(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
A tense time in Pakistan, where the birth anniversary of the nation’s first anti-establishment federal-level politician is being observed.
Fatima Jinnah, who was born on the 31st of July, wasn’t Pakistan’s first anti-establishment politician but was the first such politician to have support throughout the then two wings of the country and provinces therein.
“Yes, the newly-elected PTI government is not going to be too vocal about espousing the virtues of a politician who was dead against the military’s involvement in politics and spoke out vociferously against the same,” said Dr Tariq Mehdi, professor of political science at LUMS. “Plus, she dared speak out against one of the two greatest engines of growth in history: Ayub Khan’s tenure. The other, of course, is what the steam engine did for England.”
“The media is also a bit confused as to how to cover this birth anniversary,” said Faiza Hassan, who works at the Pakistan chapter of the International Federal of Journalists, a press freedom watchdog. “Earlier, the press used to idolise her but now, with press freedom shrinking further and further, the papers don’t really know how much glorification is going to offend the powers that be.”