Daily Times

In a matter of a few days, anybody who is anybody will leave the land of the pure either for a cooler place, or else at least a place where air-conditioning is around everywhere, and where there is no load-shedding. Some of us who have no choice will hang around and complain about the heat and the load-shedding, and make do with decent mangoes. But something not nice is happening. It is getting warmer every year and with the month of fasting falling smack in the middle of the hottest part of the year, we might as well start getting used to the idea that people will die from the extreme heat compounded by self-imposed or socially enforced thirst leading to dangerous dehydration. And of course load shedding will make matters worse from almost every aspect. And so it will be in the interest of all those in positions of power to talk of inanities like the Panama leaks rather than the real problems that affect ordinary people.

As you look at any picture in the newspapers or on TV, almost every person in the opposition as well as on the government side discussing these leaks lives in an environment where load-shedding is not a problem. Nor are the rising prices of anything. And the reason why nothing much is ever going to come of these leaks is that everybody who as I mentioned above is anybody is presently feeding at the public trough, or has in the past, and as such there is indeed some sort of an honour among them. No, I won’t call all of them thieves, but there are few if any ‘political leaders’ who have not become a lot wealthier than they were before they became political leaders. And that is why there will be much noise, and a lot of empty threats about fixing and even punishing corruption among politicians but nothing will happen. I will also not say that every politician is corrupt, but I will say that an honest politician is a rarity. And unfortunately,our bureaucrats from the lowest all the way up the food chain never did have the best of reputations either.

Some 40 years ago I heard an interesting story about a politician. Evidently, his entire extended family collected money so that he could contest elections. The idea was that if he won, and especially if he became a minister then the family would easily recover their ‘investment’ along with a handsome premium. He actually won the election and became a minister, but sadly soon after the new government came into existence, martial law was declared and the chance of recovering any of the investment was lost forever. Even though this was told as a cautionary tale yet this is what often happens even now. There might not be proper statistics available, but for an urban National Assembly seat the winner might easily have to spend anywhere between 50 to a 100 million rupees, and about less than half of that for a rural seat. This money comes from the candidate’s personal resources, and of course once the election has been won the money or ‘investment’ has to be recouped. I do realise that there are laws that supposedly limit election expenditures but they are rarely followed or enforced.

This in my opinion is the basis of political corruption and how it starts and, most importantly, leads to poor governance. For ordinary members of parliament, the major source of ‘income’ is literally to sell positions in the police and the lower bureaucracy in their areas along with influencing the award of contracts for ‘development’. Those that have paid to obtain positions or development contracts are obviously inclined to recoup their own investments before anything else. This means that there then is downstream financial corruption that makes a joke of the very idea of good governance. As far as the all-pervasive bureaucratic corruption is concerned, the monetary reward from it goes up all the way up the food chain. And the political bosses also get their share.

At this time corruption has become such an important part of Pakistani society that getting rid of it is virtually impossible. Yes, a few ‘high profile’ cases like those from Balochistan will temporarily dampen the enthusiasm on the part of those that are massively corrupt, but not for long. After all, the corrupt and those investigating them are all part of the same system and owe allegiance to the same political bosses. As far as the ordinary people of Pakistan are concerned, most of them are too busy just trying to survive and so have no capacity to dwell upon the corrupt practices of the very rich or those in positions of power. Corruption often becomes an election issue, butfor most voters there is virtually no difference between different candidates concerning corruption especially among those that belong to the major political parties. And most likely, it is the corrupt that have the ‘disposable’ income to finance effective election campaigns.

Sadly, it seems that indeed most Pakistanis indulge in corrupt practices when they think that they can get away with it. There are some Pakistanis who are indeed honestby inclination and not out of necessity. Corruption exists in many other countries but that ‘others do it’ is no excuse. Since another columnist brought up Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky in his column recently, I feel the need to follow his example and bring up Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter. “If seven maids with seven mops — swept it for half a year — do you suppose,” the Walrus said, “that they could get it clear?”“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.

The oysters in that poem represent the people of Pakistan, and who the walrus or the carpenter might be I leave to my reader’s vivid imagination to figure out.

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