Daily Times

Pakistan is facing acute political uncertainty these days, leading to a severe setback for our economy. The rupee is on a continuous decline against the dollar for the last many weeks, definitely, not a good sign for the economy. Amid all this confusion, our politicians are busy knocking on the doors of the Supreme Court and no one cares about the issues being faced by the poor public. The people of Pakistan are dying due to torrential rains and floods but, unfortunately, the politicians are only concerned about capturing the throne of the Punjab government. Those who are called neutrals can be seen working silently in this state of uncertainty.

Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has just chaired the 249th Corps Commander conference at GHQ Rawalpindi. The commanders deliberated over the border situation while reviewing the internal security of the country. A rich tribute was paid to those who sacrificed their lives to save this motherland and successful operations to uproot the menace of terrorism were also lauded by the commanders. It has become a fashion in Pakistan to raise fingers at the “neutrals” while ignoring all of their services for this nation. Repeated attempts were made to invite the neutrals into politics but they ignored them and remained busy safeguarding this country, both from external and internal threats. Just think for a second about the position of Pakistan if these neutrals also started acting like politicians. But it is the blessing of the Almighty that Pakistan is in safe hands in the shape of neutrals who pledge to save this country without getting any reward or praise.

Repeated attempts were made to invite the neutrals into politics but they ignored them and remained busy safeguarding this country.

Let me remind my readers that these neutrals are eradicating the monster of terrorism from Balochistan. These are the neutrals that are holding negotiations with the Taliban to ensure peace in the frontier region. COAS personally monitored the relief measures provided to the people badly hit by heavy rains and floods. Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan and it is severely hit due to floods these days but we cannot see it being reported on TV screens. These are the neutrals who are busy in far-flung areas of Balochistan to provide relief items to people hit by torrential rains. It is not the first time that the neutrals came in any natural calamity to rescue the people of Pakistan. It has become a routine matter now that you will find neutrals on the field whenever Pakistan is hit by any disaster. This is basically the job of civil administration but our politicians are not capable enough to build such institutions to deal with such situations. The Provincial Disaster Management Authorities are present in every province but we see the troops of the army whenever the country is hit by any natural disaster. It is the responsibility of these politicians to strengthen the civil institutions but they don’t have time to do so as they are busy every time in the leg-pulling of others.

We have seen in the past too that the neutrals were always there to help the country whenever Pakistan faced a hard time. How can we forget the positive role of neutrals in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which considerably helped Pakistan? A special cell was established at GHQ only to work on the FATF and we got the good news that Pakistan will soon be out of the grey list of FATF. These were the neutrals who brought all the politicians to sit at the same table to legislate on the matters related to the FATF and it paid off well. This lengthy exercise was carried out only in the national interest of the country. It is not the first time that neutrals got active on the international level. Whenever Pakistan needed them diplomatically, they were always there to serve the country. They were seen holding talks with China only in the interest of this country keeping in view the multi-billion project of CPEC that is the harbinger of economic development in the region. The engagement with America is also an example of their services for the country. America is a superpower and it is in the interest of any country to have good relations with the US administration and the neutrals were seen on this front too. The situation in Afghanistan isn’t too far. It is just due to the role of neutrals that America was able to have a safe exit from Afghanistan as Pakistan was engaged with the Taliban for so long. The embassies of many foreign countries were presenting a deserted look in Kabul but Pakistan was in the leading role in that whole episode of US exit.

To sum up, it can be said that the neutrals are not the material to have criticism on them. They are here whenever the country needs them. History is a witness to it how neutrals saved Pakistan on many occasions. When politicians made wrong decisions, these were the neutrals that made them right by using their wisdom. The people of Pakistan rightly term them the ultimate saviour of this motherland.

The writer is an old Aitchisonian who believes in freedom of expression, a freelance columnist, entrepreneur and social activist.