Going to a vernacular Sindhi school, I wouldn’t have come to know at a very early age that an insect that we knew as a ‘khakhar’ was called ‘bumblebee’ in English had my young uncles and aunts not been die-hard fans of Imran. The other Imran – Ali Imran M.Sc. PhD (Oxen), that is. Imran, who only pretended to be an idiot. The Prince of Dhump. Not the Prince of the Dumb.
The family subscribed to a number of Sindhi and Urdu newspapers and magazines. Those, however, did not include Ibn-e Safi’s Imran Series novels. The novels were not considered serious reading, and young people in the family were not encouraged to read them.
They were not discouraged either. Therefore, every month, one or the other of my uncles would make a beeline (pun intended) at the Chaudhry Rahmat Ali & Sons bookstall at Rohri railway station to buy the latest Imran Series novel.
That is how I got initiated into those novels. I started reading those dog-eared and loosely bound novels after each one of my many uncles and aunts had devoured them from cover to cover, as soon as I started recognizing Urdu characters, and soon got hooked to them.
The series had many permanent characters, including Safdar, Joseph, and a Swiss lady named Juliana Fitzwater (Julia), etc. Among those characters was Theresia, Bumblebee of Bohemia (aka T3B). Ali Imran being Faiz Hameed of the country’s secret service.
This went on for a long time.
Then Ibn-e Safi passed away and I lost interest in the Imran Series. I wasn’t interested in the garbage churned out by the copy-cat writers, who introduced many a bidaa – deviations, so to say – and turned Imran, who enjoyed his evenings at the Tip Top Night Club and had joie de vivre, into a devout religionist.
I had forgotten all about those novels and their characters as time passed until I heard recently that the most honorable judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Mr. Justice Athar Minallah, had declared himself and his fellow judges bumblebees!
Now, Bumblebee could be a good cognomen for a PSL team, but could the judges of the supreme court of a country give themselves such a nickname?
In a country where judges speak more than their decisions do, their observations and comments made by them are taken very seriously. What did that remark of Justice Minallah mean exactly, simpleminded people like me wonder?
And why Bumblebee? Why not some other living being? What does a Supreme Court judge have in common with a bumblebee, except, maybe, a yellow stripe on their shoulders?
Or, maybe, because of the fact that, unlike other bees who convert nectar into honey for others to use, bumblebees consume it all by themselves. They collect nectar but don’t convert it into honey; they keep it for their own use. Who can stop people from talking about the plots of land being appropriated by the honorable members of the superior judiciary in Islamabad and everywhere else in the country? Or, judges buying the choicest under-litigation properties in auction for themselves at a throwaway price?
In the novels, all characters, including Theresia, Bumblebee of Bohemia, provided support to Imran from behind the scenes. They were all his clandestine facilitators. Was he pointing towards the common perception that the bumblebees in the judiciary were providing covert support to Imran?
I looked up and found out that one of the characteristics of bumblebees was that they aggressively protected their families and did not sting unless threatened. However, once threatened, they chase the invaders for a long distance and attack. Their sting can be very painful.
So, then my mind begged the question, why did the most honorable bumblebees of the Islamabad High Court not sting the offender when Justice Shaukat Siddiqui, one of their family, was wrongfully attacked and removed? I think Mr. Justice Athar Minallah himself was a senior bumblebee of the court at that time. Was he not?
Was Mr. Justice Athar Minallah referring to the revengeful nature of the bees? But then, can a judge be revengeful?
Mr. Justice Minallah reportedly said to the Attorney General, “Tell the government that we are bumblebees”. Which other of The Supreme Court of Pakistan judges were bumblebees?
We country folks are taught by elders from childhood to stay clear of the places where khakhar has been sighted. In a similar fashion, parents pray to God to keep their children away from the courts.
Now I know Why? Maybe because they feel that courts, too, like beehives or hornets’ nests, are infested with revengeful, bothersome khakhar?
My wayward mind has now started asking me all kinds of questions.
Was Justice Munir being a judge or a bumblebee when, to please a dictator, he overturned the Sindh High Court’s decision and introduced the Principle of Necessity to legalize a martial law and put Pakistan on the wrong track right in the formative years of the country? Were those judges who subsequently legalized Ayub, Zia and Musharraf’s martial laws bumblebees, too?
Was Justice Maulvi Mushtaque a judge or a bumblebee when he stung Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to exact vengeance?
Was Mr. Justice Gulzar a judge or a bumblebee when he ordered the demolition of Nasla Tower in Karachi to fulfill, purportedly, his relative’s wish and made scores of families homeless?
Were Justices Iftikhar Choudhry, Saquib Nisar, Khosa, Bandial, and Ijazul Ahsan judges or bumblebees who, reportedly, exacted revenge on their enemies and/or benefited themselves and their families throughout their careers?
I can think of at least two instances: one, when Malik Riaz accused Justice Iftikhar Choudhry’s son of corruption and bribery; and second, when the audio tape of Justice Bandial’s mother-in-law surfaced. Whatever happened to those cases? Did the bumblebees not act with full force to protect their families?
For how long can Pakistan survive if the country’s courts continue to be infested with vengeful, nectar-consuming bumblebees rather than fair, just, and conscientious human beings?
According to the World Justice Index, Pakistan ranked 130 out of 142 countries in the Rule of Law Index in 2023. Mr. Justice Athar Minallah’s comments tell us exactly why.
- The Bumblebees - 05/07/2024
