Thinking the Unthinkable
Almost 250 years to the day a lady named Mughlani Begum was installed as the Governor of the Province of Lahore, succeeding her deceased husband, the Viceroy of Lahore, Moinul Mulk, popularly known as “Meer Mannoo”. A compromise between several opposing factions who did not want anyone strong and powerful from any of the other sides in that seat of power, she ruled Lahore between 1754 and 1756 with such authority that the factions who had agreed to a woman in the first place out of a misplaced conception that she was the weaker of the sexes, united out of convenience to depose her (and the favourite Eunuch she had subsequently married), installing in her place another puppet. Mughlani Begum emulated many Lahorites (before and after her) who sought refuge in Kashmir whenever Ahmed Shah Abdali ventured from Afghanistan. With the Kashmir valley inaccessible to Pakistanis, the place of political exile presently is Model Town, today’s Mughlani Begum being succeeded as Chief Minister (CM) by another nobody (at least on a sliding scale basis) named Sardar Arif Nakai, giving company in the political cold to his former mentor, Mian Nawaz Sharif. Like the retired US general given the assignment by US President Lyndon Baines Johnson to assess the war situation in Vietnam, who advised “just declare victory and go home”, Ms Benazir Bhutto and the State-controlled media has declared victory in dislodging Wattoo from his CM’s perch and gone off to Islamabad, conveniently forgetting that the whole exercise was meant to install a PPP person as CM according to the burning desire of the PPP rank and file in the Punjab who struggled mightily to be rid of Wattoo but are still left out in the cold. The exercise of constitutional farce continues, whereby a minuscule minority, in the form of Chattha and party, have emerged much stronger while Ms Benazir, a brave front notwithstanding, has been severely wounded politically, using up many of her rumoured nine lives — and her near and dear ones that much poorer for having doled out millions to the greedy and undeserving in a no-win game of horse trading.
Pakistan today is in a deep crisis because of the farce that is practiced in this country in the name of democracy, having no relation to constitutional logic or morality. The wonder is that educated men prefer to ignore this reality. In Sindh there is an urban-rural divide that is gradually fostering an economic crisis. While one or two-day strikes hurts petty businesses, the frequency of strikes has started to paralyse commercial activity on a wider scale, particularly those dependent on daily cash flow, such as various services, vending, etc. Children stayed away from schools, shops remained closed, office attendance was thin, Karachi Stock Exchange was closed, port activity was minimal, but most important since the cash counters of the banks and the Central Clearing House of State Bank of Pakistan did not function, money movement which is the oil of the economic engine was shutoff. The result is that the engine that revs up the economy in the form of livelihood of the middle class and the poor, is grinding to a halt, no matter that certain areas of Karachi had transport plying on a reduced basis. The gradual wearing down of Karachi’s commercial life is having a domino-like effect on the rest of the country, we are not many miles from economic midnight. Sharing of the ever-decreasing economic pie by competing ethnic groups, makes Karachi’s problem very political. While Gen Babar has had success in his single-minded campaign against the terrorists, the Administration is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, only possible through a dual track socio-economic package meant to alleviate the miseries of the common Karachi citizen. Without such an initiative, the schism is going to get deeper, instead of trying to re-induct the alienated Mohajir Community back into the mainstream of Pakistani life, we are making them more estranged from our national ethnic melting pot. Everybody agrees something has to be done to stop this polarisation, why doesn’t somebody do it then before the country goes to pieces? While the awaited revolt in the NWFP against Aftab Sherpao has not taken place, it is lurking dangerously near the surface. In Balochistan, the government of Zulfikar Ali Magsi is only surviving by pragmatic exercise of the art of compromise but this delicate balancing act can be undone by the re-settling of the rebel Bugti clan of Kalpars in Sui, what it will do to the supply of gas if a conflagration between the warring clans breaks out is left to one’s imagination! As it is the Taliban movement in Afghanistan may well spill over into the areas bordering Pakistan in both NWFP and Balochistan, with disastrous consequences for our more liberal society.
