Who will put flowers on Bisma’s grave?

It is highly unlikely that Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will be able to abolish the tradition of protecting VIPs

On Thursday, there was a news item in all the Karachi papers about the death of a 10-month-old girl named Bisma — because the family was hindered in entering the Civil Hospital. The hoi polloi’s entry was being hampered by the security protocol because the premises was about to be invaded by the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and the PPP Co-chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, who was going to inaugurate a new wing at the hospital. The girl’s father was told that had he come 15 minutes earlier, she would have still been alive.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Bilawal. I am sure had he known what was happening at the time, he would have not only been appalled, but said to hell with protocol. I’ve met Bilawal only once — at a dinner at the Alliance Francaise to celebrate Sindh Cultural Week. It gave me an opportunity to talk to him at length despite repeated attempts by a boorish goon who kept telling me not to get too close. He probably believed that celebrities were not supposed to mix with the guests but attended functions only in order to pose for photographers.

When I informed Bilawal that I was a friend of his grandfather and was very close to his grandmother he became very friendly. He came across as an awfully nice chap, well spoken, courteous and respectful, devoid of the native cunning of local politicians. The type I would gladly buy a pint of my favourite Irish brew if I ever ran into him in the old country.

I was therefore a little sad that such a well-bred larky bloke, who could discuss his favourite British sitcoms with me and swap anecdotes, has been catapulted into the murky field of Pakistani politics to head a party whose popularity has been recently flagging. I am sad because he will be surrounded by members of the inheriting class, impotent intellectuals, fawning teenagers and hangers-on, whose faces have been painted thicker than Hamlet’s mother and simpering sycophants. He will be the chief guest at a lot of inaugurations, even hospitals, which some patients will not be able to reach in a crisis because the police won’t let them through.



This is nothing new. It happens whether there is a dictatorship or a democracy. Remember the time when former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz visited Karachi and Drigh Road was closed for hours ahead of the expected time of arrival? And on each occasion one or two patients would die because their ambulances weren’t able to reach a hospital in time?

So which button on the Zeitgist does one push when something like this happens? If a highly popular former governor of Sindh, Mahmoud Haroon, who wanted to drive his own car to the Governor’s House, was prevented from doing so by security, it is highly unlikely that Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will be able to abolish the time-honoured local tradition of protecting VIPs, most of whom do no work and are freeloaders.

Though the Rangers have been given an extended lease of life, street crime is still flourishing. The chief minister keeps telling us that there has been a remarkable decrease in this department and even came up with glowing statistics to demonstrate this fact. And yet the killings go on. It has become unsafe to withdraw money from the bank as the widow of senior citizen Mahmoud Dossa will tell you, now that her husband has become the latest upper class statistic in a never-ending saga of street crime.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2015.

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