What’s the rush?

Mr Qadri has a lot of explaining to do

The dreadful massacre of Hazaras in Quetta on the 10th of January this year, and Tahirul Qadri’s long march on the 13th have somehow dovetailed, causing great turmoil, while the others have jumped into the fray.

Although Mr Qadri’s charges of little democracy and great corruption against the present government are valid, such charges should be constitutionally raised in due electoral process. Pitching a democratically elected sitting government against long marches and deadlines are hardly constitutional actions themselves. It is only a deluded illiterate electorate and one that is fed up of the current state of affairs that will not realise this.

Following the terrible tragedy in Quetta, the government’s inadequacy in almost every sphere has been highlighted, and the ineptness of the present government, not exactly hidden has been further exposed lending some credence to Mr Qadri’s accusations, however arbitrary his methods may be.

In spite of repeated violence against the Hazaras there has been no attention paid to their plight by the federal government. When earlier this month more than a hundred people, most of them Hazaras, died as a result of two bomb attacks in Quetta, something appears to have finally snapped. In a concerted action, the relatives of the victims refused to bury their dead, and established a vigil in spite of below freezing temperatures, flying in the face of religious custom that calls for the earliest possible burial of the dead. They and the people of Balochistan demand greater security for the province, as they have demanded for years.

Not until protests spread across the country did the Prime Minister visit Balochistan, where he met the families of the victims and the leaders of the Shia community, and requested the Chief Minister of Balochistan to return to his post and province. CM Aslam Raisani, a man of spirits, remains ‘reportedly abroad’, which is where he is normally to be found; he failed to return even at a crucial time like this. The PM also directed Balochistan’s Governor Zulfiqar Magsi to take all necessary steps to ensure protection of the citizens’ lives and properties.

Obviously, if it takes prodding, a tragedy and the threat of impending elections for such senior officials of state to get to the scene, to do their job, they have no business being in such positions of responsibility in the first place.

It took many years, but as Mr Raisani himself once said, this is politics, and not a chicken being beheaded. Article 234 has since been invoked. Governor’s rule has been imposed in Balochistan, the Frontier Corps has been granted policing powers and Mr Raisani has been relieved of his duties, bringing the vigils to an end. Mr Raisani, of course, has stated that this is a plot against him.

In typical ways, the federal government is left with much egg on its face. Rehman Malik’s remarks regarding Tahirul Qadri are too puerile to be repeated here. All that can be said is that any government that places persons of the calibre of Messrs Raisani and Malik in positions of importance has something other than governance in mind.

In fact several institutions appear to have something other than their rightful business in mind. As for instance the Supreme Court’s sudden and ill-timed call for the arrest of the Prime Minister as a result of the rental power plants case, a case that has been running for years, with elections around the corner, could this order not have waited just a little while longer? But then who says the Supreme Court ever has its rightful business in mind?

There appears to be a very destabilising agenda being followed in all that is happening, and it is clouding the real issues which are many, but one thing appears quite certain: we possess an inept government that deserves to be replaced. The question is, how, and with what?

The violent role religious extremism has played in Pakistan is clear, and must be kept in mind. The Hazaras are mute witness to that.

Mr Qadri, the founder of Minhajul Quran, yet another religious group, has dubious credentials and motives, and his methods of destabilising the government are not the most desirable.

If Mr Qadri has something valid to offer, it isn’t clear what that is as yet; therefore, he should take time to explain himself in the regular, constitutional way. After all, what’s the rush?

The writer is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com/