Is daddy standing on the other side of the nozzle this time?
Justice Kiyani once remarked, “Calamity comes not alone.” Since he was commenting on the news delivered to him about the martial law imposed by Ayub Khan, he added, “They come in battalions.” What with the Sicilian Panetta issuing all sorts of threats and the heads and scions of every political party tainted with corrupt practices, the last we wanted was the advent of the Family-gate drama of which every educated person is aware of or has formed an opinion.
There are just two possible outcomes to the episode. The much touted proofs will either not be submitted to the court or else it will be too mild to convict the harebrained Dr Arsalan. Or, it may be good enough to put him in the jug.
For those who keep away from the TV for their mental health, the tycoon Malik Riaz excels in business practices like all shopkeepers in the footsteps of the great Shareef family. He too would have, if he wanted, become the caretaker PM when this present set up is dissolved to get his soiled name in history books. He has the self control to avoid that dubious distinction and just pursue his first love – money, since power comes to him from every quarter in the country and he even advises the best on political matters. Why did he then jump into this pimping for coal affair? The answers can be either to to save some of the aforementioned scions from an abrupt end to their political careers or to scare the judiciary from calling the chief on the matter of missing persons.
He is said to be the only person equally popular among both politicians and generals. Not only has he employed a bevy of retired generals in Bahria town, those who benefitted him a lot while in service, which by the way requires a lot of money since they are never short of job opportunities within the army business empire like Fauji fertilisers and heading sports bodies and what not. He also minted a lot of money for them and himself in DHA/Bahria merger in Islamabad and contrary to a very informed semi Islamic column writer with an interest in spiritualism, he is said to be making Gen Kyani’s retirement house too. And Allah knows best.
This is a testing time for the media. On one side, the media-judiciary alliance is going hunky-dory. On the other hand, the universal friend Malik Riaz is hand in glove with the media. Under the circumstances, and as I said earlier, the first choice in this rigmarole shall be to pressurise the CJ on a certain something or work out a settlement between the two parties that hurts none. This is in the best interest of the media and their best hope. They have their analysts on TV and newspapers taking the CJ’s side. On the other hand, they are bombarding the Bahria Town ads, which they must have offered him for a pittance. Because in case Malik Riaz actually has the proofs and in the best interest of whoever he is doing it for, goes for the kill and gets Dr Arsalan convicted, the media would neither go against the establishment where all the money lies nor will keep the neutral stance they are at the moment. They will drop the CJ like a hot potato. While they are giving some leeway to him by propagating that a father cannot be responsible for the sins of his son, it can soon turn into a case of CJ bashing.
The bard once said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” It is unlikely that we shall have a do-gooder as a CJ in the near future.
In the end, a lesson for the Ghairat Brigade. A person once asked Gen Hamid Gul, when he was DMI, as to why Gen Zia talked so much about Islam and yet had generals about him who were gallivanting around and seen in all the notorious places and being beaten up too on occasion. The answer was a classical one from a worldly wise man, “What should he do? Antagonise everybody.” Methinks the CJ was trying to do the impossible.