, suggests that they put their faith in the Poles. The leader of the Cossacks immediately agrees. “Yes,” he says,” put your faith in the sword, and the sword in the Pole!”
Much earlier, it was Hindus who invented the idea of transference, but that had to do with the transference of religious merit—the good Karma could be exchanged for the bad. Later the Popes started to sell indulgences. One could pay money and buy an indulgence which would wash off one’s sins, or those of a loved one, and ensure a place in heaven for the one for whose redemption the indulgence was bought and sins transferred.
And we are seeing this today amidst ourselves, mostly during “Quls”, when the Maulvi leads recitations of Holy Scriptures and then prays that the merit of the recitation the “sawab” be transferred to the dead person’s account. In a different age when the British were ruling India, they tweaked the substance of transference and centered it on the wealth of India.
Where they did much that was good for India, they more than balanced this by the charges they extracted from India. When their overlordship of the Indian sub-continent began, India was among the two richest countries in the world. By the time they left, it found itself among the poorest. But that, most unfortunately for us, was not the end of the matter. Transference of wealth from us to the British is still being done, only the mode has changed.
Today the men and some women who wield power among us, first transfer the wealth of Pakistan to themselves, and then transfer themselves to England. And England, being a democratic and civilized society will not hand back to us our criminals, because if they do, our stolen wealth shall also have to be handed back! And England will be that much the poorer for it.
Thus, the lure of wealth does not merely compromise personal morality, but it also trumps social morality of such states as have introduced “democracy” to the world. So when you see Nawaz Sharif enjoying Siri Payas in London in the glad company of his two fat sons, and Ishaq Dar serving them, do keep this in mind. However, what is central to such transference of our wealth to the UK is the mode used. This mode is that of money laundering. And it is money laundering which has hung the FATF sword over us.
I therefore wonder if our government has thus far formally taken up with the UK and the world at large, that we can barely be expected to put a stop to money laundering, if those who are doing the laundering are assured of safe and legal havens in lands which voice the loudest objections to such transference of wealth!
And then there is the home front which allows such criminals to escape. The cake of such great escapes was taken by Shahid Khaqan Abbasi when, as Prime Minister, he lent his plane to Ishaq Dar, our preeminent money launderer, to escape to the downs of merry England. And inspired by the example of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a good chunk of our higher judiciary is bent upon removing names of arch criminals from the rolls of ECL, thus facilitating their escape.
The connection between these arch criminals and money laundering stands established in most such cases. That between money laundering and what Pakistan has had to endure because of FATF is beyond denial. This brings such criminals and their crimes within the ambit of National Security. Putting these people on ECL, therefore is, and should be, the function of the executive and NOT the judiciary. This is something that the government should have total clarity on, and the judiciary needs curb its desire to “dispense justice” to those that have brought Pakistan to its knees and dearly desire to be reunited with stolen wealth which they have parked abroad.