Daily Times

Sitting in London one gets to know things happening in Islamabad through television, friends and whatsapp. Something extra-ordinary and much too alarming was taking place but there was no news as if there was a clampdown except social media that kept warning don’t dare to enter the Capital as it was under siege of religious lunatics, roads were blocked, entry points jammed and the law enforcers were having a picnic.

I came across an editorial (November 12, 2017) that the protest near Islamabad by elements of the right wing political elements having come into being mysteriously not long ago, led by Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan and the Sunni Tehreek, had taken an ugly turn and there were signs that it could possibly become worse if the Ministry of Interior and its allied forces did not wake up from its deep slumber.

During their last Friday sermons clerics from the various religious groups holding the protest rally had declared that they would attack families of federal ministers if the government did not accept their demands. One believes that the show of strength by the clerics had been going on since several days. A diplomat based in Islamabad told me that he doesn’t understand what was happening. He and his other colleagues in various missions were scared to get out of the diplomatic enclave. It has been since days ignited ostensibly by some changes in Elections Act, 2017 pertaining to Khatim-e-Nabowaat, an amendment that had already been reversed by the parliament as an untoward mistake.

The swift correction did not rest in peace the boiling hot heads and among other demands, now they want the Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid to resign for what the clerics claim was his ‘mischievous’ involvement in the Amendment in the Election Act. They accused the Minister of having changed the Act deliberately to please certain minority community to win it votes. Their other demands include Asiya Bibi’s case, accused of blasphemy, rotting in jail for quite a long time, waiting for a decision on her mercy petition from the very busy President searching for spine to take a stand against blackmail of the extremists who have brought Pakistan to abysmal depth of degradation internationally; the fanatics want cases against religious leaders accused of various heinous crimes dropped; and others removed from the Fourth Schedule.

Incidentally the Punjab government — a patron in chief of such renegades — was supposed to be acting as an interlocutor between the protesters and the federal government. One must not forget that the former Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan had come out as a fellow traveller when he had allowed permission to the body of the executed murderer of Governor Salman Taseer a cavalcade burial of a hero. The way the protestors have kept residents of Islamabad hostage seems to give way to apprehensions that the Ministry of Interior continues to have something to do with such elements now in the habit of laying siege to the Capital.

PPP in Sindh is the last bastion of political stability in the country with KP running along as Balochistan remains a handmaid for the powers-that-be

With no answer for this question, I had none for the next when asked by diplomats in London what was the scandal about engineering of political parties? This is the query raised by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari too on developments in Urban Sindh where one has been hearing of a war of words between MQMP’s Dr Fatooq Sattar and PSP’s Mustafa Kamal. First the two joined hands one day with too many solemn vows, next day Farooq Sattar comes out with his sob story how he had been pressurised by the establishment into merging MQMP with PSP. His desperation could be measured by his claim that he even thought of shooting himself. In exchange Mustafa Kamal retorted louder, accused him of involving the establishment in getting MQMP merged in PSP.

PPP Chairman is right to ask for a clarification from whom it concern — who to believe; Dr Farooq Sattar or Mustafa Kamal or was it all being ‘engineered’ to counter PPP in Sindh? Engineering has become too obvious and glaring. Is it failure of the PMLN government in minding the store and giving free hand to powers that be to experiment whatever helps to perpetuate the hold through yet another engineering exercise?

Deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is in the dump. His party doesn’t know whether it is coming or going irrespective of the tall and wishful claims of ‘Pholan Devi’ of Pakistani politics. Much more is on the line; more heads are waiting to be rolled in the accountability drama that is being staged. It seems that various moves on the political chessboard are being made to arrive at desired results in the next election — if at all held on time — instead of what the voters want.

PPP in Sindh is the last bastion of political stability in the country with KP running along while Balochistan remains a handmaid for the powers that be available for anyone who would be willing to play ball with them. In this wishy-washy scenario main thorn in the back of powers that be remains Sindh where despite their best efforts to malign PPP and its leadership, it seems to be gaining from strength to strength. And if PPP Karachi’s President — much venomously persecuted Dr Asim Husain — succeeds in putting sense in MQMP’s Dr Farooq Sattar regarding the dirty game that is being played to divide Sindh — it will be big blow to forces that have been envious of Sindh’s political strength.

Lot more is likely to happen in the run up to elections. I conclude with the words of Martin Niemoller: “They came for the Communists, and I didn’t object — For I wasn’t a Communist; They came for the Socialists, and I didn’t object — For I wasn’t a Socialist; They came for the labour leaders, and I didn’t object — For I wasn’t a labour leader; They came for the Jews, and I didn’t object — For I wasn’t a Jew; Then they came for me — And there was no one left to object.”

The writer is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2017.