Posts Tagged Jahangir

Fearless and a formidable fighter, Asma Jahangir personifies the struggles Pakistanis have initiated against shameful cultural practices, discriminatory legislation and executive excess. A frail woman has kept the torch of public liberties, freedom and democracy alive for decades. Born on January 27, 1952, in Karachi, Asma Jahangir during the last forty years has become a champion of women, child and minority rights and in many ways the conscience of Pakistan.

A leading Pakistani lawyer and an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Jahangir is most renowned for her role as a human rights activist, a role which has made her confront military dictatorships of General Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf and the civilian autocrats. In 1972, Asma Jahangir was only 18 when she filed her first petition to have her father — who had been arrested for denouncing the genocide in Bangladesh — released from prison. In a landmark judgment ten years later, she won the case. In fact, the earliest and perhaps the only judgment against a military coup is now attributed to her name. Her resistance to army’s role in politics (more…)

Asma Jahangir’s victory in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections is a momentous event in the country’s political and legal landscape. Even the worst of her critics grudgingly admit that her principled stance has remained consistent in a country where intellectual honesty and integrity are in short supply. More importantly, her reasoned approach to recent bouts of judicial activism has been a source of strength for stakeholders in the democratic process. Almost every progressive Pakistani has been overjoyed with her election as head of a professional body which was on the verge of losing its credibility due to indulgence in partisan politics.

Since the lawyers’ movement created a stir in 2007, the bars had started to assume the role of a political party with an exaggerated notion of their power. Instead of focusing on what ailed legal education and the maligned profession, the regulators had turned into rowdy mobs, televangelists and spokespersons of the free and restored judges. Encouraged, a Supreme Court judge reportedly remarked how ‘popular will’ was above the Constitution. The pinnacle of this approach was the judgment in the NRO case. Asma Jahangir and a few other sensible lawyers highlighted the problematic aspects of the verdict. This was a game-changer and Jahangir was at the centre of this rational discourse. (more…)

The Feast Of Roses is a sequel to Indu Sundaresan’s widely appraised novel The Twentieth Wife. As can be expected it is the story of Mehrunnisa, the powerful woman in Indian history as well as in Mughal dynasty. The novel begins where the other novel ended with the marriage of the long separated lovers Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunnisa.

Mehrunnisa’s long cherished desires come to life as she enters the Mughal dynasty. Even though she is the last wife of the emperor in the harem, the union of love makes Mehrunnisa into Empress Nur Jahan. As time goes by Emperor Jahangir is given into drinks and Nur Jahan takes the reins into her hands. It was not that easy. She forms a junta with her father, brother and the heir-apparent to the throne, Shah Jahan as well with their supporters.

On the way Nur Jahan ruthlessly exploits Jahangir’s love to seize ever-increasing authority and power. However, she has tom pay the price for it. A well-contrived accident in the harem terminates Mehrunnisa’s pregnancy and her potential for mothering a dynasty…

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