We were brought up to believe that August 14, Independence Day, was a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving, of introspection and hope. Alas. So huge is the burden of hate, discord and pessimism in society today that even the rhetoric of unity, faith and discipline, long the cynical fare of politicians on such occasions, seemed sadly to be missing. The speeches of our leaders last Wednesday put paid to any illusions we may have cherished on that score. Mr Nawaz Sharif spat venom when he shouted how his “blood boiled at any mention of the PPP” and he felt like “shredding it into tiny sea”. Never one to be outdone, Ms Benazir Bhutto screamed murder, accusing him of being “a coward who should quit because he had sold out on Kashmir and the nuclear questions”.
Of course, it is perfectly understandable why there is no love lost between them. With justification, Sharif can point to his persecution by Bhutto when he was chief minister of the Punjab two years ago. He can also fairly charge the opposition of ganging up against him and trying to provoke the army to get rid of him in recent times.
As for Bhutto, her rage against Sharif stretches back to when he lined up behind her father’s executioner a decade ago. Nor can she easily condone his desperate efforts to thwart the electoral process in 1988 or his running conspiracies to oust her from power and subsequently deny her an electoral victory in 1990, abetted by the President and the army chief, of course. At the very least, the many disqualification-references against her and the vicious treatment of her husband by the government are ideally designed to raise her blood pressure by several points.
It is clear, however, that their mutual hostilities are geared to knocking each other out rather than allowing either to savour the fruits of a dubious victory over the other. Frankly speaking, if that were all that might result from their menacing clash and the option of choosing an alternative political leadership were available, we could have relaxed an enjoyed the grisly spectacle. Unfortunately, we have no choice, and as they slug it out the country is slowly wasting away from neglect and mismanagement.
More important, we might ask how the President, who is supposed to be above it all, can sit twiddling his thumbs while this dangerous farce continues. For one, he is probably more responsible for this situation than any of them. Didn’t he set the wobbly ball rolling in the first place by dismissing Bhutto unfairly last year? We could let that pass because there wasn’t much to write home about that government anyway. But even more patently, didn’t the President rig up the most partisan interim government in history as well as the most unfair accountability trials against Bhutto, all of which made the results of 1990 elections a foregone conclusion and created the perfect backdrop for her prickly reaction?
In a recent interview Benazir Bhutto has admitted that her government erred in failing to accept the pluralistic compulsion of Pakistani society and thereby antagonised Nawaz Sharif when he was chief minister of the Punjab. Likewise, she was acknowledged her faulty handling of the Sindh situation., Privately, however, her supporters argue that in order to survive she must, however reluctantly, learn to be a politician in the nasty mould of her detractors. So she will oppose the Sharif government by every means possible, much as Sharif did when she was in power, and the devil take the hindmost. Her recent utterances of a sellout on Kashmir, the nuclear question, privatisation etc. could be seen in this context.
Here in a nutshell, we have the crux of the problem and on outline of a solution. If both Mr Sharif and Mr Ishaq Khan were to recognise the error of their singular ways, much as Ms Bhutto has had the courage to do, there might not be any compelling reason to push the opposition to the wall while the government itself is forced to retreat into corner.
The outgoing army chief’s parting words of advice to politicians have a distinctive permanence about them just as the incoming chief’s first Order of the Day has an historical transience about it. That is why it is time to call a spade a spade.
The President should get off his high horse and he man enough to withdraw his references against Benazir Bhutto and set Asif Zardari free. That will create the necessary space for an honourable dialogue between the government and the opposition. He might also lean a bit on Mian Sahib every time the PM is tempted to flex his muscles dramatically. At least, once the opposition is given its democratic right to breathe, we may be able to dilute the political bitterness which sours the system. If we could start to move in this direction now, we might hope to wake up to a more meaningful Independence Day next August.