Candid Corner
- Mafias pose a generational challenge
The withering of flowers
The unceasing tears from the sky
The lamps without light
The shattered mirrors
Dead is the music
And the dance over
Beyond the hovering clouds
In the bosom of the night
Resides the star of pain –
Glimmering, jingling, smiling
– Adapted from Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Much may have happened through the last year, and a bulk of it may not have been for the good, yet it is the skewed preoccupation that makes it look gloomier and more depressing.
Let me take you through this with an example. I was part of a television programme a couple of evenings ago discussing the offer of ministries that the PPP Chairman made to the MQM in exchange for help in dismantling the PTI government. The anchor and the other participant were eager to discuss how unnerved the PTI government was as a consequence of this move and the steps they would be contemplating to combat the challenge.
On the other hand, I thought that the more important aspect that needed to be discussed was an excruciating level of desperation which had set in within a mainstream political party that prompted indulgence in brazen and broad daylight horse-trading, thus nullifying all hues and shades of morality. It is like conceding that politics has been effectively reduced to a vile transaction of buying and selling. Since the media appears consumed with a pre-orchestrated objective of promoting the narrative that the government could fall as a consequence of this move and backdoor contacts had already taken place in this regard, there was little inclination on the part of the other participants to come round to discussing this aspect that I thought was far more relevant than talking about the prospect of the government caving in as a result of such blatant blackmailing. Among other factors, this attitude contributed substantially to aggravating an already gloomy picture that prevailed throughout last year.
A dispassionate analysis of events would bring us all to the conclusion that a lot may actually have gone wrong, but it was made to look much more dismal and depressing by injecting a preconceived slant into the narrative. At times this was done with a level of finesse, but, more often, the whole thing was enacted in an excessively crude and deliberate manner to create an impression that the entire structure was about to capsize. This narrative was woefully augmented by the insipid and clueless performance of the government spokespersons.
Failed year is the kind of term used ever so insensitively to describe the period that is now history. But, few people were willing to think about the wreck that the present government inherited and how necessary it was to put it right for moving further. This was not possible by administering cosmetic changes. The whole system had to be overhauled, more specifically from the point of view of reviewing the condition of the dysfunctional institutions.
Through decades, Pakistan has been governed as a personal fiefdom, not as a republic with a constitution and rules and regulations to abide by. Whole families and trails of cronies were recruited at senior positions in the government, without any competence or criteria, exclusively to perpetuate the stranglehold of the incumbents and, by extension, generating a mafia syndrome. The reason why the situation improved ever so imperceptibly during the last year was primarily because of the deep roots these criminal oligarchies had left behind as their legacy which they continued to nurture by using their links in the vast and corrupted administrative network.
For the claimants of change, compromising with what they had sworn to change is a faulty step. They need to tidy up the work they have to do and see whether the people they are surrounded with are up to the challenge. If not, no time should be wasted in showing them the door because, otherwise, there would be nothing left to change
Every institution resisted the effort to reform. Look at the case of the doctors. Against all norms and standards practised throughout the civilised world, they were often on strike in defiance of the effort to make the hospitals more professional and more geared to meeting the needs of the lower rungs of the society. The courts joined in by granting indiscriminate stay orders, thus becoming complicit in this effort to resist reform.
Or, take the case of the bureaucracy. They virtually stopped working on the pretext of being probed by the NAB. Not a thing moved from their desks. They behaved more like clerks than officers. While there may be issues with the conduct of the NAB, the bureaucracy, ipso facto, conceded their culpability in corruption by refusing to be held accountable before law.
The judiciary is another classic case. They act like lords onto themselves. They select their judges and also define their parameters of operation. There is no parliamentary oversight on their working. They are exorbitantly liberal in serving their elitist masters. They grant freedom to convicts to travel abroad for treatment against a plain undertaking signed by them, but deny recourse to the most fundamental essentials of justice to the poor languishing in jails for years. In gross violation of the constitutional provisions, they have taken a fancy to dabbling in the executive and legislative domains, even instructing the Parliament to move in a certain manner within a specified period of time. As custodians of the law, they commit unlawful acts with impunity.
For that matter, take the case of any institution. They are neither empowered, nor do they have the expertise or the capacity to transact the work they were set up to doing. FBR, NAB, FIA– they are all victims of this malaise. Additionally, they are staffed with people who have been partners in the crimes of the past ruling oligarchies. Not accustomed to serving the cause of the state, they indulged unabashedly in promoting the interests of their masters. Feeling grossly uncomfortable working in an environment where corruption has actually become a difficult indulgence, they are resorting to sabotaging the onset of change in conjunction with the bureaucracy, judiciary, and other such-like institutions.
The question is that of the mindset. For over 70 years, people have been fed on corrupt practices where no distinction was made between what belonged to the state and what an individual could claim. Whatever was of the state was construed as a personal possession. That is how Pakistan ended up with a few ravishingly rich families and an enfeebled state which had to borrow more than it could afford barely to stay afloat.
What a horrible mess! Each day that passes without change taking shape is leaving its mark on the sustainability of the state. Instead of realising the looming threat, it is further emboldening the errant beneficiary elite who are convinced that this, too, shall pass and the old days of gay abandon shall return in their unmitigated sickness.
This raises the ante for the claimants of change. Compromising with what they had sworn to change is a faulty step. They need to tidy up the work they have to do and see whether the people they are surrounded with are up to the challenge. If not, no time should be wasted in showing them the door because, otherwise, there would be nothing left to change.
In that event, the dream of creating a welfare state that would be sensitive to the needs of its poor and needy will lie buried six feet under and the call shall go out for the mafias to return to their plundering ways.