On April 28, in a corridor of the Masjid-i-Nabwi in Madina, the chant, “Cheekooye, Ha HaHa!” articulated the depth to which the political culture in Pakistan had sunk. The festering partisan antipathy refused to respect the sacred place, Masjid-i-Nabwi. The yell followed the foul language inflicted upon Maryam Aurangzeb and Shahzain Bugti. The shout was uttered by the person who was making a video on his mobile phone to record the maltreatment. Incidentally, his own voice got recorded.
Led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s entourage was on a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia on the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Just a day before the visit, former Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed publicly prompted the expatriate Pakistanis to shame the pilgrims.
Reportedly, a group of British Pakistanis arrived from the United Kingdom and made an arrangement to accost and deride members of the retinue who were making a pilgrimage to the mosque. The intent was to record the whole shaming episode on mobile phones to spread through social media. The project was so successful that excitement took over one cameraman who mistakenly laid bare the name of the mastermind nicknamed ‘Cheekoo’ belonging to the Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI). This was the anticlimax of the sleazy spectacle enacted to discomfit the entourage.With that, the obnoxious face of the perpetrators got exposed.
Political hatred that was infused into the body politics during the electoral campaign of 2018 has marred Pakistan’s political culture. Decency and decorum are wanting. Fake news has taken over society. The PTI’s followers, especially the youth who had been fighting the fifth-generation warfare unremittingly,have turned the guns on their benefactors. One of the reasons for the about-face was the expectation that the favours would be returned: We defend you on the social media; you must defend us in the political arena. This could not happen unfortunately. The same page got torn up. The constitution intervened and corrected the course.
Instead of opening itself to a number of pledges it had made in 2018 to woo voters, the PTI has launched a campaign to cash in on the emotions of the masses. The assumption is that the strategy would help the party paper over its drawbacks and divert the attention of the masses towards the issues not in their control such as refashioning the foreign policy.
What the two mainstream political parties, the PML(N) and the PPP, had abandoned years ago to show maturity is coming back to force them to reassume the discarded ways. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman of the JUI(F) has shown the utmost patience in enduring invective thrown at him publicly. The PTI’s followers are no match to the JUI(F)’s followers. Any Madina-like incident involving the maltreatment of the JUI-F’s leadership publicly would not get a subdued response. Instead, there would be serious repercussions.
The PTI is all desperate to redeem the political position that went astray. From the power corridors, the departure of the PTI’s government on 10 April 2022 through a chastening no-trust motion is hard to stomach by its followers.
To find a new place and seek some facesaving, the PTI has unleashed an all-directional campaign sparing none. The party is relying on pathos to catch at any straw available. In the dying days of its government, the PTI tried to revitalize the issue of making South Punjab a new province. Not many listeners got ready to buy the narrative that the party was serious. In 2018, it was easier to befool the voters, as the party’s credentials were unchecked. Voters failed to test the waters. They relied on the party blindly and recklessly, and then got disillusioned. Generally, the voters did not know that the ways of prosperity lie in the yield of unbranded calf or yearling (called bachhrha). The bachhrha policy to revive the economy failed miserably. The same was the case with the egg and chicken policy to develop mini -poultry farms at the household level to eke out the resources. In the digital modern age, the methods of the medieval age to live life at the sustenance level failed to work.
The langarkhana project depicting a public dining hall was not a substitute for offering skills training to the masses to help them live their lives honourably. The langarkhana did support the down-trodden in survivinge a day but this was already being done by the private sector. The PTI’s government should have come up with better futuristic projects, especially related to the youth. Other than delivering speeches, holding press conferences, and running social media campaigns with the use of robots, the PTI’s government under-performed in swaying voters for the forthcoming elections. This is the dilemma the party has been confronting.
The PTI has found scapegoats in everyone other than its own people. The party has maligned the judiciary, the military and the political opponents for the ouster on the pretext that they jointly conspired against the PTI’s government and played a role in its downfall, which was backed by foreign powers demanding a regime change. The misplaced assumption is that the PTI’s government was performing well and, before it could meet the touted political objectives, which had been promised in the run-up to the 2018 elections, it was ousted. This is a classic example of how delusion is generated to serve a purpose. Instead of brooding on its own flaws, which had kept the PTI’s government stymied, the PTI is pointing an accusing finger at others. The same also means that the PTI has refused to improve and perhaps mature. The refusal outclasses all other failings the party has been faced with. Self-denial is a defect unpardonable. It is the most destructive of all the insufficiencies.
Instead of opening itself to a number of pledges it had made in 2018 to woo voters, the PTI has launched a campaign to cash in on the emotions of the masses. The assumption is that the strategy would help the party paper over its drawbacks and divert the attention of the masses towards the issues not in their control such as refashioning the foreign policy.
In short, the Cheekoos of the PTI have been serving it less and destroying it more. By the way, the real revealing work was done by the mobile video capturing cameraman who got his excitement recorded as well to share with all the viewers that he was praising a PTI’s Cheekoo loudly for the job well done.
