The latest addition to the ever amplifying political cacophony in Pakistan is Dr Arsalan Iftikhar’s cry. He is the (in)famous son of the former Chief Justice (CJ) of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The doctor-turned-bureaucrat-turned-businessman has picked a vendetta against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) supremo, Imran Khan, who has lately been very critical of his father for his alleged involvement in ‘rigging’ last year’s general elections and then covering up the same. The loudest voice decrying Arsalan’s appointment as the vice chairman of the Balochistan Board of Investment has also been Khan’s, which eventually led to his appointers reversing their decision. This has clearly bothered the young man, prompting him to decide enough is enough and to take Imran Khan head on.
He has now very publicly set himself the target of unseating Khan from the National Assembly (NA) by filing a reference seeking his disqualification on the grounds that he has concealed certain information. No marks for guessing that the piece of information the good doctor is alluding to is about Khan’s daughter, who he is believed by many to have fathered out of wedlock. This, Arsalan believes, is enough to prove that Khan is not ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’. It is highly unlikely that Arsalan will succeed in his effort but this is certainly an unwanted addition to an already shamefully long list of base allegations that mar the face of our politics. More often than not, what our politicians accuse one another of fulfils one or both of these two criteria: a) it is intended to embarrass the opponents and damage their social standing by quoting their personal lives, and b) it is without a shred of evidence.
The PML-N, the party the PTI believes has ‘launched’ Arsalan, has pioneered and mastered this art. In fact, this allegation against Khan was first brought up by the PML-N in 1997. It had also run venomous campaigns against Miss Benazir Bhutto and the ex-Punjab governor and founder of this paper on very similar lines. The PML-N is not alone in this though. The head of a religio-political party has constantly been referring to Khan as a “Jewish agent” and making crass remarks about his former wife.
The PTI itself is accused of introducing a culture of abuse in politics. Its social media teams are notorious for runaway slander and the affront they subject their opponents to. These personality cults mete out the harshest treatment even to people from their own party if they appear to be disagreeing with Khan even in the slightest degree. What happened to Javed Hashmi, the veteran parliamentarian, after he made a statement about Nawaz Sharif still being his leader, is one such example.
The record of other parties is no better either. The MQM once also sought Khan’s disqualification on the same basis as now Arsalan is doing. Numerous MQM leaders have made crude remarks about the personal lives of the Sharifs during a fallout with the PML-N some years ago. Sharmeela Farooqi, the PPP parliamentarian, who herself was insulted by a former general on a live television talk show, during another, also spoke very deridingly about Maryam Nawaz Sharif having married her father’s aide-de-camp.
There is a truism that politics is amoral but to this extent? They will go to any lengths to portray their opponents as moral culprits, based on flimsy reports, disregarding all religious teachings, gentlemanliness and universally accepted ethics of difference, only in the hope of getting a few more votes. What bearing does it have, by the way, on one’s ability to run a public office, whether one had a love child or married one’s father’s aide-de-camp?
It is very unfortunate that in a country where the monsters of poverty, ignorance and violence run amok, our political leaders and opinion makers are busy washing one another’s dirty linen in public for petty aims. What example do they think they are setting for the masses? What service are they doing for the country?
This dirty trend needs to be checked for two reasons: one, it is immoral and, two, it diverts attention and energy from real matters. Strengthening libel laws and adoption of a code of conduct by the media can help in this regard. Only then can we hope for the quality of public debate to rise to an acceptable level.
The writer is a freelance columnist