The pigs and the people

Family, criminal mafias, sycophants, donkeys – just about everyone comes before the state

“Comrades”, he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been provided by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades”, cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, “surely, there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?”

George Orwell, Animal Farm

A number of issues beckon a comment, not the least the abysmal manner in which the shortage of petrol in the country has been handled and the way the prime minister has provided the most convenient cover-up for the dereliction of responsibility and the consequent accountability of people who are either related to him, or part of his complicit coterie of associates. The enquiry committee that was formulated to look into the unprecedented debacle proceeded pro-haste to submit its findings even before the 24-hour deadline had expired, obviously exonerating all individuals who are directly responsible for the grave crisis that people have endured including the petroleum ministers, water and power ministers and the finance minister. OGRA and its multiple nonentities alone are held responsible.

Nepotism is generally acknowledged as the lowest and basest form of corruption. With the Sharifs, it is not a question of promoting just an individual, but a whole incompetent lot that comes infected with the germs of looting and plundering. In this ignoble pursuit, they are not alone any longer. They have induced partners from across the political divides to take their share for a price. The crudest demonstration of this partnership was witnessed during the course of the holding of the joint session of the parliament when representatives of all political parties acknowledged that the last elections were rigged, but no one wanted an enquiry to be conducted. Instead, they vowed to stand together for sharing a slice of the loot

Ever since his induction into the annals of power, Nawaz Sharif has systematically introduced and practiced a vile culture of patronage that, even in a corruption-riddled country like Pakistan, has no parallel. In the process, all pretensions of good governance have been divorced and replaced by an infatuation with promoting individuals lacking in competence and integrity, but stuffed with a surfeit of the baser elements and a corrupt and shameless dispensation. These individuals are masters of the art of sycophancy and won’t stop at anything in their self-serving bid to ingratiate the master.

But Nawaz Sharif has gone a step further. He has introduced the culture of family nepotism in a grossly undignified manner. The ruling echelons are exploding with individuals who are directly and closely related to the prime minister, and have sworn personal allegiance to him. I have not been able to find a parallel in contemporary democracies of the world of a situation where the working of the government is so totally dependent on the goodwill of the members of just one family as is the case in Pakistan. Can you imagine the leaders of the UK, Germany, France, or the USA even contemplating to induct a close relation into the annals of power? It only happens in Pakistan, and under the Sharifs.

There is no embarrassment, no shame. Family members have been hoisted to manage the fate of the people, but they remain immune to being impacted by even the worst catastrophe striking the state. Take the case of the finance minister who is the father-in-law of the prime minister’s daughter. He has contributed in no mean terms to creating one crisis after the other in the country including the existent petrol conundrum, but no one dare touch him. There is also a whole battalion comprising a brother, daughter, sons, nephews, cousins and cousins-in-law who are lording over the fate of the country beyond the realm of accountability.

Nepotism is generally acknowledged as the lowest and basest form of corruption. With the Sharifs, it is not a question of promoting just an individual, but a whole incompetent lot that comes infected with the germs of looting and plundering. In this ignoble pursuit, they are not alone any longer. They have induced partners from across the political divides to take their share for a price. The crudest demonstration of this partnership was witnessed during the course of the holding of the joint session of the parliament when representatives of all political parties acknowledged that the last elections were rigged, but no one wanted an enquiry to be conducted. Instead, they vowed to stand together for sharing a slice of the loot.

 

The move to hoist the Sharif family fiefdom on the country finds apt resonance in his recent criticism of the judiciary. He is reported to have said: “The independence of judiciary was essential, but equally important is the performance of judiciary. The pendency of numerous cases has contributed towards law and order issues”. The effort is part of the larger strategy to render dysfunctional all state institutions and make them subservient to the will of the prime minister and his appointed cronies. The Supreme Court was, however, quick to respond to the criticism. During the hearing of a case, Justice Khosa observed that “it is time that the executive takes responsibility and does its duty which is also its constitutional obligation”. Justice Khawaja reminded the government that “inefficient investigations and weak prosecutions were the primary reasons for delays and the rising backlog of cases in courts”

The move to hoist the Sharif family fiefdom on the country finds apt resonance in his recent criticism of the judiciary. He is reported to have said: “The independence of judiciary was essential, but equally important is the performance of judiciary. The pendency of numerous cases has contributed towards law and order issues”. The effort is part of the larger strategy to render dysfunctional all state institutions and make them subservient to the will of the prime minister and his appointed cronies. The Supreme Court was, however, quick to respond to the criticism. During the hearing of a case, Justice Khosa observed that “it is time that the executive takes responsibility and does its duty which is also its constitutional obligation”. Justice Khawaja reminded the government that “inefficient investigations and weak prosecutions were the primary reasons for delays and the rising backlog of cases in courts”.

The prime minister’s intentions are clearly reflected in the criminal absence of a foreign minister even after more than one-and-a-half-year of the induction of the government. Two unelected individuals, Sartaj Aziz and Tariq Fatemi, are there to satiate the prime minister’s bloated ego and take care of the administrative matters. Similarly, defence ministry does not have a full-time minister and one of the cabinet members has been given the additional charge. Almost fifty key institutions of the state remain without permanent heads elected through a transparent process and the interim appointments are more often pleading for their extensions in service than discussing the issues confronting their organisations. The brother chief minister of Punjab sits on almost all important meetings concerning the ministries while those more relevant to their working are sidelined.

The government’s inordinate dependence on a few individuals, who also happen to be family members, is now also being criticised within the PML-N and a number of parliamentarians take exception to this penchant. They construe this as the key cause of abdication of governance and its resultant crises. They also allege that most of the ministers, except for the chosen few, do not have the powers and unrelated people take decisions in their place. However, they are the ones who are blamed in the end and made to apologise. The Damocles sword hangs only on the heads of the lowly, the powerless and those almost irrelevant to the crisis. The section officer for one! Or anyone else the prime minister does not like the face of.

The Sharifs have virtually turned the country into an animal farm. They have domineering power, but they lust for more. They have a number of their family members hoisted at key positions in the administration, but they dream of an empire that would be known by their name alone. The others would be serfs beholden to them for everything including their meagre existence on throwaway crumbs. They have refined and perfected the art of corruption through decades, but are conceiving ever more tricks to further their stranglehold on the state coffers. Their greed has no limit and their shamelessness no measure. They proclaim resolve to fight terror, but are joined with most of its perpetrators in an enterprise of political gains. They are sunk to the bottom of the pit, but claim they are the messiahs of deliverance. Their hypocrisy has no bounds and their evil intent no constraints

The Sharifs have virtually turned the country into an animal farm. They have domineering power, but they lust for more. They have a number of their family members hoisted at key positions in the administration, but they dream of an empire that would be known by their name alone. The others would be serfs beholden to them for everything including their meagre existence on throwaway crumbs. They have refined and perfected the art of corruption through decades, but are conceiving ever more tricks to further their stranglehold on the state coffers. Their greed has no limit and their shamelessness no measure. They proclaim resolve to fight terror, but are joined with most of its perpetrators in an enterprise of political gains. They are sunk to the bottom of the pit, but claim they are the messiahs of deliverance. Their hypocrisy has no bounds and their evil intent no constraints.

One is lost for words to describe the vile Sharif phenomenon. The more one thinks of it, the more one is troubled by their espousal of regression and degeneration as integral instruments of their thinking for further enslavement of the country. Moral depravity and an abominable paucity of intellect constitute the principal components of their rule. Muckraking is their strategy, criminal mafias their conduits and establishment of a theocracy their destination. Buying everything, most notably people’s conscience, is virtually their religion.

Wondering what had altered in the faces of the pigs, George Orwell concludes his masterpiece thus:

“An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously. Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”