Daily Times

Not too long ago, when the bhatta mafia was yet all the rage in Karachi, the honourable Supreme Court was forced to take notice of some of the surnames employed by some of the city’s more fearsome extortionists. Names like khamba, bijli and tyre, the chief justice noted, did not look good doing the rounds in the courts, that too when associated with serious crime involving very rich individuals and a whole lot of money.

Now, though, things have taken a markedly uglier turn, at least as far as the courts are concerned. The Pakistani public usually has a very limited memory span, and even events of monumental importance do not always take too long to slip from the collective memory. So it was the case with the Faizabad dharna; already ancient history. But, looking back, what stood out most was not the government’s usual impotence before a charged far-right-of-centre, religiously motivated crowd — that is trade mark government performance. Regrettably, what has remained stuck in public memory is the employment of filthy, foul language, a phenomenon that has since snowballed onto the national political scene.

The Pakistani public has a very limited memory span, so it was the case with the Faizabad dharna; it is already ancient history. But, looking back, what stood out most was not the government’s usual impotence before a charged far-right-of-centre, religiously motivated crowd — that is trade mark government performance. Regrettably, what has remained stuck in public memory is the employment of filthy, foul language, a phenomenon that has since snowballed onto the national political scene

The court has had to make ruling; asking those who’d go out on a limb to establish entrenched sharia compliance in society to at least remove foul language from their arsenal. Nothing more hypocritical, is there, than one advocating the sharia and spewing venom in its implementation. Yet ‘Teri bhen di….’ is only one of many such slurs that now make a regular mark on the wider Pakistani political scene. It seems that not just the clergy, but also our political, democratic elite, has chosen to jump face first in this free-for-all, no-holds-barred, verbal slug fest.

Now politics too, instead of manifesto and strategy, is about mud slinging and bad mouthing. So when the Talal Chaudhrys and Abid Sher Alis of the ruling party are directed to counter PTI advances in interior Punjab — where the Khan is holding power show after power show as he draws nearer the throne of Lahore — they simply call him a son of a marasi and shed some light on his previous life and that’s about it. It’s another matter, of course, that both would have bent over backwards to have not just the success, but also the charm, charisma as well as some extra curricular fun that Imran was known all too well for. Predictably, other than hurting the other, they have developed no rhetoric to highlight some of their own strong points. It’s just enough to demean the opponent.

Khan and PTI, too, have not stayed much behind. True, he does not employ some of the language of his detractors, but there’s no dearth of words like darbari, Shareefoun kay nokar, etc. And, of course, that’s not all. Khan sees no problem with inviting into the party fold some of the most vocal politicians up for lota sale. Wasn’t it Firdous Ashiq Awan that took poor Kashmala Tariq to the cleaners back in the twilight of the Musharraf days? What with the mention of heera mandi and all? She didn’t nearly go as far as that slugfest between Kh Asif and retired General Rashid Qureshi on live TV just a few days ago, of course. Nor can anybody imagine too. For some reason Kashif Abbasi’s programme probably did not have the ten-second-delay thing they keep when going on air with something as flammable as Pakistani politicians. That is why the Pakistani public got to know not just what the military thinks of the Khwaja from Sialkot, but also what the civvies have heard about the general, his Missus, and the chief they all loved, etc.

Yet his is hardly a new phenomenon in the wilderness of our politics. Way back, during our so called decade of democracy, one of the mainstream Indian publications did a feature about how Pakistani politicians behave with each other. Pointing out how the Indian political elite maintains a public display of manners — handshake, smiles — even when politicians hate each other’s’ guts, such grace is simply missing from their Pakistani counter parts. The writer, from the Indian Express if memory serves me right, even quoted our forever former PM Nawaz Sharif, who said mostly BB and himself didn’t even exchange ‘dua salam’, what to speak of deeper, political matters that are of grave importance to the country and people.

And it’s not likely much is going to change for the better. The court’s concerns have already been lost in the noise that surrounds the entire incident. And the khambas and tyres might have vanished from the forefront in Karachi — after the Rangers operation of course — but the filth from the political mainstream is only deepening. And it will take far, far more than a simple nabbing operation to clean this filth.

The writer is the Managing Editor Daily Times, tweets @yourafiq and can be reached at yourafiq@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, December 18^th 2017.