Let’s talk about the elephant in the room
The moral decay in a society can be ascribed to a number of factors, but what cannot be denied is the fact that it leads to a society whose values have been shaken to the core and whose fall has been written down in glaring words. But morality being a subjective topic, one cannot justify one’s morality over that of the other’s. However, what makes morality so important is the fact that all laws are, directly or indirectly, based on morality and common sense. The failure of the government in keeping a check on the powerful, who break laws much more than a layman does, is highly disturbing. A number of cases have come forth in this connection but none so important as the murder of a 20-year-old boy in the posh locality of Karachi.
Shahzeb Khan was murdered allegedly by the two scions of what we can call another malaise of our society: feudal families. And they are not just the feudal families; they are literate, resourceful feudal families which actually makes them even worse for everything political and social. Being as powerful as they are, they consider themselves above the law. This disease doesn’t just end in an interior district of Sindh or Balochistan or even in parts of Punjab. It goes way beyond that. They can be found in the bureaucracy, armed forces, national and provincial legislatures, business, law enforcement, industry and obviously in agriculture sector. Like birds of a feather flock together, this class, having quite a number in Pakistan, share certain interests, the most important of which is to maintain status quo, which precisely is a problem as without change, a society cannot thrive and dies out soon enough.
Habitual of treating law as nothing more than a pile of dusty old papers, they have learned to live by their own rules. This is exactly where our successive governments, civilian and khaki alike, have failed. Not as big a threat as a breakdown of law and order or financial meltdown, yet it is the minor things that count the most. Applying law selectively is not mis-governance, it is bad governance. How the government of Sindh and bureaucratic setup, including those who are entrusted with protecting the lives and property of the people by the constitution: the police, tried to hush up the matter leaves no doubt as to the influence and resources these families have and can use to find a way out of hot waters. Equally it speaks volumes about the governance in a province which is often the centre of attraction for wrong reasons.
The cyber army, those highly active on social media sites, did well in standing up to a system that lets some become more equal than the others, in Orwellian speak. It also goes to the credit of the Supreme Court that took a suo motu notice of the issue. One only wonders if we are ready to take a deeper look into the reasons behind such anomalies, rather than merely paying lip service and moving on, letting the issue grow into a monster.