It’s interesting that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif went so far as to admit that Bengalis were not a financial burden on the federation yet were made out to be just that, only to get rid of them, when he proposed a grand national dialogue among all stakeholders to take the country forward. It was also very interesting that the PM noted how Bangladesh now exports goods and services worth $40 billion every year while we have barely been able to touch $27 billion; and that too with an exploding current account deficit. It would seem that the only lesson we learned from the tragic breakup of the country was how to doctor textbooks to come out the victim. But there did finally seem a faint realisation in Shahbaz Sharif’s lament that history never forgives nor forgets when politicians in positions of very serious power make monumental blunders. Perhaps that was reason enough to take his offer of the dialogue at face value because there is clearly a desperate need for all parties to join heads to figure out ways to avoid outright economic and social collapse. Yet the PTI’s refusal to play along, citing “imported government” and all that, shows just how our political elite itself is not letting the institution of democracy work properly for us. Why should sectors like education, health, human rights, etc, not be made completely free of political interference forever? And when one party’s political interests get in the way of hammering out a consensus, shouldn’t it step back in the interest of the people instead of making the people take the back seat only because of its stubbornness? We ought to have learned many lessons from our chequered history. Yet here we are, 75 years since partition and 51 years since the breakup, and the lot that fight among themselves to rule over the people cannot agree on putting the people’s interests ahead of their own even when the country’s very survival is at stake. History, even our own, does not speak kindly of such trends. All parties must put all differences aside at once and agree on an emergency action plan that will put the economy and related sectors beyond the toxicity of today’s politics. *