Making parliament work

For our country

Now that parliament has been effectively mobilised for a crucial debate, it is hoped that his practice will continue. The ruling party has not been too fond of democratic institutions during its third stint – despite its self-professed love for and devotion to democracy – with even the prime minister hardly ever gracing parliament. And it does not inspire much confidence that the last joint session was called when the government was knee-deep in an existential crisis, and the second owed to civil war in Yemen. But now that an effective show of parliament’s effectiveness has been made, the process must continue and the prime minister must be seen leading it.

But this feverish parliamentary activity also begs some important questions. If our leaders can be in such a frenzy over something that disturbs Gulf monarchs, why can’t they be half as concerned about problems far closer to Islamabad? Our own war, for example. Zarb e Azb is in a crucial phase. We are almost a whole year into the operation. Much of North Waziristan has been cleansed. Khyber Agency, too, has been under the hammer for quite a while now. It cannot be too long, surely, before the fight comes to urban centres. It is then, when the military confronts former proxies housed along rural Punjab and Sindh, not to mention madrassas resisting reform and registration, that the fight is expected to turn uglier.

But it’s not just that the people are kept in the dark about such issues. It’s that the government does not deem them important enough to debate in the House. That, of course, means that national policy is the sum of the kitchen cabinet’s understanding. It is little surprise, therefore, that nothing became of the National Action Plan (NAP) despite the sabre rattling and chest thumping that preceded it. Then there are other issues as well, where the government is equally clueless, and equally full of rhetoric and short on action. Electricity, water, infrastructure, education, etc; all remain endemic problems. And now that problems of friends in far away places have jolted the House into action, it is hoped that our own problems will also find their way to parliament.