Daily Times

The science of colours is amazing. Different colours denote different things in different cultures. White may be a colour of festivity and weddings in the west but it is the colour of sober mourning in this part of the world. Yellow, in the fast food world, immediately brings to mind the ‘M’ of McDonald’s and its bright yellow arches. However, yellow in Pakistan immediately brings to mind scam, fraud and deception thanks to the yellow cab scandal experienced at the time of Mr Nawaz Sharif’s earlier reign. With such negative brand associations with this name and colour, it is perplexing how the Punjab government has revived this scheme as part of providing jobs to the unemployed. The lack of creativity and originality is oozing out of the staid budget announcements of the Punjab government. Apparently, there is tough competition between the Centre and Punjab on how unimaginative and dense one can be.

Governments that have no vision and direction work on a daily survival basis. They find it very difficult to think beyond the immediate and envisage any consequence and impact of the decisions taken. They have only one purpose in mind: to take the attention of the public off from the real issues and focus attention on some passing fanciful chant of the hour. From the Rozgar Scheme to the Yellow Cab Scheme, like a fast moving product announcing consumer sales promotion, the Punjab Budget is desperately trying to offer schemes for a disgruntled voter market. However, the lack of thought and analysis into what and why to launch such a scheme has backfired when the scheme has become another embarrassing exposure of the lack of depth in its design and absolute incapacity to implement it for some impact. The previous Yellow Cab Scheme went into the red pretty quickly and, after 15 years, is still being fought out in the courts on who all have misappropriated millions in the misuse of this scheme. High-up HBL officials have been recently penalised for massive funds fraud related to this scheme. Under these circumstances, it is confounding how this scheme can be re-launched with such fanfare, as if the previous experience had been a huge success story for this government. To top it all, the eligibility criterion for acquiring these cabs is that young educated graduates should get this privilege. Again, the impact of such a criterion has not been envisaged. This is not a developed western country where blue collar work carries value. Thus, graduates may feel totally deflated doing a job that defies their education and qualification. In any case, the graduation degree can be manufactured on a made to order basis as has been proved true for the purchased graduation degree bazaar opened by many MNAs.

While the government and opposition are busy bringing each other down, the country has become an open playground for those who want to kill, loot and destroy. Karachi has a normal shooting range of five to ten people daily. Peshawar has a routine bomb blast per day. Anybody who disagrees with anybody is in the line of fire. While the public and civil society do come out to protest, the government simply ignores them and expertly creates false promises to ward off the immediate pressure and then simply walks away without so much as pretending to be remorseful. The media protest against the murder of Saleem Shahzad and the refusal of the government to appoint an independent commission to investigate and nail the people responsible for it, went through the usual ritual of the journalists — aghast at the government’s indifference — putting up a protest in front of parliament, and then later the minister of information coming out and declaring the greatness of the president and prime minister granting their wish. However, this declaration of the government is also a piece of paper with no intent of any follow-up. The PML-N of course tried to cash in on this protest by sending their leader, Nawaz Sharif, to give another emotional speech and declare solidarity with the media but the public has seen enough opportunist appearances by him to take this seriously. The PML-Q has actually put paid all their chances of gaining any credibility as they have been shamefully silenced by the government through money, position and power.

The problem with being politically myopic is that most of our politicians cannot see beyond the present and the immediate. The government has failed to realise that such acts of declaring and then disappearing are costing them their credibility in a big way. The opposition has failed to realise that encroaching upon other people’s movements is bound to expose their own inability to initiate and sustain public support for a movement of change. The PML-Q has perhaps the most negligible foresight and vision. Their marriage of convenience with the PPP is bound to end in a bitter separation as soon as the power of the government becomes diluted with the passage of time.

The public has now given up thinking that this is the worst that can happen. How low somebody can bend for personal gains is just shocking and disgusting. The deaths of innocent people, humiliation by the US, wrath of the public, nothing seems to ruffle their belief that they will always be able to ignore, appease and dismiss the sentiments of the public. They are very confident that the people of this country may crib, cry, huff and pant on the disgraceful actions of the government but will never have the courage to sustain a movement comparable to the uprising in Egypt to overthrow them. So far, their confidence seems to be well founded but, with each passing day, their own acts of denial and refusal of the reality of the situation are enhancing the chances of a public outrage so great that they will not be able to have enough time to pack their bags and leave with left over goodies as per the Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz tradition.

The public may think that this is prolonged agony but, in a way, it is good that the so-called leaders are displaying the scale and depth of their deception and corruption. This record breaking spree of breaking all humane values will ensure that every ounce of support for them disintegrates and thus gives rise to a completely new brand of politics, which is linked to ideology, identity and integrity. The oversupply of evil creates a natural demise of its demand.

The writer is a consultant and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com