As much as this paper’s Editorial Board realises the futility of indulging in arguments about different people’s loyalty to the cause and state of Pakistan, through long and often painful experience, something must still be said about the obsession of so many of our leaders with deciding who among the political lot are actually traitors within us. And just as Nawaz Sharif and his loyalists are dubbed the latest traitors, and accused of sabotaging important state institutions in partnership with the Indian government and its intelligence services, let us not forget that this charge has been resonating in our halls of power since as far back as when President Ayub Khan had the founding father’s sister, Fatima Jinnah, first declared a traitor, an Indian agent, and a security risk.
Then, over time, Nawab Akbar Bugti, Former Balochistan CM Ataullah Mengal and Baloch leader Khair Buksh Marri suddenly became traitors, before the nation was treated to the spectacle of the state embracing them and blessing them with some of the most respected and powerful official positions. And it’s not just politicians that were apparently traitors, such alleged enemies of the state were found among the country’s small band of intellectuals, poets and artists as well. For, how long did it take for the state to hound the great poet and national treasure Habib Jalib and declare him a traitor as well? Wasn’t Faiz Ahmed Faiz charged with conspiracy against the state? Didn’t many others meet the same fate, only to be showered with praise once their time was long gone?
Why must we keep going round in circles? Everybody understands the game of political chess that is going on at the national level. People know that the opposition is agitating because it just can’t stand being out of power and it can stand PTI being in power even less. And they also know, perhaps even better than the politicians themselves, just why the ruling party will do whatever it takes to discredit the opposition and rob its case of any sort of relevance. What is more, the people can and should actually lecture both the government and opposition on just how it is the people, at the end of the day, that lose the most when the country’s politicians lock horns over who should get to sit on the big throne. Sadly no Pakistani government has given the people the kind of attention they give their own interests, especially how to get into and stay in power. The latest sedition charges are but another episode in a long and completely unnecessary drama. *