Time to write on water-logging

When martial law was imposed in Oct 1958 the editor of the Pakistan Times, the country’s leading newspaper then, was Mazhar Ali Khan. Praising martial law was out of the question. Denouncing it would have invited the wrath of the new authorities. So a solemn and learned editorial was carried on the exciting subject of water-logging.

I feel myself in the same position. To lay stress on the foolishness, or rather the heedlessness, of the paper and the group for which I write would sound not right beyond a certain point. A working journalist should be loyal to his profession, even though, it bears repeating, journalism is not the first or the noblest of professions. There is much prejudice and ignorance it purveys, especially these days in Pakistan if only we look around us. And sections of it have developed a gift for influence-peddling and dancing to the music of others.

And many of us when we take to our pens, or our laptops, sound more like preachers and keepers of the ultimate truth than journalists out to inform and, possibly, analyse. So it is not a question of loyalty to the commercial group for one of whose papers I happen to write. That, in the circumstances, is not a relevant consideration at all.

But what is relevant is a question of propriety. When, for whatever reason, this group is under attack and I go on to say that it was heedless and foolish, it would sound not right. Nor would it sound right if I were to go on about why the army is angry because that too would amount to pouring salt on the wounds, even if largely self-inflicted, of the huge media house for which I write. Water-logging therefore beckons.

Another problem peculiar to me is that if I happen to write about Mian Nawaz Sharif and his government – and as a journalist it is difficult not to write about a sitting government – I invite the ready jibe, “oh, iss ko ticket nahi mila”…he didn’t get a party ticket in the last elections that’s why his unappeased anger. Overlooked in this jibe is the circumstance that I regularly wrote against the party, and quite strongly at times, even when I was an MNA. The flattery on display at parliamentary party meetings was simply too much for me. And I had developed a strong allergy to Ch Nisar’s long speeches in the National Assembly.

Then why did I apply for a party ticket? In the circumstances I should not have. In weak extenuation I can only say there was the matter of local association. I had left the party when I resigned from the Punjab Assembly in 1998. But after the Musharraf coup most party stalwarts in Chakwal, except for Liaquat Ali Khan and the late Raja Azmat Hayat, had left the party and gone over to the other side. At the risk of sounding immodest, I may be permitted to say that in the 2002 elections it was not I who sought the party but the party which sought me because there was no other credible candidate to stand for the NA seat from Chakwal.

Elected in 2008, I was truer to my journalism than to my politics. And this, as was only natural, put me on the wrong side of the party and its leadership. But the fact remains that applying for a ticket put me in a false position. For that let me walk to the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and beg forgiveness.

Balancing journalism and politics is not easy. I tried doing so to the best of my ability. My old columns of the 1990s (who reads old columns?) are witness to my true feelings about the reactionary elements who flocked to Gen Ziaul Haq’s banner. After Musharraf’s coup, however, Nawaz Sharif, Ziaul Haq’s legacy notwithstanding, became by force of circumstance the leading symbol of democracy. So folk like me spoke or wrote their two-penny’s worth against Musharraf and military rule and said kind things about Nawaz Sharif.

But that moment has passed. Times have changed and if today, as prime minister, Nawaz Sharif still cannot transcend his limitations or override his prejudices, to point this out as a journalist hardly amounts to being personal. In his widely-read Jang column my respected friend Mr Ataul Haq Qasmi has suggested that in some of my criticism of the prime minister I am being personal…because of the ticket and so on.

There is a question I would like to put Qasmi Sahib. Why couldn’t Nawaz Sharif bring himself to utter a few words, no more, to dispel the impression that in the Hamid Mir case he was standing against the army and the ISI? Furthermore, where in the world do cabinet ministers speak in as many different tongues as in the cabinet of Nawaz Sharif?

Qasmi Sahib himself names a bureaucrat in the PM’s office. Where such individuals become so powerful the question that arises is: is this the way to run a government? Pakistan’s journey to democracy has been a long and arduous one. Must we imperil it again because of the limited vision, the limited understanding, of its leaders?

Let me touch upon the Musharraf angle again. Time was when no week would go by without guys like me writing against Musharraf. In the interview he gave the celebrated Indian journalist Karan Thapar, Musharraf named me and said I was an “unbalanced man” – which, for all we know, may be true but that’s not what we are discussing. But Musharraf is over and done with. He is a thing of the past, or was until Nawaz Sharif made an issue of his trial and turned it virtually into an affair of honour in the eyes of the officer corps.

In 2007 Musharraf as army chief had lost his moral authority. He could have ordered his divisions to move and they would have been reluctant to obey his commands. Let’s also not forget that Gen Kayani was head of ISI….reminiscent of “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look”. Because of the lawyer’s movement and Musharraf’s prolonged stay at the helm army morale was down, the army not comfortable with itself.

Why is the army’s mood so different today? Why does the army feel insulted? What has brought this about? It is not a question of being for or against democracy. The mood in the army is not a matter for academic discussion. It’s something more than that. If it leads to any kind of upheaval then the academic positions we take would mean very little.

If Nawaz Sharif is too much a prisoner of the past, if he cannot free his mind from the spectre of Musharraf – who must really be enjoying himself these days as he puffs on his cigar and of an evening examines the colour of the liquid in his glass – those who mean well by Nawaz Sharif should try, by whatever means available, to get him to understand the sensitivity of the situation created by none more so than their elected hero.

Did Egypt not have an elected president, and a party behind him a hundred times more organised than the listless rabble which is the PML-N? What has become of that? Mian Nawaz Sharif was no less an elected leader in 1999. In fact his parliamentary support was deeper. How long did it take for that position to change? On what horse are we mounted that we lose sight of such realities?

That an independent media and a strong judiciary would prevent a recurrence of what happened in 1999 is one of the strongest fictions we have spun since the lawyers’ movement. In the wake of the present crisis we have seen where the media stands. It is split down the middle.

Just as in the past when some political parties were the victims of military rule and others distributed sweets we have the same situation in the media today…which doesn’t mean we adopt timidity as a creed and cower behind self-created fears, but it does mean eschewing needless adventurism and not adopting heroic postures that would crumble at the first onset of an adverse wind.

Email: winlust@yahoo.com