Daily Times

It seems that a mullah with the same name as mine (Mansoor/Mansour) was killed by a United States (US) drone within Pakistan. The victim of the drone as was discovered was the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Presumably, the dead man comes out the worst in this situation but Pakistan might have to worry a bit about what comes next. The perfidious Americans could well subject all the ‘imaginary members’ of the ‘non-existent Quetta Shura’ to death by drone within the province of Balochistan. And that would be bad for all concerned other than the Americans.

First, I have some thoughts about the victim. He was a religious man fighting a religious war, and as such based on his eschatological imperatives, after being killed by the enemy he immediately arrived in his eternal abode where there is much milk and honey, and presumably dozens of eternal virgins to provide him comfort, joy and happiness. Now all those that believe in similar results of fighting and dying should be ecstatic that the mullah made it to the place where he and all his co-believers want to arrive at as soon as possible. As such in my opinion all of the Mullah’s supporters and friends should thank the US for its action that fulfilled the mullah’s true desires. As a matter of fact during the days of ‘enlightened moderation’, Pakistani officialdom sort of welcomed these drone strikes that sent many true believers to the heaven that they so avidly wished to visit permanently. And I have a vague suspicion that things have not changed too much recently either.

However, what the most interesting consequence of the aforementioned drone strike was the fact that the mullah’s ‘Pakistani’ identification card as well as his Pakistani passport survived while much else did not. Miracles do happen. And as expected these ‘documents’ suggested that the ‘victim’ was an innocent Pakistani citizen who had evidently gone to Iran for a possible pleasure trip. But our relevant federal minister in a moment of great grief made the decision that these ID cards were not entirely ‘kosher’, and therefore ID cards of the entire nation must be verified. Interesting logic. And that is indeed a tall order when close to 180 million cards will have to be verified. And that too in a country where a national census is not being held for reasons that will apply to the attempt to verify the identity cards. Of course if we lived in a reasonable country where reasonable people ran things, the reasonable thing to do would be to carry out a national census that would allow simultaneous checking of the ID cards. Simple!

So I have been thinking about how all ID cards will be verified. Having 180 million people turn up at NADRA offices will take 10 years to get all their cards checked out and create traffic nightmares that will make the present traffic nightmares in Lahore due to ongoing construction look like a walk in the park. I suppose then the first proper TORs will be developed, and a lot of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers will be hired that will go door to door and verify the cards. It will also be a great employment opportunity for PML-N women workers for you will need women to verify women card holders. Door to door visits of course could be hazardous to the health of verifiers visiting certain areas and certain people in Pakistan. The reverse could also be true though in a slightly different way.

I can just imagine a conversation between a verifier and a cardholder. Verifier: I am sorry, sir, but your matriculation certificate does not look genuine, do you have any other document that proves you really are who you say you are? Cardholder: Well that is what I used to get the ID card, what else do you need? Verifier: (Cough, cough). That is a nice looking car you have in your driveway, it must have cost a lot of money. Card Holder: Yes it did. Verifier: Do you have your father’s matriculation certificate? Cardholder: My father never did his matriculation. Verifier: What about your mother’s matriculation certificate? Cardholder: She did not matriculate either. Verifier: What about a copy of your bachelor’s degree? Cardholder: I never graduated. Verifier: That is indeed a nice car. You have a nice house too. (Cough, cough). So what should we do about verifying your ID card?

And yes dear reader, by now you have a pretty good idea where this conversation is going to end. It is obvious that law-abiding persons who are unable to get their cards verified will be in serious trouble. The minister responsible for official revenue generation might decide that all people that cannot get their cards verified should pay a large amount of money even if it cannot be verified that they actually exist.

And then there are situations where verifying anything let alone an ID card is extremely dangerous, the recently deceased being a perfect example of a dangerous cardholder to verify if he were still alive. So in situations like these we will need the brave members of our security forces to do the needful, and that might be to kill the cardholders so that their cards can be verified. In difficult situations our civilian verifiers will in the interests of personal safety probably just verify certain cards without checking the cardholders in person. Obviously, a list of cardholders that do not need to be verified will also be created. And we all know that that list will include most of the people whose cards really need to be verified. So, much like our roadside security checkpoints, only innocent citizens will have to go through the inconvenience of having their ID cards verified while those that need to be verified will find a way to get around it.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians
of North America (APPNA)