Why we all are to blame for Pakistan’s VIP culture

At the turn of this decade, we saw lawyers march up Jail Road in Lahore and lay siege to a hospital. Lahore’s Bar Council president came out swinging, claiming that the nasty doctors were responsible and people die in hospitals anyway, so it hardly matters. In the neighboring Services Hospital, doctors were stocking up on sticks and stones in case the lawyers decided to visit.

A few days ago, social media was aflame with videos of a woman, a wife of an Army Colonel, who harassed police officers on a motorway with threats of ‘mein wardi utaar doongi uski.’ Minutes after this video, another, albeit older, video surfaced where her husband abused police officers while he was in the same infamous vehicle. And then you hear about all sorts of civil servants who abuse their powers, government funds, and engage in questionable activities without a care about the law of the land. There are also those that try to emulate this power by installing police lights and stickers on their vehicles and purchasing security vehicles that follow them around as they tear through urban streets, swerving through traffic.

Whenever someone comes in their way, they make their introductions with special reference to brigadier sahab, DC sahab, MNA sahab, IG sahab, and owners of XYZ Industries. They produce visiting cards, official letters, badges, and if all else fails, a smartphone worth more than a year’s salary of an average policeman, to make that phone call.

But I thought we all agreed VIP culture is terrible. I think they only meant high ranking officials who require route blockages to get around. Or maybe ‘Stop VIP Culture’ really meant ‘We want to see videos of people stopping VIP culture because it instills a false notion of progress in the country.’

At this point, I am perplexed. So I look around. I see retired officers of different institutions that come from similar backgrounds and hold similar ranks living in small houses and large mansions in DHA. I see some driving Suzukis and early model Toyotas and I see some driving large land cruisers and Audis.

Some tell me that it is the baseline economic disparity that is responsible for the post-retirement difference. I am told that some people are smarter with their money, while others are not. If I question any further, I am met with accusations of assaulting the integrity of a particular institution. I am a subscriber of accountability but universal accountability, not selectively targetted vendettas.

What I see reminds me of Macbeth and the archetypical consequences of hubris. I see men driven by their collective ego to safeguard their interests by often defending the indefensible. I see systematic and joint efforts made to amass legitimacy for institutions with a few individuals that abuse. It is no surprise when you see international reports on rampant corruption in Pakistan but much like Bernie Sanders’ criticism of the 1%, the corruption index is also heavily skewed.

Principally, there is no difference between a policeman who pockets a five hundred rupee bribe and a politician who generates tens of millions of rupees from rigged bids and tenders. Yet when we talk about corruption, the focus in our daily lives is primarily on that policeman who pockets those bribes to ensure that his children are fed and clothed, not on the man who builds a summer house in Murree.

Moving beyond partisan rhetoric, Imran Khan and his words paint an idealistic Pakistan that is nice to imagine but realistically a myth. It is a myth due to our national enchantment with relative superiority, protocol, and ‘wadeirapan’. The goal of many is to own a Land Cruiser/Prado/V8, which is, on its own, not a very practical vehicle. Perhaps the vehicle is admired because, from the inside, other cars seem smaller. Add a Vigo pick-up truck behind you with half a dozen gunmen, and you can break into houses to exact revenge on your unfaithful spouse, run through traffic as if your father paid for the road, and make traffic seamlessly move out of your commanding way.

You and I are responsible for this VIP culture. We are all accountable for this fascination, this magnitude of attraction to power. My hypothesis is that these ideas are attractive in places where you have to rely on yourself for safety and security: a truly Machiavellian state of nature. So you tell me: did the chicken come first or the egg?