A revolving scenario
In all the fronts that matter, Pakistan is on the back foot presently. Having given India one of the severest drubbing in its history militarily, we have had a major psychological setback because of the withdrawal from the heights overlooking Kargil. In the face of world approbation no other course was possible. On the battlefield the Army has carved out a major victory, the world perception is depicted otherwise because of the worst media performances in our history by our media professionals. The economy shows no sign of upturn despite the agriculture sector, only the parallel black economy keeping the economic engine running. The manufacturing sector has shown a further decline. The “Mera Ghar” scheme to give houses to the poor may be a brilliant one, unfortunately one does not know where the money to make the scheme go will come from or to whom the houses will go to. Populist causes require hard cash transfusion, that is in very short supply. The ‘yellow cab scam’ is still fresh in the public psyche. Without any sensitivity to possible social unrest and the eroding purchasing power of the vast middle class, the IMF is insisting on imposing General Sales Taxes (GST) on essentials that will lead to inordinate price increases across the board on mainly consumer items. Ever optimist Ishaq Dar continues to see light at the end of the IMF tunnel.
Except for the Punjab Province where the PML(N) has a brute majority, enough to keep the simmering protests of former friend and former Governor Mian Azhar from turning into a full-scale Wattoo-type revolt, even in the other Provinces PML(N) is not so comfortable. The worst case scenario is in Sindh where the ouster of Lt Gen (Retd) Moinuddin Haider as Governor was a case of bad timing and bad logic, compounded by bad faith and duly complicated by the induction of former Chief Minister (CM) Ghous Ali Shah (GAS) as the de-facto CM. GAS has neither credibility nor any known ability in good governance, for him to face upto a combined PPP-MQM opposition is beyond comprehension. Already the PPP-MQM combination has the seeds of disenchantment with the Federation. Moreover, PML(N) in Sindh is split among loyalists and the supporters of the former CM Liaquat Ali Jatoi. Namesake Mustafa Jatoi, of his own party (neither National nor of the Peoples), in the meantime is busy setting off self-serving rumours that emissaries of the king-makers have given the ultimate signal but that he would not mind being more than a Caretaker PM next time he is offered the job. Moinuddin Haider has left a mark about good governance during his tenure of Governor’s rule, that good governance militated against party considerations and treated every citizen equally, that evenness is the paradox that our concept of democracy cannot satisfy. Democracy must be profitable for the ruling party. If indeed we have to turn to Governor’s rule for justice and good governance, where is the future of democracy? In both Balochistan and NWFP contrived majorities keep PML(N) men in power. For the first time in PML(N) short electoral history, it has party men as Governors in all the Provinces, having followed up Moin Haider’s sacking by that of another retired Lt Gen, Arif Bangash, as Governor NWFP.
The Kargil episode has given life to some of the religious parties, JI profiting the most from the regime’s sorry performance. In the meantime Maulana Fazlur Rahman of JUI(F) has taken up cudgels against the US on behalf of Osama bin Laden, making threats seldom heard from responsible political leaders and thus adding to Pakistan’s woes internationally. The saner Opposition political parties are in the meantime concentrating rather unsuccessfully on a one-point agenda, the separation of Mian Nawaz Sharif from power. Their idea is to foment protests on various issues ranging from Kargil to GST and use the resultant street power to dislodge the Sharif brethren from their hold on the administrative machinery.
There is no doubt that Kargil has been a diplomatic and media disaster. The damage has been so profound that India has got away with cold-blooded pre-meditated murder in their aerial ambush of a lumbering unarmed reconnaissance aircraft of the Pakistan Navy. Our ineptitude in not presenting a stronger case, only matched by the callous indifference of the western powers at India’s calculated atrocity, very much the same sort of appeasement accorded to Hitler pre-World War II. Having asked the Pakistan Army some searching questions, one was embarrassed at their discomfort in not being able to answer promptly and mainly because the questions were not theirs to answer but that of the Federal Government. The silence of the Federal Government was deafening and indirectly exonerated the Army’s high command of the charge of adventure. By keeping quiet, except for the more loyal-than-the king elements with personal reasons for vindictiveness, the Army has stayed within the constraints of Constitutional parameters, thus deftly passing the buck to the PM. Even the PM’s Information Minister is discreetly staying on the fault-line so as not to give wrong signals to the powers-that-might-be in Pindi, a damning indictment of the loyalty factor in the PML(N), calling into question the PM’s leadership abilities and his credibility as a responsible leader of a nation.
In the field of External Affairs, we may have temporarily tested China’s friendship but in the long run we know that it is one country that can be trusted. Unlike the holding back of submarines and Mirage aircraft by France, Chinese combat aircraft on order are on standby. Afghanistan must have peace, if only to bring our relations with Iran to an even keel. As for the US, the State Department seems to have got control in the post-cold war era over the projections of the Pentagon, mainly to Pakistan’s detriment. This will soon pass as the world returns to reality, even in a unipolar status. Far from lasting diplomatic damage, the real damage has been to perception because of the media. This is a fickle state of affairs and can be reversed as the west’s reaction to India’s proposed nuclear doctrine has shown. We have to effect “damage control” by sending in professionals to energise their contacts and renew the logic behind our diplomatic stance. Already some bipartisan moves are being made and that shows real pragmatic synergy in the regime’s tackling of difficult issues by bringing the best and the brightest to bear.
The judiciary is supposedly tame — or is it? Pakistan’s Supreme Court has proved again and again over the last decade that it has a life of its own in interpreting the Constitution as per the rule of law and it has repeatedly surprised governments who thought they had brought justice to heel. Similarly in obtaining the resignation of the former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) and COAS, Gen Jehangir Karamat, the government may be miscalculating its dominance over Pindi’s potent power. Despite the self-inflicted wounds of Kargil, the Army remains very much a monolith bidding the orders ultimately of one man and any interference from outside at this stage will not only be counter-productive but unwelcome. Similarly if the Opposition is hoping that street power may lead to anarchy, a blood cycle inviting intervention, they may be badly miscalculating their analysis as the present day Army is very much disposed to stay within its Constitutional parameters and out of government. Moreover destabilisation of the nature envisaged by the Opposition, particularly in the face of imminent economic apocalypse, is a non-starter even for the most ambitious and the over-optimist.
The best hope for Pakistan is that the elected government with all its flaws, performs its obligations to the masses that gave it a mandate to rule, if not overwhelming in the number of votes, at least that in the number of seats in Parliament. As such hope is focussed on the primary leader of the ruling party, Mian Nawaz Sharif, that he will rise up to the challenge of the times in the face of adversity. One hopes that he will turn from mediocrity to the cutting edge that qualified and dedicated professionals can deliver for the nation in every sector of life, that the PM will listen to advice on a bipartisan basis, the only litmus test being its usefulness for the country. One hopes that he will fight his way out of the suffocating “inner circle” and that every scheme will be thought through not on what temporary political gain it will bring but what permanent change it may do to the body-economic or the body politic. For the time being that is the only salvation for Pakistan.
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