A leader is a purely political animal
At times during these past few days an eerie near-silence descended on the streets of Lahore, in sharp contrast to their normal lively din and clamour. The sight of long queues of fuming citizens thronging the petrol stations for hours, often in vain, highlighted yet again the oft-repeated tale of governmental ineptitude and bungling, as well as the helplessness of the ordinary citizen in the face of such monumental blunders at the highest level. The black gold, despite its current global glut, had become rarer than the yellow metal itself, courtesy the apparent carelessness and mis-judgment over months of the many cooks who make up the supporting cast in our energy sector. But in the last analysis, it seems that the ‘chefs’ of the kitchen cabinet have dished out another over-peppered and indigestible dish, their particular specialty.
The situation has slowly returned to normal, or to what constitutes normalcy in our society, to be replaced no doubt by event equally unexpected, unnerving and demoralising. The pattern that emerges from this nasty experience (and repeated earlier ones) is that this leadership simply cannot cope with a crisis, even a ‘tame’ one of its own making, as in the present instance. One shudders to think how it would respond to a dangerous external threat?
Any fiasco is reduced to a conveniently confusing blame game, finger-pointing, passing the buck, shedding of a few crocodile tears in extreme cases and handing out of (sometimes contested) cheques, but in the end what actually emerges is that beloved final solution of our rulers, another committee. Unbridled power without any responsibility is their motto and mindset. Resigning over an embarrassing slip-up is simply not in their genetic makeup. Whatever became of ministerial and cabinet responsibility?
The growing band of relations, cronies, hangers-on, beloved bureaucrats and the genocide of merit is too toxic a mix to allow for rational resolution of arising emergencies. And being hard headed businessmen on the side (or is it the other way round) most of our fondly elected political leaders have much more important mercantile and personal deals to attend to. Mis-governance, ‘mistakes, mistrust and hateful error’ are a foregone conclusion.
Politics is all about idealism and sacrifice, business mere petty profit and personal gain, and the two conjoined are an anomaly, a contradiction
Politics is all about idealism and sacrifice, business mere petty profit and personal gain, and the two conjoined are an anomaly, a contradiction. Nothing good can come out of this opportunistic alliance either for the masses or the nation.
National political leadership is a full-time twenty-four-hours vocation with noses always to the grindstone and especially so in a precarious situation such as confronts our country today, courtesy years of misrule, corruption, universal greed and the piranha –like voraciousness of a fractional elite.
Leadership certainly does not imply shirking of responsibility or outsourcing it to others, procrastinating and sitting on every issue even as things go from bad to worse, embarking on endless expensive and mostly unrewarding foreign begging tours (or the physical and spiritual health –related trips), long hibernation in Dubai or the myriad tricks our rulers employ to avoid doing any meaningful work.
A leader is a purely political animal. Politics is his only vocation and his first love. He may be ruthless in acquiring and holding on to power to realise his goals, but as for becoming filthy rich by brazenly misuse of his office, never.
He would have no interest in sugar mills and iron foundries, mysterious foreign currency accounts with massive sums abroad or estates in London and chateaus in Normandy. And diamond necklaces in Swiss banks he would absolutely have no use for.
Most of the political leaders of the twentieth century, whether great or small in the historical weighing, whether dictatorial or democratically elected, who strove to lift their nations out of squalid poverty or to minimise the social and economic injustices existing in their societies, had these qualities in common: political genius or at least shrewdness, the will to action, a disregard for personal wealth, the courage and conviction to take difficult decisions against all odds, whatever the consequences, a manifesto (or vision), and above all, a deep compassion for the downtrodden.
Stalin transformed backward Russia (in which serfs were part of dowries and education for the propertied few) into the modern industrialised Soviet Union in a frenzied ‘beehive of activity’ decade, a task that had taken Britain and France over a hundred years to achieve. His normal working day started at ten and continued till two or three of the following morning. Woe betide the Commissar or bureaucrat who had gone home when ‘the landlord’ (Stalin) asked for him at two a.m. at night! The envelope containing the General Secretary’s monthly salary of a few hundred roubles was left unopened in his desk cabinet to be disposed of by his personal secretary: party membership fee, rent to be paid for the Black Sea holiday retreat, and the rest to meet charitable requests by citizens. Mao Zedong provided the revolutionary political platform that turned the opium smoking ‘sleeping giant’ China into the world’s sixth largest economy by the time of his death, while the pragmatic and iron-willed Deng Xiaoping put the country firmly on the road to its present prosperity by his bold economic reforms.
Stalin transformed backward Russia (in which serfs were part of dowries and education for the propertied few) into the modern industrialised Soviet Union in a frenzied ‘beehive of activity’ decade
That amazing Welshman David Lloyd George as Chancellor of the Exchequer laid the foundation of the British welfare state by levying income tax on the stoutly-resisting land owning gentry to finance his benefit schemes for the poor, driven by his abhorrence of social and economic injustice. In our own time, Lee Kwan Yew, who became leader of Singapore when it was just a sandy beach and turned it into a modern metropolis and a financial powerhouse, wrote in his autobiography that ‘I decided very early on that either I can be rich or my country can be rich’. He opted for the latter course. In the case of our leaders unfortunately, it’s the opposite.
That daring lifelong revolutionary Fidel Castro and Mahathir Mohammad are also instances of selfless leadership that either completely changed an almost criminally exploitative society or brought about prosperity to a people formerly considered as slovenly and lazy.
So, no more of our tycoon-politicians and pious hypocritical leaders and their spin doctor (whose action is not only illegal but nauseating) of ‘parlour’ reformers and armchair revolutionaries, and their false, tall promises repeatedly made that never materialise. The people demand austerity of their leadership, a Spartan austerity that should be clearly visible instead of the expensive Swiss chronometers (also a gift?) mindlessly on display in the National Assembly. Wrong time, wrong timepiece! And, as wishful thinking, a law is passed forbidding the holder of a public office to keep any accounts, assets or businesses abroad, both by self and talented kin in future. Also, while we at are at it, away with these branded and gold-bedecked screeching fashionistas of the reserved seats in the Assemblies, why not bring in popularly elected middle class youth, peasants and workers, the true sons of the soil, in their stead as an equalisation?
It is rare, nigh impossible, to get a second chance in life. The most poignant words in any language are probably these: ‘O God, O God, that it were possible, To undo things done, to call back yesterday’. The egoistic, callous, and insatiable custodians of our country’s future had up to three chances in their political lives and careers, but to no avail. All these leaders of the ‘Big Mouth’ and little action have invariably put nepotism and self-interest above all else, and hence the vast majority of the people are left lamenting:
‘O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears!
O life, no live, but lively form of death!
O world, no world but mass of public wrongs,
Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds’!
Still, we should be grateful for small mercies. After all, it is only oil, hopefully soon replenished. But if leadership of this merry ilk keeps on recurring, the nightmare scenario is that one fine day we might wake up and learn that all the water sources have dried up and there is not a drop of water left in the land!
