Old habits die hard. Twenty seven minutes into the 9 pm news on Sunday 6th October, Pakistan Television finally relented and put us out of our agony by leaking news of the four bombs which shook Karachi. The briefing, which came 9 hours after the events, took exactly 58 seconds. Days earlier, the government-controlled media had consumed hours of prime time and gallons of ink to proclaim that the prime minister had toured Jam Sadiq’ flefdom and given him a clean bill of health.
Benazir Bhutto was kicked out because she was corrupt and inefficient, because she couldn’t control law and order. Or so we were told. Take a look around you now. Sindh is already another country. Balochistan is run by drug warlords. The Frontier is paying the price of our Afghan ‘jehad’ long after the ‘jehad’ has come to an end. And Punjab has been bled dry by a new breed of robber-barons who lord over federal ministries and government committees while doling out billions to themselves from the public exchequer and the poor man’s hard-earned kitty.
And what of all the tall premises made by Mr Nawaz Sharif to catapult Pakistan into the 21st century-economy? The Japanese ambassador’s surprising lack of inscrutability says it all. If you don’t believe him, ask any businessman who funded Mian Sahib’s election campaign last year and you will get more than an earful. Sure, finance minister Mr Sartaj Aziz has cajoled the IMF to bail him out temporarily. But, by surreptitiously invoking the agenda of mini-budgets and raising utility rates, he has lost his bet with Benazir Bhutto several times over. Sure, ten new private banks are on the anvil. But who’s going to stop certain BCCI-indicted crooks from grabbing the money and running? Sure, there’s a grand clearance sale on 115 state enterprises. But businessmen aren’t exactly tripping over themselves to steal the goodies. Sure, sugar and textile mills are sprouting like mushrooms. But who can tell the difference between the sellers and the buyers?
As for law and order, the pigeons are coming home to roost, notwithstanding all the special courts and threats of hanging criminals in public squares are over the country. Gen Fazle Haq has paid his dues but his son is gunning for the TNFJ and the Iranians. The ASS is on the loose. The prime minister’s partners, the Jamaat-i-Islami and the MQM, have rolled up their sleeves and are itching to have a got at each other. Even the unscrupulous Mr Sadiq, who suffers from a nasty form of diarrhoea called ‘PPP-bashing’, has tired of pinning his woes on his avowed enemies — in the first few seconds after the recent bombs went off, he didn’t jump down their throats and arrest the few who remain under siege. Meanwhile, journalists are getting it in the neck for daring to tell the truth.
What about the health of our so-called democratic system? The PDA’s white paper has nailed the lie about electoral fairness. The references against Bhutto, the persecution of the PPP in Sindh, the manner in which the 12th amendment t the constitution war rammed through — all testify to its ailing condition. And even to his supporters, the President appears to have chucked neutrality to the wind and donned the garb of Zia ul Haq.
Welcome, Mr Tanvir Ahmad Khan, to your new post as Secretary Information and Chairman, Pakistan Broadcasting Corp! We appreciate your dash to Karachi recently to enquire after the health of journalist Mr Kamran Khan who was mauled by the forces of terror. But take our advice. At the rate at which people are being rubbed out, you should get on to your green line pronto and order an uninterrupted supply of wreaths from the local flower shop.
Chairman Mao once referred to himself in his old age as a philosopher with a leaky umbrella. Clearly, he isn’t a patch on our own home-spun Wittgensteins, with President Ishaq, PM Sharif and CM Sadiq taking the cake. The country is going to the dogs but it is business as usual in Islamabad. What was that nursery rhyme? “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.”