Let me begin by narrating a simple incident that tells a thousand tales. I was out doing an urgent chore. When I was stepping out of the car, a young boy, about fifteen years or so, walked up begging for money on the plea that he had been hungry for two days and needed to eat. I moved away thinking that I’ll attend to him once I had done the bit that I was there for. As I was stepping back into the car, he approached me again. Somehow, his face didn’t show that he was hungry. So, instead of giving him the money, I handed over two-hundred rupees to the person who sits in the area and from whom I get my shoes polished and asked him to feed the boy. As I was about to drive away, he came back and handed back the money to me saying that the boy didn’t want to eat. He wanted cash and had even offered to split it with him. This boy was guilty twice over: first for begging on a false plea, and then offering incentive to another poor man to share the spoils. The dire-situation scenario notwithstanding, this incident is a fitting microcosmic reflection of the moral decay that the Pakistani nation seems to be collectively afflicted with. Part of it may be the outcome of extensive and painful deprivations that the bulk of the society, particularly the underprivileged sections, is suffering from. But, most of it reflects the filter-down effect of the corruption of the ruling elite which has created a pervasive rationale for everyone to act likewise irrespective of the job they do, or the position they hold. Top to bottom and across the expanse, it is virtually everyone taking recourse to the short fling to fill their coffers and move up in life. On the one side are arrayed the forces representing the traditional mafias and opposing them are the nascent manifestations of a possible corrective mechanism rooted in the functionality of the state institutions. This poses an emerging threat, sending chills through the spines of the corrupt and status-quo mafias used to operating by maleficent exercise of the executive authority While corruption of the poor and the downtrodden is generally caught and punished, those who are responsible for the spread of the menace go around delivering nauseating sermons on the high moral benchmarks that they have set themselves. The comedy theatres enacted every evening reflect the sickeningly spectacle so wholesomely with hardly an exception to an advanced condition of sufferance from verbal diarrhoea. Just behold the grand pantomime show. The ones who have been caught with their pants down are the bandleaders in delivering sanctimonious lectures on morality. They are the ones going around beating the drums of their professed innocence and attacking the institutions of wrongdoing on the behest of unseen powers. They do so with jingoistic exhortations calling upon the hapless hordes to rise against the alleged state institutions and confront the burgeoning challenge to their corrupt and authoritarian hold on the echelons of power. They preach that even if a criminal is elected by the people, no institution has the authority to try him for his crimes, and the only court to do so is the court of the people. In other words, the state should move to annul the institution of judiciary and the inherent checks and balances contained in the statute book and let the proven criminal bands, anointed by the captive hordes, rule with impunity. In the process, forgotten are their grave crimes, be these as shady as enacting person-specific laws to hoist a disqualified individual as head of a political party, hurling lewd threats at those powers and institutions which don’t bow before their ravaging onslaught, thus posing a credible challenge to their indulging ceaselessly in scavenging the state exchequer, defaulting on payment of loans, lying publicly and on the floor of the parliament, forging documents, and indulging in incessant political intrigue, cronyism and corruption. Pakistan stands at the proverbial crossroads again. This moment comes laden with both challenge and hope. On the one side are arrayed the forces representing the traditional mafias and opposing them are the nascent manifestations of a possible corrective mechanism rooted in the functionality of the state institutions. This poses an emerging threat, sending chills through the spines of the corrupt and status-quo mafias used to operating by maleficent exercise of the executive authority. But there is hope also. Much that may be said about the past performance of many institutions of the country, it appears that they are making a conscious effort to correct their course. Their limitations notwithstanding, a high level of urgency is increasingly visible to prove that things can be better and, in fact, have to be if Pakistan is to turn the page around. The challenge to this possible transition comes from the very conglomerate that has benefitted the most from the corruption and ineptness of these institutions in the past when they would give judgments on a mere telephone call from the head-honcho of the province. Having been used to dealing with the likes of Justice Qayyums, the fact that the judiciary is undergoing a transition for the better is not sinking in well, and efforts are afoot to block it so that they could continue reaping the benefits as a consequence of state institutions remaining complicit in accentuating the pervading crime syndrome. The need for the institutions to untangle from the stranglehold of the corrupt mafias is a precondition for the country to move forward. Crass sloganeering is no substitute for the need for expeditious justice provided by the courts. Neither the parliament nor any other state institution can stand in for the critical centrality of a transparent, accountable and efficient justice system in a civilised society. If Pakistan is to move forward, the courts have to dispense quick and effective justice to the people, more so to the poor and the downtrodden, as also adjudicating on the conduct of the corrupt political mafias. They have to be made accountable and their cases decided quickly and in accordance with the supreme law of the land irrespective of their position or power. It is then that the state and society will work together to rid the country of multiple challenges which have traditionally plagued it and which have only grown more threatening with the passage of time. Through decades of misrule, the state has been rendered comatose. At the end of the day, it is a choice between double-speed to a catastrophic end, or this being warded off by reshaping the mindset which has blocked the path to change. This will come about by empowering the state institutions and provisioning them with capacity to function transparently and independently without any undue dependence on the administrative machinery. For starters, expeditious and transparent delivery of justice will provide a much-needed moral stature and credibility to the state to assert itself and become relevant in the comity of nations. The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan Published in Daily Times, January 30th 2018.