The quality of political discourse has sunk to new depths. Unfortunately, Benazir Bhutto has taken to openly calling the President “Ishaqa” and the Prime Minister “Nawazu”. While such terms of endearment may serve the dubious purposes of TFT’s outrageous back page, they should not be viciously bandied about in public by leaders of national stature. How would Bhutto feel if “Ishaka” and “Nawazu” began to call her “Kuri” or “Mai” or even “Ghaddaar” on PTV?
More to the point, when national leaders stoop to conquer, they bring into disrepute the institutions they represent and erode the legitimacy of the state. Surely, the office of the Leader of the Opposition should be no less esteemed than that of the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Of course, there is an unfortunate history of histrionics to contend with. The keeper of the President’s conscience in Sindh, Mr Jam Sadiq Ali, used to frequently refer to the Bhutto ladies in unspeakable terms. The prime minister, too, has often gone over the top. “I want to cut the PPP into bits and throw it to the sharks”, he frothily declared not so long ago. Then there was this preposterous spectacle recently in parliament when a member of the prime minister’s cabal accused Ms Bhutto of being a “kafir” who should be killed. Of course, both sides hurl the word “Jew” at each other when they mean “Zionist” and are oblivious of their shameful racism.
Significantly, too, both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto have reverted to the language of two antagonistic legacies which have brought the country to its present impasse. Nawaz Sharif is flogging Zia ul Haq’s exploitative and sham version of “Islamisation” while Benazir Bhutto is thundering Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s long lost cry of Roti, Kapra aur Makaan, the great betrayals of both Bhutto and Zia notwithstanding. One seems to be promising an Islamic paradise on Earth; the other is invoking the socialist God that failed. Neither has a clue about what he means or what she wants.
In practice, of course, their policies have been uncannily similar. When Ms Bhutto was prime minister, she wanted good relations with India. But Mr Sharif accused her of “soft peddling” on Kashmir and “selling out” to a bully. She fairly accuses him of the same ‘crime’ today. Bhutto wanted to freeze the nuclear programme and make up with the Americans. “Over my dead body” said Mr Sharif then and has done exactly that now. “Gulbuddin Hekmatyar should be rapped” said Bhutto, “there can be no military solution in Afghanistan”. Never, said Mr Sharif, “we will wage a jihad until Kabul falls”. Naturally, he thinks he has done the sensible thing now by isolating Hekmatyar and pressing for a political settlement in Kabul. “We have a right to bring in our own man into the ISI” said Bhutto in 1989. “You’re meddling in the affairs of the army”, retorted Sharif. The boot is on the other foot these days. “You’re a bunch of crooks”, screamed Mr Sharif, “your husband is Mr 10 %”. “You’re a gang of dacoits”, shrieks Ms Bhutto, “your brother is Mr 90 %”. “We’ll huff and we’ll puff, we’ll bring your house down”, roared Nawaz Sharif. “Likewise, I’m sure”, claims Benazir Bhutto today.
Conspiracies, doublespeak, a live and die attitude have all served to debase politics. No one talks of real issues anymore. The prime minister is obsessed with jazzy airports, smooth motorways and bullet-trains for the rich even as the grinding poverty, ill-health or unemployment of tens of millions drives them to abject despair. There’s a pittance for education or population control and even spending that is problematic for this government: the ministers can’t press ahead because they’re scared of the mullahs.
Ms Bhutto is hardly offering any better. She is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. When she thunders about “the politics of the people Vs the politics of the industrialists”, she doesn’t know what feudalism is all about. When she says “privatisation aims to starve the poor to death”, she doesn’t have a clue about capitalism. Her “social contract” hasn’t been spelt out, her line on deregulation and market-forces is confused, her proposals on electoral reform are half-baked. She has no solutions to offer Sindhis and Mohajirs. She has no foreign policy initiatives to talk of. Talking of Roti, Kapra and Makan is all very well, but how, in Heaven’s name, does she propose to go about delivering them?
There is a visible recklessness about our politicians. They are extravagant in their promises, excessive in their corruptions, obsessive in their hatreds. They are totally oblivious to the questions of the day, wholly ignorant of the answers to the agenda. By turns, they have made a farce of democracy and a tragedy of government. Can anyone knock some sense into their wooden heads?
Most political parties are pathetically short on intellectuals and long on rabble-rousers. And even where intellectuals exist, they remain on the fringes, denied communication with the leadership and cut off from the rank and file. It is time this deficiency was addressed. The PPP boasts many progressive and educated people in its leadership. Benazir Bhutto should make an attempt to raise the level of discourse within her party and help show the way forward.