Face it. We, the people of Pakistan, as a nation, are not world-renowned for our personal hygiene. If anything, the brown man is often at receiving end of slurs that do not refer too flatteringly to his body odour. However, the way we choose to clean our behinds is a mystery even to the most advanced of Western municipal engineers. That anyone would want to blast cold water at their posteriors from a handheld shower is a thought that would boggle many a Caucasian mind. But for us, its a way of life.
I recently found out that a lota is not just a lota, but that it also has a corresponding English name. The people at the Royal Lexicographers Society probably sat down in 1857 a time when the great mutiny was sweeping the subcontinent and the future of the British Empire hung in the balance and decided to call a spade a spade and a lota an ewer. Nothing too imaginative, as simple as taking the s out of sewer. Childs play really. No, the real clever bit was coming up with a way to take people from the colony in question, mould them through the superior British education system and turn them into mindless drones who would and could carry out the Queens work in the untamed regions. That this class of turncoats is always indispensable to a good Divide and Conquer strategy is a given; what is disappointing is that today, literally a millennium later, this class is still very much alive and kicking.
I refer you, of course, to the right honourable members of the aptly named Unification Bloc in the Punjab Assembly, or as Rana Sanaullah would have you believe, The good lotas, the ones that Shujaat chachu took with him the last time uncle Nawaz had to take a trip to Saudi Arabia. This U-Turn party is safe from criminal prosecution because, as you might well know, the Defection clause in the 18th Amendment does not apply to legislators elected or nominated following the general elections of 2008. The Noon League generally looks much pinker and appears pleased as punch now that the Pee Pee Pee (pun intended) is out of their hair in the Bara Sooba. However, if you thought that this would put an end to the political artillery skirmishes that take place on primetime TV slots, you should have your head re-examined.
Last weeks lota match outside the assembly and the subsequent shouting match inside have shown us the way forward. Things, I predict, are going to go back to the way they were very soon. This will happen for a reason, but that reason has nothing to do with the desire to actually sincerely help the people of this tattered state.
Now that the peoples representatives have decided that politics for them means primetime TV appearances and publicity stunts, it will be easier for them to shirk constituency work and give them more free time to spend with the family. Meanwhile, back in the MP or ministers office, the parliamentary secretary concerned (or any other bureaucrat that happens to be around) will be busy taking back the reins of his department from the incompetent incumbent minister that was forced on him by Sharif the younger. While the siyasi log sit through week-long consultation sessions and even longer press briefings at Punjab House (read embassy) in Islamabad, it will be the civil servants who will play the masters. Note that this was what was happening even when Abu Musharraf bin Hamza was in power. Therefore, a return to the days of bureaucrat-driven departments may prove to be yet another hilarious consequence of the Having-No-Coherent-Strategy syndrome that is inexplicable for the partys spin doctors.
The amount of airtime and political popularity (and notoriety, same difference) these so called leaders have garnered over the past few years (yes, Rowan-Atkinson-in-Ch-Nisars-clothing has been crying Midterm! for many years now) have led to them achieving critical mass. Critical mass is as bad for human beings as it is for nuclear reactors such as the ones in Japans Fukushima region. And now that Messers Awan and Nisar have let their respective cats out of their bags, it is very likely that the mundane affairs of governing a population of 170 million will be left to the more experienced people, the people who rote-learned a given syllabus some 30-odd years ago and are now BPS-21 or 22 officers in the millions of government departments that make up Islamabad. Generalists, Ive always argued, make lousy technocrats. But they do make excellent decision-makers, given that nobody cares if the decision was right or wrong. Other countries, when they need something done, will refer to the experts. We refer to our equivalent of Yes Ministers Sir Humphrey. But Sir Humphrey had more charisma. And he never used a Muslim Shower either.
The writer is a broadcast journalist.
