Daily Times

We have had governments which have been corrupt, outright looters and terribly callous towards popular sentiment and miseries. We have seen rulers who were in love with their own voice, their picture and their weird ideas of society, religion, nationalism and the world at large. Some thought they were managing regional geostrategic landscape of the region and had the world in their palm and the other took upon themselves to be the custodians of the global Islam. Some dabbled in socialism and ended up destroying fast growing economy out of which we are still struggling to recover. There was another loathsome band of wholesale merchants who skimmed off money from international deals, filled in their coffers abroad and emptied national treasury with a vengeance. In the end nothing worked and predictably so, as a country with no national vision, shaky political system and comatose economy cannot expect to impact regional, global and Muslim world affairs in any meaningful manner.

When these bandits are convicted we cry, mourn, protest and use all kinds of slander against the few upright judges who sentenced them for cheating us. But then we too have compromised on our dignity for pittance. Our minds have been completely numbed by our want, greed and perhaps under the weight of utter powerlessness. We also have seen these mounted knights tear apart our judicial system to smithereens with the impunity and abandon of the Russian Archdukes or Columbian drug Czars and then laugh into their sleeves. Present was the first time when highest forums of our judiciary made themselves look like novices and bask in the grandeur of nothingness and insignificance.

We listened intently to the oracles of Adelphi lecturing us from the high judicial podium on the merits of fearless and impartial justice and then also saw them quietly succumb to their innate prejudice and partisan roots. Justices who granted bails to their patrons hiding in the basements of their villas on holidays in a matter of hours, and the same turning a deaf ear to a unconnected girl seeking indictment since last five years of those officials who shot and killed her protesting mother in the mouth. Justices who devised ultra constitutional measures and justified the same to oblige influential with stunning bails on flimsy grounds after convictions but never extended the same judicial magnanimity to, say, a poor woman interned for years on end for a petty crime. Seeing dispassionately our superior judiciary’s compassion has been quite selective and seriously hobbled by old affiliations, connections and eyes on the future, much less by fairness and fear of God.

While the people were being crushed under the weight of overbearing administrations and the system was busy tearing itself apart we got a mass of howling, shrieking men tumbling down the Margalla slopes selling change, equal opportunity and challenge. People’s disappointment with the existing dispensation was complete and they yearned for a change for the better. The spectacle looked promising and impressive and drew people like a magnet in the hope of a better future, some dignity, merit and justice. They foisted the new comers into the seat of national power in the next elections and clapped happily. Traditional elite capture were dumbfounded and in a state of disbelief over the literal popular coup. It rudely smashed their long term plans for continued plunder and sent them into a tailspin, which should have been a signal of the onset of their madness and efficient disposal accordingly. But regrettably that was not to be.

Soon the hollowness of the new comers to power started to become apparent and with the corresponding disappointment of the supporters. Promises, determinations and claims started to fall by the wayside. Those who were painted black as arch national villains and looters were seen being escorted in great caravans of air conditioned Land Cruisers for trials, their routes lined by hundreds of Policemen as before. After 16 months of PTI rule one has come around to finally accept that these people talk loud and with passion, are sadly incompetent, largely dumb and discordant, and more worrisome are strangely insensitive to people’s deepening miseries and the sense of the real moment. Their insensitivity or lack of will extended paradoxically into the same area which they had been deriding so loudly. That is to say they failed miserably to take the corrupt rulers to task, recovered hardly any worthwhile loot and were made to look like petrified roadside land record pillars by the shrewd judiciary who handed down one decision after another drilling gaping holes in the writ of the state’s and grip of the administration . The case of massive corruption that they hyped about deflated with a big whoosh and the felons majestically walked out of jails with victory signs. What a dismal performance in governance. There is not a single administrator of the caliber and character of Nawab Kalabagh or Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar among the entire flock of this bleating sheep. That is a very sad reflection upon the governance ability and mettle of PTI government.

A leadership that has little sense of the occasion is a living and imminent disaster. Now that the cost of living went through the roof they have panicked. Stopped free medical treatment first and are yet to fully issue health cards. This has created enormous amount of discomfort and heartburn among poorer sections of our society and provided loads of grist to the oppositions propaganda mills. This could have been done in sensible and logical steps. – that is by issuing health cards to affected population in selected localities and experimental altering in the system of pilot hospital administrations. Inexplicably and without taking the students and other stakeholders on board, nearly arbitrarily reduced universities and HEC grants which not even the masons of Jati Omra did. As a result, in KP, their crown performance province, almost all the universities have become bankrupt. Similarly wheat and sugar prices shot up and then they began to look for hoarders and scapegoats. Common people are being crushed under the avalanche of astronomical prices of food and essentials and they are singing sore songs of improved economy. Indiscretion can be judged from the fact that an official spokesmen disclosed in a TV talk show that he ‘was cautioning since months that wheat was being smuggled but nobody listened’.

Their pussyfooting before the criminal majesty of Sharifs and Zardaris during the ridiculous sequence of their fake trials, convictions, shoddy bails, sham hospital admissions, and VIP flights abroad has been awfully degrading and told seriously upon their ability to govern effectively. They kept shrinking themselves and reducing their credibility in the popular esteem as if with a purpose. If they still wish to be re -elected then need to perform like CM Delhi Kejriwal, the man who in the teeth of rising Saffron power of Modi-Amit duo snatched victory in recent general elections with flying colors in India’s very seat of power. His opening electioneering speech was a lesson in public service aand uprightness. He said, “If you think I have served you well then vote for me. And if not do not vote for me”. He was returned with more seats this time around.

The writer can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com