Daily Times

Public figures of any description, big or small, ugly or comely, pious or villainous need visibility, besides being known for how they perform in their respective spheres. Those aspiring to be political, religious or ethnic leaders, leading names in media, academics, arts and sciences are all dependent on public projection to varying degrees, to be acknowledged and known. This need is understandable as it is driven basically by the ‘uniqueness of each human being and demands a definite recognition by those with whom interacting. But when it becomes a craze, the trouble starts. At that point, it transforms into a brain-numbing virus that corrupts sense of proportion first, followed by common sense, humility, capability and finally, courtesy. Arrogance and a sense of indispensability grip the person as agents of his eventual and inevitable destruction.

A certain level of credentials marketing among the target audience is needed by every person hoping to create an impact over people and assemble a loyal following. Politicians, pirs, mullahs, sportsmen, media men, lawyers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists and all such men and women are the potential and frequent customers at the projection supermarket. Of these, most impactful generally are the politicians, mullahs and pirs in our context. There is a quiet but very close aspirant, ready to receive the ball on the circle as they say, in khaki who prefers to stay mostly faceless but does not hesitate to wear the mantle where it helps to nudge policymakers into action. All of these and many actors of lesser hue and presence together focus on the acquisition of state power and their piece of the power pie. Some of these seem to have more or less defined their turf boundaries through state practice, coercion or simply administrative neglect and now guard the same as their rightful real estate.

Pakistan Armed Forces’ measure of self-worth is firmly anchored in recovering Indian Occupied Kashmir ever since its forcible occupation by India.

Of the three main informal pillars of the state power, the Khaki holds internal autonomy sacrosanct, which has been quite helpful in insulating it from corrupting political interference unlike India and corporate lobbying, but simultaneously it has resulted in a highly centralized military system that generates powerful pulses much beyond matters purely military. It also seems to develop a kind of impunity for intended or mistaken impingements into neighbouring turfs and becomes a cause of heartburn, whisper and many a time state systems dysfunction. The flip side of this nearly seamless entity is that other interest groups begin to court senior ranks with a bouquet of lucrative incentives and kosher looking offers, which a few fall for and bring a bad name to the Service. If other attempts fail power wedding, absorbing their ‘qualified’ children in bloated corporate slots or foreign scholarships seem to work. Mind you only a very small percentage out of thousands of officers make it to the top tier of the very steep senior rank pyramid. Thus by analogy, the damage is that much less and can be easily forecast and prevented. There is a lesser-known but quite a powerful factor of peer pressure and subordinate esteem within the Forces which prevents malpractice or waywardness to a large extent.

Pakistan Armed Forces’ measure of self-worth is firmly anchored in recovering Indian Occupied Kashmir ever since its forcible occupation by India. Balakot was the most recent reaction and the way it escalated to the nuclear threshold is indicative of its ultra-sensitivity; a proverbial red rag. The other important thing to keep in mind is that as a disciplined force, Armed Forces had distanced themselves from the pre-partition rage of the Pakistan movement and shifted to Pakistan under a command directive. Their core moral anchor is, therefore, the liberation of Held Kashmir and national military security.

A word about the military’s defence of ideological frontiers. It was invented as a measure to cover interventions into non-military spheres of national life, particularly under martial laws. Most unfortunately, this temporization has tended to shift the national centre of gravity into Armed Forces and made it stand on, literally, the tip of a pencil and that much more tentative and vulnerable. Regretfully, it has also excluded the entire legion of academia, civil servants, artists, craftsmen, poets, writers, businessmen, media and the general public from this extremely important national duty and left them directionless. The disorientation and discord visible in our national affairs is a direct result.

The next class is the elite political class in our country. It is a chameleon of ever-changing shades and hues. These are the people who are supposed to hold the reigns of national power, mould public opinion and be responsible to craft internal and external policies. However, over some time their incapability and corresponding hyper activism of the military to offer advice and help in almost every sphere of governance in the best national interest, made them sit back and leisurely enjoy the perks and privileges of state power and by that token imperceptibly abdicate their prime duty to steer the country with considered political vision and direction. Having shed or outsourced the hard and hazardous task of governance our political leaderships opted for trivialities to seek popular esteem. This includes usual political machinations, announcing ill-conceived but high visibility mega projects like metro bus and motorways but hardly new capital goods industries, major dams, railway upgradation, improvement of the education system or health care. The stark insensitivity of our political leadership to popular sufferings can be gauged from the fact that while the multi-billion rupee Rawalpindi metro bus project was being constructed in full swing, patients were dying in close by Holy Family Hospital for lack of a ventilating machine. This was projectionism of the highest order, in other words, fake and heartless populism. Sprawling 20,000 kanals Jati Omra palace, dozens of half a million rupees worth of designer shoes and fortress-like Bilawal Houses with built-in helipads do not go with a spurious show of solidarity with the starving poor and decimated infants who die of hunger in scores a day in Thar.

While the Prime Minister of the time was busy announcing an international airport and a technical university for the city, a poor mother committed suicide along with her five children by jumping into the canal, as they had nothing to live in and eat. Then we have yet another brand of political trapeze which has borrowed quite a few pages from the handbook of the opportunist mullah in our country. This leadership believes firmly in projectionism via a kind of poster piety or faith escalator. This is doubly dangerous as it combines the appeal of religion with political expediency and tends to leave the audience confused as to where to draw a line between religion and politics. Late General Zia was the first major practitioner of the art of this duplicity and then the streak persisted according to the needs of the reigning rulers till we hit PTI.

IK’s practice of poster piety is catchy and very apparent in his ever visible rosary, a stone-studded ring awkwardly slipped over the little finger and his pilgrimages to Mecca and Madina. That could be understandable personal preferences like Maulana Tariq Jamil’s tight turban but his repeated reference to ‘Riasat e Madina’ and what a certain caliph did at a certain occasion have started to sound hollow as his administration is nowhere near that highly venerated and non-replicable state. The net result is that Opposition and most of our low rated media have made the term a butt of jokes. This hurts popular sentiment and needs to be stopped at both ends. Let IK work selflessly for the comfort and better living conditions of the people and shun this poster piety as early as is possible. Even if he wears a three-piece Bond Street suit but delivers as a PM, nobody would be pushed what he wore. Appearance does not replace performance, stage theatrics are not a concern and shrill speeches show no conviction.

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