Ramazan has been a cruel month. A time for piety and forbearance has yielded a harvest of fear, anxiety and vicious political bickering. Terror has surfaced again in Karachi, the city that we thought was gradually embracing peace. And they, the politicians, are waiting for Eid to set another round of confrontation into motion.
The tempo, in fact, had already picked up when the holy month of fasting arrived. But there was hardly any break in business as usual so far as the preoccupations of our leaders are concerned. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s extended absence from the country, because of his open heart surgery in London, has provided an appropriate backdrop to the conflict that was prompted by the Panama leaks.
Now, the opposition has opened a new front by filing references against Nawaz Sharif with the Election Commission of Pakistan, seeking the prime minister’s disqualification for concealing assets and filing incorrect details of his wealth. It is a coordinated move that also signifies a bond between the PPP and Imran Khan’s PTI. The Pakistan Awami Tehreek – PAT – of Tahirul Qadri is also lending its weight to the opposition.
While Imran Khan has remained the main person in this political tussle, the PPP is now seeking to play the lead. There has been some talk about the possibility of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari standing with Imran Khan on the same container. In any case, the PPP is no longer playing the friendly opposition role.
Filing the reference on Monday against Nawaz Sharif, the PPP’s Latif Khosa said that it is the responsibility of the Election Commission to not let anyone who is dishonest and untrustworthy to remain a member of parliament. Naturally, the PML-N’s battle-ready brigade has invoked the past when Asif Zardari had made headlines for his alleged corruption.
Meanwhile, though, a larger focus is deserved by events that transcend partisan politics. There are issues that would not be directly affected by the ouster or the survival of Nawaz Sharif. We have had some reminders this week of crises that lurk in the shadows. One may even identify them with the tip of an iceberg in the sense that they provide a hint about or suggest larger, more complex problems that exist beneath the surface.
One, for example, is the potential for terrorism that such major and monumental exertions on the part of the military have apparently not been able to fully contain. That is why the kidnapping of the son of Sindh High Court’s chief justice and the assassination of a beloved qawwal in Karachi have enhanced the citizens’ sense of insecurity. Karachi has also suffered a spate of street crime. There are some stories about threats received by performing artists and social activists.
The other side of the coin, so to say, is the quality of governance, particularly in the province of Sindh. This may have some bearing on the issue of corruption in the higher echelons of the government, validating the campaign against Nawaz Sharif and his close associates. But this is essentially an overarching problem that extends to all parties as well as all segments of our society.
It is in this context that one may mention the suo motu notice taken on Thursday by Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali of a news report regarding alleged political interference in the Sindh Police by provincial authorities. He has summoned the Sindh chief secretary, home secretary and the provincial police chief to explain their positions regarding the report.
What is very obvious is the loss of authority of the present rulers when it comes to dealing with the sources of disorder and disarray in our society. All national institutions seem to be in a state of disrepair, allowing extremism and bigotry to linger unchecked. In fact, the chief justice himself has repeatedly sounded an alarm about the dire state of affairs.
Again and again, our political leaders have demonstrated through their actions and statements that they have either no time for these matters or they just do not understand the gravity of the situation. We do not have one leader in the present band of players with some intellectual capacity to make a realistic appraisal of the crisis of Pakistan and devise measures to deal with it.
The big question of why and how the seeds of terror were sown and nurtured in our society is largely unexplored, irrespective of the thunderous launching of the National Action Plan after that soul-destroying shock of the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar. It is our great tragedy that even now we are unwilling to learn the lessons of history.
The most recent evidence of this veritable psychosis is Imran Khan’s justification of an allocation of Rs300 million for Darul Uloom Haqqania by the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, led by his party. It certifies the ideological confusion that resides in the mind of a leader who has attracted sizeable support from enlightened segments of our society.
Talking of crises that are sprouting across the landscape, we have this controversy triggered by the remarks made by Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai. An Afghanistan publication reported him as saying that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa belonged to Afghans and he would not allow anyone to harass Afghan refugees in their own land.
If you look at the historical and political context in which this formulation has emerged, you have to be mindful of not only the developing relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan but also the overall sense of direction of our foreign policy and the perception that the country is being isolated in the region.
This also means that we need to urgently rethink our foreign policy in the light of recent geo-strategic developments. By the way, our Foreign Office spokesperson has asserted that no wedge can be drawn between the civil and military leadership as the military is committed to the democratic process. He was responding to Indian Prime Minister Modi’s statement that it is hard to decide who to speak to about peace.
As an aside, I would like to refer to a reference to the Social Progress Index for 2016 in an article I read this week. Of 133 countries, Pakistan is ranked at 113. India is at 98 and Bangladesh at 101. But the ranking for tolerance and inclusion is more alarming. Pakistan stands at 132 out of 133.
It is reassuring, however, that Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ruled out the possibility of an in-house change and a forward bloc of PML-N dissidents.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com
Ghazi Salahuddin, "Crises in the shadows," The News. 2016-07-03.Keywords: Political science , Political issues , Political parties , Election commission , Military leadership , Terrorism , Politicians , Corruption , PM Nawaz Sharif , Imran Khan , Tahirul Qadri , Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Afghanistan , PPP , PTI , PMLN