Disclaimer: This article is not a Dummies Guide to the Muslim Leagues of Pakistan. Any attempts to construe it as such will only lead to great embarrassment for the said pretentious newspaper reader.
Seriously though, I dont think anyone knows how many incarnations there are today of the hallowed All-India Muslim League that, as all Pakistan Studies flunkers will know, came into existence in 1906. According to the Selection Commission of Pakistan the most authentic source of information for casual Googlers such as myself there are at least 11 parties that use the Muslim League name for their own nefarious designs. The list itself is a laugh and a half, but thats not the alphabet soup were concerned with right now.
The story of these various parties and factions reads like the script of a bad Indian movie. In fact, the plot of Bollywoods latest political drama, Rajneeti, could well be based on the jorr torr and goings-on this side of the border. If you dont believe me, read on, as I deconstruct the various characters in both these epic sagas. If you havent seen Rajneeti, go buy the DVD, watch the movie and then resume reading. You have been warned.
Any introduction to the cast of our own Pakistan Muslim Rajneeti must begin with the character of Naseeruddin Shah. The Sean Connery of Bollywood, in this particular film, has a brief cameo at the very beginning, which establishes him as the one who (quite literally) teeli laga kar bhaag gaya tha, never to be seen or heard from again. Sound familiar? Heres a hint: in real-life Pakistani politics, he was the puppet-est PM of them all. If you havent already guessed, its Meet Dufferullah Kahn Somali. He came, he was elevated and then he disappeared. End of story.
Next, we have the perennial Manoj Bajpai, who quite literally came out of nowhere, and taking advantage of the circumstances unfolding before him, staked a claim to the top spot after kicking out the incompetent incumbent. In real life though, this honour went to the great exiler of the Super Mario Sharifs Bros, Mr Enlightened Moderation himself. It was he who then asserted himself as the big cheese for the next ten or so years and ruled with impunity along with sidekicks such as Sheeda Pindaal, Agent Durrani and other merry men.
The hunky Arjun Rampal, who can make women go weak in the legs just by breathing in and out, may well feel insulted with my next sentence. But if there ever was anyone in Pakistani politics in the past decade who rose out from under the shadow of his former party leaders and established himself as a siyasi badmaash in his own right with a new party name, it has to be former karta dharta of the Bara Sooba, Mr Gurez Falahi. And the fair dosheeza who would beseech him for Sitapur ka ticket? The one and only, the ravishing item girl of the like-minded, Miz Paathshala Farigh. Ironically, our real life madam is still looking for a ticket just to a different destination this time.
Shortcut Ajij, the financial Merlin responsible for the booms and kabooms of our stock market, lends himself perfectly to the character played by Ranbir Kapoor. Imported from the States by the Rajneeti clan after things went sour, this particular wizard breaks all the rules. Our own Shortcut also broke several rules, and laws, when he created the artificial financial services bubble that had the Karachi Stock Exchange going up, up and away. Thankfully, the great crash coincided with the global financial meltdown so we couldnt really take Shortcut to court. But the resemblance is striking. In the film, Ranbir has a taste for imported dishes. Shortcut too loved the occasional foreign dish, and most famously, a healthy serving of Brown Rice.
Jokes aside, though, it is painfully obvious that our leaders also derive their inspiration for political conspiracies and underhand machinations from unoriginal Bollywood plots. As the great sage Confucius once said, “Naqal keliye bhi aqal darkar hai.” Both Bollywood and our leadraan would do well to heed this advice. Maybe then we’d have Cheeni Kum and Bheja Fry where they belong, in the cinema rather than the Utility Store.
The writer is a broadcast journalist.