Daily Times

Intellectuals in any society are a class of people who orchestrate its intellectual advancement that helps the nation to move in the right direction with regard to political, social, economic and cultural domains, provided that their discourses are premised on an honest appraisal of the obtaining situations, are free from partisan leanings and dedicated to the sole purpose of promoting national interests. Anybody claiming to belong to that class and acting contrary to the aforementioned benchmarks is a pseudo-intellectual guilty of distorting the national narrative and betraying the faith of the nation.

Unfortunately, there is no dearth of such men in our polity who have sold their souls to the devil and are unabashedly engaged in misleading and misguiding the people about challenges confronting the country by focusing on promoting narrow and divisive political agendas of certain political entities attuned to creating fissures within the society and extolling the fake virtues of their pay-masters.

They have been persistently engaged in painting the parties in the PDM in the most dismal colours, holding them responsible for all the political and economic ills faced by the country and being corrupt to the core while presenting their master Imran Khan as the only conscientious leader in the country and a saviour destined to lift the country to astronomical heights through his revolutionary agenda.

The thrust of all their writings has been on endorsing whatever Imran said and uttered against his political opponents and eulogizing his stance of not developing working relations with them. Their writings oozed more venom against the opposition parties than the master himself advocating no compromise on keeping them at bay and maintaining the policy of a solo flight.

The law makes no discrimination on the basis of gender.

Even In the aftermath of 9th May they still maintain continue with their propensity to heap flak on the PDM parties by maintaining that the policies being pursued are primarily designed to perpetuate the hold of the traditional corrupt ruling elite which, having successfully escaped the prospect of being held to account for their corruption and misrule has resurfaced with full might in the current times. They are now trying to move the clock backwards through the enactment of laws to ensure that, never again, they appear in the dock to answer piercing questions about their conduct in power.

Expressing concern about a possible ban on PTI it is being professed that the checkered history of the country has proven many times over that political parties and leaders cannot be eliminated through the use of draconian measures by the state as is the wont of the incumbent dispensation. It only enhances their legitimacy and relevance”

I fully support the view that efforts to ban PTI must be abandoned as they are not a preferable option under any circumstances. But all those who are responsible for attacking the military installations and memorials of martyrs be shown no leniency irrespective of their gender. The law makes no discrimination on the basis of gender. It is intellectual dishonesty on his part to decry the arrests of those involved in the heinous crimes of attacking the military installations and the attempts to stoke it into human rights issue. Human rights are contingent upon allegiance to the state.

Nonetheless, there is now a visible change in their stance on the need for interacting with other political parties. They are now pleading that the challenges confronting the country can be resolved by initiating a meaningful dialogue among the political forces to create consensus about the objectives, strategy, and operational mechanism.

I tend to classify their latest discourse as devils preaching sanity and the inevitability of dialogue when their attempts to foment discord within the society and build a destructive narrative have dashed to the ground in the wake of the 9th May mayhem. They are the men who contributed immensely to building a militant mindset that resulted in the enactment of the 9th May episode. But it is astonishing to note that instead of expressing remorse over what they, their mentor and the party did by indulging in anti-state acts, they still dare to throw flak on the PDM parties and hold them entirely responsible for all that transpired on that fateful day.

I think they owe it to the nation to answer a few questions by scratching their conscience if they have any. Why have they supported the vindictive policies of their leader and his failure to develop a working relationship with the opposition which is the hallmark and inevitable reality of a democratic dispensation? Is it, not their moral obligation to condemn the happenings on 9th May? Where was their conscience when opposition leaders were incarcerated for framing false cases against them which were never proven in the courts of law? Why did they not raise a voice against an unconstitutional act by the PTI government to thwart a no-confidence move against Imran Khan? Why did they not endorse the remarks of the High Courts and the SC in regard to political engineering being done through NAB by the PTI government?

They may or may not dare to answer these questions but my view about them is that they are guilty of intellectual dishonesty in supporting Imran Khan and propagating his false narratives to dupe the nation. The outcome of this entire exercise is before us.

Having said that I want to make it clear that I am not trying to say that the PDM parties have not contributed to where the country stands at the moment. My honest and considered view is that leaders on both sides of the aisle have myriad skeletons in their cupboards and have built their fortunes through the avenues of corruption inbuilt in the present system of governance. The country surely needs a new social contract evolved through the collective wisdom of all the political parties and other stakeholders in the well-being of the state and its people. That is only possible through dialogue while the law takes its course against all the anti-state elements. Notwithstanding a cloud of inevitability hanging over, the immensity of challenges calls for sanity to return to the fold. It is time to take stock of the issues in their entirety and find a remedial course to tread. Continued fratricide engineered to advance a criminally congenital agenda will compound problems beyond remedy.

The writer is a former diplomat and freelance columnist.