And a senior Tajziakar and why the anti-Idol campaign is turning into a class issue
Reports on tax evasion are a low-hanging fruit in Pakistan for journalists. There’s just too much of it. On a lean day, just pluck it off a tree. All that you have to, as a reporter, just have to make sure you pay your taxes yourself, so no one can point fingers at you.
The News’ Umar Cheema files these stories every year, it seems, and more power to him; we need to inculcate a tax culture in the country and what better way than a name-and-shame?
The problem here is that journalism is equal parts investigation and communication. Not filing a tax return, for instance, is not the same as tax evasion. Not having a tax number is wrong but it doesn’t mean you evade your taxes if your only source of income is your salary; income tax is deducted against your NIC number. Moreover, there can be discrepancies in your returns listed on one document and your returns on another. It does not mean tax evasion.
Gabol asks the question
This was pointed out by Nabeel Gabol to the reporter himself (Capital Talk, 23rd December, Geo News). The reason there is a difference between my FBR returns and my Election Commission returns, said Gabol, is that I had overpaid my tax and they refunded the amount I had overpaid.
This is the exact same line of argument that the League’s Rohail Asghar took. Ditto for the PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
As a person who had been, for all appearances, lumped together with the evaders, Gabol was angry. But Umar Cheema was unwilling to concede that he had been a tad unfair. Which prompted Gabol to ask that question that is on everyone’s mind: how much tax does the Jang group pay?
Always personal, godammit
Great minds, said Eleanor Roosevelt, discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
On Waseem Badami’s 11th Hour (19th December, ARY) the topic of discussion was Imran Khan’s anti-inflation dharna. Whereas the PTI’s Asad Omer and the League’s Daniyal Aziz were slugging it out on statistics of the national economy, analyst and talk show regular Haroon-ur-Rasheed said that he could testify on oath that the League’s Khwaja Saad Rafiq (whose anti-PTI speech was only one of the many made) wanted to join the PTI but the attempted party-hop fizzled out.
Haroon-ur-Rasheed, by those standards, has a small mind. It is a comment on the level of the Pakistani commentariat that such pygmies keep appearing as analysts. It is a more grave comment still that he is treated with an inexplicable amount of reverence by the anchors and guests. Whenever the fellow appears on a show, his picture is subtitled “senior tajziakaar.” Well, this was the level of his tajzia, nay, senior tajzia. One mayn-inn-ko-jaanta-houn-here, one yeh saare kameenay hain there; the sum of the entire “analysis” of Haroon-ur-Rasheed.
Sun raha hay na?
All individuals either with a Pakistani identity card or a “bey form” are ex-officio chairpersons of the Pakistani Cricket Board. Yes, a hundred and eighty million people and Najam Sethi. This is because of the self-important authority one hears, across the nation’s barber shops, tea-stalls, mehfil-e-milaads, trade union meetings etc statements like “Iss ko nahin khilana chaahiye thaa…”
There is also “backseat policing” whenever there is a law and order crisis. Otherwise squeamish property dealers and tobacco executives giving detailed, seven-part strategies on how to handle the Moharram situation.
In the light of all of the above, it is, perhaps, natural for people (tone-deaf and otherwise) to hold very strong beliefs on who should and shouldn’t have been selected to go on to the next round of Pakistan Idol.
Now there is a petition on Change.org against the three judges on the show. This petition actually misses the whole point of such shows. The judges are supposed to be mean, even though one expected only one of the judges to try to fill the “Simon-Cowell space” not all three.
Yes, they were particularly mean to a fellow with a squeaky voice. But they were supposed to be. The problem was that they didn’t even let him sing a song and asked him to recite nursery rhymes. Bad? Yes. But even if they had let him do his thing, they are presumably experienced enough to realize that it would have been rubbish. Grey area, as far as the talent scouting is concerned.
The problem case, the one which has turned viral on the internet, is that of a young girl who sang a near-flawless rendition of an Indian film song. The judges had let much less talented contestants through. The explanation that they offered for their rejection was sketchy, at best. That the decision was unanimous made it a crueler cut.
Matters in the emotional sphere are compounded by the fact that the girl in question is perceived to belong to a financially humble background – which has turned the anti-Idol campaign into a class issue.
This allegation of class discrimination would be unfair, really, because the judges were jerks to people across all class lines. As columnist Humayun Gauhar wrote in this very publication last week, though in another context, “Give a small man power and he’ll show you just how small he really is.” Not to go all Conrad on a trivial reality show, but the rush that comes from the godlike feeling of having the fate of these contestants in their hands would be transformative.
Ali Azmat was never perceived to be the good Samaritan in the first place but this would be the first time the public would have seen this side of Hadiqa Kayani and Bushra Ansari. Contrary to what the three think, their stock with the public would plummet after judging the show, not increase.