The PPP co-chairman too turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing after all
Alongside Narendra Modi and the present BJP government, terrorists, suicide bombers, sectarian target killers, corruption mega-scandals, loads shedding and the sensational new pork menu, the country’s ever brawling political parties are a constant source of anxiety for the already spooked and demoralised citizens. If it is not the MQM (a rare occurrence, as it is always whining about something, particularly its own innocent ways), it is the eternal leader of the JUI-F with his, one suspects calculated ‘rolling eyes’ look, intended to exude an irresistible sensual appeal, who is often up to some no-good destabilising trouble.
But then if a neat-vodka-imbibing Maulana can preach the good Lord’s word on television without a blush, why can’t another of the fiery species flaunt his supposed sex-appeal, despite his much advanced age. And lately, the former champion of compromise politics, the PPP co-chairman too turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing after all by his fiery tirade against the army, followed by his bitter ‘moral’(!) attack on the former enemy-then NRO friend-now foe again Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. An angry Zardari is a sight to behold — fangs bared and face contorted with fury, the real man surfaces from beneath the civilised grinning mask.
The ANP chief also timidly entered into the latest fray by his belated statement about the deliberate targeting of three parties (the surprising third presumably being his own), but in his case the only impact was to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that he was still in the land of the living. As for the PML-N leader, caught between two blitzes, he is in the unenviable position of the school dullard about whom it is written in the annual class book: least likely to succeed. No one would like to be in his shoes at this time, even if they fit perfectly.
One must be blunt and speak plainly now. The time for mincing words is over. Our so-called responsible politicians are in their favourite kung-fu, non-yoga position: at each other’s throat. By their (so far) verbal but still fiery mutual assaults, a regular mayhem, they are spreading more despondency and gloom, as if there were not enough of these around us to reach the moon. Charged accusations and counter-allegations uttered in emotional, choking voices, angry pointing out of past sins, dark threats of imminent reprisals, claims of betrayed trust, of past favours forgotten, are hurtling thick and fast in the polluted air.
One must be blunt and speak plainly now. The time for mincing words is over. Our so-called responsible politicians are in their favourite kung-fu, non-yoga position: at each other’s throat
The first casualty of all this polemic is, of course, the truth: all the politicians are quite liberal with this alien concept. But behind all the ruckus, the storm in a tea cup, lies a simple case of a falling out among cheats and thieves. And behind it lies the little matter of the Karachi operation and the booking of the once untouchable blue-eyed boys. One is reminded of the modified cliché, ‘those who live in glass houses (or ivory towers) should not throw stones (or ugly accusations) against each other.’ But even the simple but weighty logic of this old maxim has escaped our volatile lot. And so the calumny and the dead dogs rain down heavily on each other like a hurricane without any sign of a letup.
The down and out Sindh PPP (what a fall, countrymen) hijacked by the erstwhile Mr Ten Percent, undoubtedly pulled the PML-N chestnuts out of the fire during the PTI street agitation against an ingeniously rigged election, and rescued the Mian government from certain collapse. He was actually saving democracy and the system, not the man, it was cynically remarked later. Now, when Asif Ali Zardari’s own favourites who indulged in wild loot and plunder under his benign gaze, are being hunted down, he is playing the old worn-out record of political harassment and revenge, demanding a payback from the PML-N, or else. (Wisely and thankfully, no Sindh card has been played this time around). The latter threat refers to the ruling party’s rattling skeletons in its own cupboard: long standing legal cases kept on the back-burner, the case of accepting money from the agencies (apparently) for political purposes, the alleged written-off bank loans and the ballooning assets and cash hoards abroad, handwritten confessional statement of money-laundering, self-explanatory videos and God knows what else yet to be pulled from under the carpet.
A not unreasonable riposte by Zardari and a fair tit-for-tat response under the circumstances. But then, during the last (and one really hopes the ‘last’) Zardari regime, the pious PML-N leadership too facilitated the full five-year catastrophic rule of the former ZAB and BB-led party, turning a blind eye to its last-will-and-testament leader’s massacre of merit and unparalleled abuse of power. Enjoying a temporary Sabbath, the third member of the trio of our discontent (and utter contempt), the MQM, like a spider sitting in its web, watches the unfolding drama with amusement. Its strident cries of ‘MQM baiting’, of the party being driven into a corner, really cheap ethnic/racist slogans to save its militants’ skins, have for the moment become obsolete.
Still, any event that embarrasses and ultimately weakens the Federation no doubt provides satisfaction to at least a part of its leadership (the Indian citizen’s part). Can there ever be salvation for such an all-round hypocritical, self-serving, opportunistic and in fact, maddening bunch? And to compound the people’s misery, fear and tension, our Supreme Khan (no Genghis) threatens a revival of street protests, the dreaded dharnas, showing his total insensitivity to the economic cost for the country and the looming dangers within and across the borders.
The common man, up to his neck in problems mostly of the politicians’ making, is totally fed up with all this political strife but of personal interests. Politics as we have come to recognise it, is all fun and games (for selves and the dynastic line), foreign junkets every other day on tax-payers’ money in luxurious hotels, zero amount of meaningful work or relief measures for the masses and the death of any urgent issue by committee, meeting, all parties conference, judicial commissions or the joint investigation teams.
Without a doubt, a fine iron broom is needed to sweep away the criminal mafias and the incorrigible herd of swindlers that have gathered and taken over the country at every level under the auspices of the various ‘front men’ political regimes. The long delayed hour of reckoning seems to be at hand. There must be no turning back, no mercy, the hand of retribution must act without pity and without selectivity. After the MQM and the PPP should come the turn of the ruling PML-N, so that none escapes the dragnet and his (or hers) richly deserved fate. This torn, tattered and bleeding country and its poverty-stricken teeming millions cry out for justice to the highest court, the high heavens. The penalty for malfeasance and massive corruption must be life imprisonment at least, confiscation of every inch of property and other assets, and the ‘final solution’ punishment in extreme cases, as they follow in China.
Really, many of the top leaders of each party also need to be blacklisted and proscribed under another Elected Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO) of August 1959 by taking a leaf out of former President Ayub Khan’s textbook. Under this Order, seventy-five politicians were disqualified for eight years, but sad to say, our present requirement is ten times this number, in both areas.
With lamentations, sour heart and mourning mood, one asks the million-dollar question: Why are we perpetually saddled with political pygmies and colourless nonentities? Where is our William Gladstone, our Winston Churchill, our Lloyd George, our Franklin D Roosevelt, our John F Kennedy, our Mao Zedong, our Zhou Enlai, our Deng Xiaoping, our Charles de Gaulle, our Mahathir Mohamad, our Lee Kwan Yew, our Konrad Adenauer, our Willy Brandt, to name but a few politicians and statesmen who made a defining difference in their countries?
Really, many of the top leaders of each party also need to be blacklisted and proscribed under another Elected Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO) of August 1959 by taking a leaf out of former President Ayub Khan’s textbook. Under this Order, seventy-five politicians were disqualified for eight years, but sad to say, our present requirement is ten times this number, in both areas
What was the principal difference? About one of these luminaries, Winston S Churchill, his biographer Martin Gilbert writes: ‘Churchill’s capacity for work amazed those who saw it at first hand. The four or more hours after dinner, from ten or eleven in the evening until two or even three in the morning were particularly busy ones, with long official memoranda, or chapters of the new book being tested on Treasury officials or research assistants and then dictated to one of the secretaries who worked special night shifts’.
Churchill was also an outstanding orator, writer and wit, one of those who could (like Lloyd George) create a ‘brilliant hopefulness’ among the people even in times of great misery. Some of his famous quotes are:
In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.
It is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.
History will be kind to me because I intend to write it.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
This paper, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to the convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Mao Zedong wrote in one of his earlier poems, ‘O Heaven! Bestir yourself, I beseech you, and send down men of many talents’! One strongly seconds the motion.